Run Your Life Show With Andy Vasily
Run Your Life Show With Andy Vasily
#282- The Moral Principles of Leadership with Dr. Conrad Hughes
In this insightful conversation, Conrad Hughes, Director General at the International School of Geneva, shares his 30-year journey in education across three continents. Beginning with his roots in South Africa and schooling, Conrad discusses his educational philosophy centered on "seeing" people—recognizing their inherent gifts and helping transform those gifts into talents
Educational Journey and Philosophy
Conrad reflects on his challenging experiences in an all-boys Catholic school during apartheid and his transformative high school years where literature and art became his passion. He credits his father's gift of books for fostering his lifelong love of knowledge.
Leadership and Feedback
Drawing on John Hattie and Helen Temporal's model, Conrad emphasizes the importance of contextual understanding in feedback and planning for growth. He highlights how his coaching experience with Ericsson taught him the value of self-awareness and perspective-taking in leadership.
AI in Education
Conrad discusses his school's thoughtful approach to AI integration, developed in collaboration with UNESCO. Rather than seeing technology as an end goal, he demonstrates how AI can enhance thinking when used intentionally—from generating exam questions to extending brainstorming activities.
Reimagining Assessment
Conrad introduces his alternative assessment model, the "learner passport," which recognizes students' interdisciplinary skills and personal growth beyond traditional high-stakes testing. This system acknowledges competencies in various areas, including extracurricular activities and entrepreneurial work.
Creating Psychological Safety
Throughout the conversation, Conrad emphasizes the importance of creating environments where students feel safe, supported, and free to develop their unique potential—a philosophy that extends to his leadership approach with colleagues as well.
Conrad's book on assessment is available on the Brill website, and he welcomes connections through LinkedIn for those interested in continuing the conversation about educational innovation.
Connect with Conrad:
You can also get free access to Conrad's latest book here.
There's this ongoing idea that when you are analyzing a situation as a leader, you must always put yourself in the situation. You kind of stand outside of yourself and look critically at yourself if you can. Because often we're part of the problem, but we don't want to realize that. And when a leader's not a good leader or can actually become like a jerk, it's when there's no self-awareness.
SPEAKER_02:You're listening to the Friend Your Life podcast with host Andy Vasily.
SPEAKER_00:I mentioned in my last podcast that the psychology of excellence and a great mindset go hand in hand when it comes to transformational leadership. You simply can't have one without the other. In today's episode, we'll dive deeper into this idea to really unpack what great leadership looks like and feels like in action. Welcome to the Run Your Life podcast, where we immerse ourselves into the minds of great thinkers and inspiring humans taking action to do really meaningful work in the world. I'm your host, Andy Vassly. I'm a leadership and performance coach and educational consultant, and I've dedicated over 10 years to this podcast. And the whole idea behind the conversations I have is hopefully very clear. To spend some time learning from some special humans doing amazing work. Great performers who are impacting the world in their own unique ways. And I want my listeners to learn from them and use this learning to better understand how my guests navigate their own lives from the inside out in order to achieve the success they have. Today's guest is the inspiring Dr. Conrad Hughes. He's currently the Director General of the International School of Geneva, but is transitioning into a new role next school year at the International School of Los Angeles. Conrad's three decades in the field of education truly exemplifies what it means to be a great leader. And he's done this by creating a workplace culture where all stakeholders are not only respected, but also encouraged to share their own voice, which creates a much deeper sense of being heard and seen that goes well beyond surface level.
SPEAKER_04:Really, what we're trying to do is identify gifts in people, not only young people, you know, it could be peers, it could be anyone that you meet in in any walk of life, but to recognize the gifts that are there, to sort of see someone else. You know, in Zuru, we the way you say hello is Sao Bona, which means I see you, was used quite a lot in that film um Avatar. But that's where it comes from. It's from the Nguni family. And I I've always thought, yeah, that's really the what we're trying to do. It's it's to see not just see someone in that you're validating their presence, you're recognizing that they're there, but but connecting with them.
SPEAKER_00:In our conversation, Conrad reflects on early days in his life and what he learned from a very challenging, control and compliance type of environment that really caused him to dislike school, despite having a few mentors that helped him to see what was truly possible within himself.
SPEAKER_04:Look, uh my primary school days were pretty horrendous. I went to an all-boys Catholic school. There was corporal punishment. This was in the late 70s in South Africa, it was during apartheid, and I really hated school. I mean, I can't tell you how much I hated it. Uh, and I was very rebellious. I used to get into trouble a lot. Uh, I didn't like my teachers much. There were a couple who resonated with me.
SPEAKER_00:In this discussion, we're going to explore Conrad's core values, his leadership style, and how he organizes his inner life towards mastery. As well, we'll examine how he manages risk, uncertainty, and a very challenging, volatile, and ever-changing landscape based on the bumpy and rocky road that many educational organizations face. As well, we'll dive into how he and his leadership team have grappled with the challenges of using AI in proactive, empowering ways to bring out the best in all stakeholders at the International School of Geneva.
SPEAKER_04:One of the problems is we're all in such a hurry to sort of grapple with AI, but it's it's it's still evolving. It's and it's it's an unfinished uh beast. My feeling is to sta step away a little bit, focus on the competences, not to be afraid of it, and to let people go with it as they they feel it fits their uh their subject area and their learning objectives.
SPEAKER_00:Added to this, we'll also unpack his latest book, Changing Assessment: How to Design Curriculum for Human Flourishing, which any listener can get their hands on a copy of as there is free access.
SPEAKER_04:So the book's about that. It's not just critiquing it. The first sort of half is about critiquing it, showing the historical origins of it, how we got there, uh what it looks like in different um walks of education. Um and the second half is exploring models that break what I call the checkerboard, uh the assessment chokehold, including this experiment that we ran at my own school.
SPEAKER_00:I invite you to listen to the deeper framework that has helped Conrad navigate his personal and professional life, and hopefully you can use his insight and lessons learned and reflect on how they might apply in your own professional life. So, with that, let's now jump into my conversation with the inspiring Dr. Conrad Hughes. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Conrad, we just had a short chat. You know, I I've never met you in person. I've followed your work. You're obviously doing amazing work. You have a wide range of experiences uh to draw on. But for the sake of the listeners, they would have heard a bit about you in the introduction. But just share who you are, uh the work you do, and what you feel compelled to share right now based on your life experiences, both personally and professionally.
SPEAKER_04:Well, thanks for this opportunity, uh Andy. And uh it's nice to be here. My name's Conrad Hughes. I'm an educator. I've been in education for the better part of 30 years, uh, about 20 years in leadership in different positions. Right now I'm the director general at the International School of Geneva. So I'm at a very strategic uh level of leadership, but I I teach, I teach theory of knowledge. I've never stopped teaching. I'm an English teacher, in fact, by trade and training and background, but uh theory of knowledge is is where I'm at right now. My my journey uh has spanned uh three different continents. I I'm a South African by birth. I went to school in Eswatini, Swaziland as it was called. I went to United World College, uh, an international school, which was just a wonderful mind-opening experience. And my conviction throughout my journey uh as a parent, as a a teacher, as a leader, and I I guess we we all feel this in some way, shape, or form. It's that really what we're trying to do is identify gifts in people, not only young people, you know, it could be peers, it could be anyone that you meet in in any walk of life, but to recognize the gifts that are there, to sort of see someone else. You know, in Zulu, we the way you say hello is is sawbona, which means I see you, was used quite a lot in that film um Avatar. Uh but that's where it comes from. It's from the Nguni family. And I I've always thought, yeah, that's really the what we're trying to do. It's it's to see not just see someone in that you're validating their presence, you're recognizing that they're there, but but connecting with them. And that means maybe picking up something deep down inside. So that can be through the chemistry that exists between uh an instructor and a student, between uh between peers in the learning environment, um, between colleagues, even in in a family. But yeah, I I keep trying to come back to that idea that you know if we can see the gifts in our students and even better if we can nurture those gifts to become talents so we can help them really bring those gifts to a a high level of recognition, of social recognition, with with doing the right thing. So yeah, to me, my journey and and this covers the people I've met, interactions I've had. I feel very blessed. It's been punctuated by some really special people who've believed in me, have given me opportunities, who've seen me. So I guess that's that's what I'm trying to do uh whenever I can. And with age and and with increasing responsibility, I I'm able to do that more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I follow the work of Dr. Gordon Flatt. He's a world-renowned psychologist from York University in Toronto, and he's devoted his life to the psychology of mattering and creating that sense of mattering and belonging, uh, both personally and professionally, in everything we do. And I I hear that in your story is creating that sense of belonging and mattering and that seeing people like, like you said, I see you. And if we double-click on that and we just kind of go back a bit, uh fly over of early days, what core strengths did you develop early on? And what type of student would we have seen if we could be a fly on the wall in your classroom looking back at early days in your life? Because I I think there's a strong component to people and the work, the work that they do and their purpose and meaning. And I think that directly stems from early experiences and core strengths that we've we've developed. So take that in any direction.
SPEAKER_04:That's a great question. I love that question. Look, uh, my primary school days were pretty horrendous. I went to an all-boys Catholic school. There was corporal punishment. This was in the the late 70s in South Africa, it was during apartheid, and I really hated school. I mean, I can't tell you how much I hated it. Uh, and I was very rebellious. I used to get into trouble a lot. Uh, I didn't like my teachers much. There were a couple who who resonated with me. Um, we had these uh Victorian or Edwardian uh wooden desks with uh inkwells. We didn't use the ink wells, and you would uh have a lid that you could store your your your textbooks in or under. And it was a little bit like a locker. We used to decorate uh the inside of the lid of the desk with whatever parphenalia we identified with. And and I took it upon myself to to found a communist party at the school uh with my friends, and I filled my my desk with communist uh regalia. But I mean what I was trying to do, I think, was get into trouble and just provoke people around me because ideologically that wasn't okay. So I think something that had actually developed in me early on was a sense of uh rebellion, of critical thinking, of resistance, uh, which is ironic because I'm an administrator now, but I'd like to think that um at least I try to be an administrator who can understand critical dissent, even if it's being fired at me, and and not just to blindly institutionalize myself and my thinking and become a kind of cog in the machine. So that that independence of thought, I I I think was wrought inadvertently or um almost uh ironically uh through a negative educational experience early on. Then I went to high school and you know, everything changed. Physically I changed as well. And you know, as we all know, from primary to middle to high school, you the you go through this transmogrification and um I I was much more comfortable in my own body. I I socialized much more easily, and I think I think I was responding to the pedagogic environment, which is so much more welcoming. And and that's where yeah, passion for certainly for literature, um, for art kind of swept over me. You know, that those uh wonderful turning points in your life. For me, it happened, I guess, when I was about 16, 17. I was approaching the end of high school, uh, slowly but surely, and and uh yeah, there were there was this book that I read, it was Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. It was uh it was on our reading list. And I just remember that having this profound effect on me. And it was a kind of turning point. And from there, I guess I I was bound to become um someone involved in knowledge, whether that was through uh research, authorship, teaching, lecturing, uh I wound up being a teacher. But yeah, so so that was I I I think this um this ongoing uh love of just the world of knowledge, which we all share as educators, and it's such an exciting thing to be grappling with today, uh, with everything that's going on around us. That certainly came through my educational journey. And I have to also hand it to my dad. My father would uh resolutely give me a book for just about every single birthday I had. And I just started hating it. I was like, I know I'm gonna get a book again. But um, yeah, I read most of them and I've still got a lot of them with uh the uh uh the signature and the and the the short message inside. And uh yeah, that there's something very touching about that when you look at the book barren world of today. Yeah, but that's certainly that's forged certain values in me about um yeah, knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge.
SPEAKER_00:I like what you mentioned. Thank you for sharing all of that, and I like what you mentioned about that concept of receiving critical input, critical feedback from other people. You know, I've been in the international system for 30 years now, and I've seen some very good leaders and I've seen some very poor leaders, and I've been on the receiving end of poor leadership, where you have no voice. And the best leaders out there will be very open and receptive and create the conditions for all voices to be heard. And that goes back to what you said about mattering. You know, I see you and what you think and what you need to share matters to me. In your position, director general, you have a lot of leaders working under you. So you might not be as accessible as some of those leaders, but you're probably still receiving that feedback all the time. And it's that concept, Kim Scott, radical candor. So I asked my last podcast guest this, he's the president and CEO of Mazda Canada, and we had a conversation about how he receives feedback and how he opens his leadership team up to receiving radical candor and to create those conditions where all voices are heard. So if we fast forward into your leadership, what has your journey been like with that concept of feedback? Uh both personally, when it's coming at you personally as a leader, but also creating those conditions for radical candor. So all voices are heard and all stakeholders in the organization feel heard, and that their voice matters in the common interest of organizational excellence.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so I mean, I think I'm gonna take that from two different angles, or maybe just tell two very short stories to get there, which are part of my leadership journey. So it's not rocket science, it's it's really through through training and uh exposure to ideas that I stumbled across this model of feedback that John Hattie and Helen Timperley uh construed in, I think it was 2007 or 8 in a paper called The Power of Feedback. And I really love the model. It there are three parts that you've sort of run through four different levels. The three parts it's feed up, feedback, feed forward. So you always start by feeding up. In other words, what am I supposed to be doing? What's the context? Do I actually understand what is meant of me? Don't just uh go to people and give them feedback, check in with them that they understand what the context is. Do you understand what the context is? That's feeding up. Then there's feeding back, which is obviously giving the feedback or receiving the feedback, and then there's feeding forward. Okay, what do we do next? But here's the interesting thing: it happens at four different levels at the level of task, at the level of process, at the level of metacognition, and at the level of ego. So it's scaffolded. Yeah. So task is, you know, one thing at a time. I'm a beginner. Uh, I've I've just arrived. I need quite a lot of feedback and it needs to be chunked. Process is okay, I'm doing a bit better. Uh, let me have a view of this whole situation and give me a chance to say what I what I think. Metacognitive is I'm kind of at an expert level. So I don't need you to give me all that feedback. I just need you to ask me some powerful questions so I can unleash my own feedback capability. And I'm often doing that with my my colleagues, just asking them some questions so that they kind of feedback to themselves. And then ego, it's it's that all-important recognition of someone's effort, of the value that this has for them. It's important that feedback is not just technical and transactional, it's also about like realizing, recognizing, goes back to this idea of seeing people, what they give, and not overdoing it. It mustn't become cheap or fatuous, but once in a while, it's very, very important for teachers to do this with students to say, you know what, I just want you to know that I've seen how incredibly hard you've been working on this. And and there you have it, or I can tell how important this is for you. Those four levels help you differentiate feedback. So that's that's one thing. And then the other, it's a coaching course that I did with Ericsson. So I'm a life coach, and I put my whole leadership team through this, the the the whole shebang, because it changed my life. And there's a lot we can talk about in coaching, but um, there's this ongoing idea that when you are analyzing a situation as a leader, you must always put yourself in the situation. You kind of stand outside of yourself and and look critically at yourself if you can. Um, because often we're part of the problem, but we don't want to realize that. And when a leader's not a good leader or can actually become like a jerk, it's when there's no self-awareness. And so they're either blaming everybody else or they're just assuming that they are kind of uh uh author or Deus ex machina. No, they're they're right in there, they're actually causing the situation and they need to look at themselves that way. So I try to constantly bring my team back to viewing ourselves, and you know, there are these different levels of listening. And the highest level of listening is is when you're listening to what someone's saying to you, you're listening to what you're saying, and then you're also thinking a little bit about what the two of you look like from a kind of third space, like a fly on the wall. So to me, self-awareness is such an important part of leadership, and that and that actually requires a kind of self-regulated, self-engendered feedback, uh either that you that that you're conditioning yourself to give or that allows you to be open to criticism and not to get all defensive about it and to welcome it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that really resonates with me. And I I definitely want to just tag on to that and take it a little deeper. There's a quote from Mother Teresa where she says, if each person would only sweep their own doorstep, the world would be clean. It's such a powerful metaphor for the internal work that we all have to do. You know, we we sweep our own doorstep, we have to look deeply within ourselves. And that's exactly what you said about self-awareness, the ability to look within. And then Florence Nightingale said so little can be achieved in the spirit of fear. And I think that goes back directly to us as individuals and our ability to take on feedback and not make it personal because there's so many fears attached with receiving things we don't want to hear, you know, and the best leaders out there will absolutely face their fears and uh do the internal work needed to develop the self-awareness that they need to be truly impactful in their leadership role because they have such a huge impact. So, those two quotes, how does that resonate with you? And anything more you want to add?
SPEAKER_04:I like it. I mean, those are great quotes. Uh, we live in a culture, at least in the sort of um post-capitalist uh Western world, of manipulation, you know, which comes through marketing and uh a lot of uh uh school leadership uh administrative structures, often at board level, um, you know, they kind of look through uh leadership uh via this lens of fear. Um you know, we're custodians, and it's about I our fiduciary responsibility and it's about risk mitigation and it's about all of that's fine and it's important, but it's not enough to get people inspired. You know, what inspires us, it's the spiritual identity-related uh impact of what we're doing. Why am I doing this? Uh, who's it for? And if you get too caught up in in trying to convince yourself that you're avoiding risk, uh what you're actually doing is creating mediocrity. Um, so it's important that leaders remember that and that they they let the passion that's in teachers and staff and students flourish when it can, uh, that they they give a space for that to happen, and that they bring their own passion into what they're doing and and um not to just sort of walk around uh in this uh bureaucratic mode. We we we're driven by passion. You know, Warren Buffett, if we're gonna exchange quotes, he says, you know, if there's no passion, there's no energy. And if there's no energy, there's nothing. I mean, nothing works without energy. And in a human organization like a school, which is entirely made up of interpersonal relationships, that passion has to find its golden thread through everything. And you don't really get that passionate about compliance uh and regulations. You can get very excited about it and say this is important, you know, that we're all safe. I get it. And I I'm not going to disagree. That's the starting point. But you've got to move beyond that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And in this ever-changing world, I mentioned that I wanted to jump into AI because it's such a hot topic. And with everything that's happened over the past few years, COVID and uh the advent of AI and how quickly AI is changing. We spoke briefly about this metaphor of a train where uh the best schools out there are at the front of the train, leading the charge, uh taking risks and really trying to understand and unpack it. Then there's a lot of schools that are just stuck in the middle that are just following and trying to see what happens. And there's some schools at the back of the train that haven't even really started the commerce. Maybe they've started the conversation, but that's it. So, in your role, can you share the process that you've gone through uh addressing AI and how you have created an environment where everybody is on board with really looking at what's possible? So just take us through that experience and any advice you have. And the advice is not just for school leaders, but for parents out there listening, uh coaches, teachers, whoever it is that may be listening. Uh, what is it that you want to share with them?
SPEAKER_04:You know, our mantra around technology is that technology is where our thinking starts and not where it ends. So you really need to uh view technology for what it is. And historically, uh technology has always driven uh production uh and and human development. It's it's indissociable uh part of what it means to be human. Uh human beings create technology, and the technology is then used uh by human beings to accelerate their knowledge fundamentally. Um and you know, I'm not gonna bore you with all sorts of examples like fire and the wheel and what have you in the internet, but it's not a tenable or uh reasonable message to send out to young people that you that you're afraid of technology, that you're gonna put your head in the sand, that you don't want them near technology when they're in a place of learning, when everybody around them is using it, uh, you know, adults to start with. Uh it's it's all over the workplace. So we generated an artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence policy that we did with UNESCO IPE. They've got some good material on that. And a lot of it comes down to the ethics of AI, of, of guardrails, of things you can do to make sure that uh students understand uh as much as possible how it works, um, and uh the need to have human conversations around AI-produced uh images, uh semantic configurations, or whatever it might be. We've put ideas in our policy about how educators can use it. Um give an exam question to Chat GPT or Gemini or whatever it is you're using, have a look at the answers and discuss them in groups, uh, use it to extend some brainstorming at the outset of an activity. We've also uh we set up some training uh for all of our staff using our tech experts. We've got some really strong people in the organization. And so they did workshops on how they use AI and how they'd encourage uh teachers to use it. So that's sort of where we're at. Um increasingly as as it grows exponentially and we move towards agentic AI and um what looks like the the new normal is going to be, which is really these pretty autonomous uh white-collar workers that are gonna get onboarded uh to run fairly complex projects from A to Z. It's to look beyond the short-term technical discourse around sort of having AI in the curriculum. What does that even mean? It's a little bit like saying, you know, everybody needs to study coding. Um it's it's running off naturalistic language now. So it's really going back to the mindset of innovation, of um embracing change, of knowing how to uh operate, think um and behave in in a world where you've got these increasingly rapid cycles of disruption. It's it's less about trying to keep up with AI as it develops, because that's going to be obsolete, you know, in a week. And more standing back from it and understanding, okay, this is the type of environment that we're in. And what is the mindset, the set of behaviors, the competences that we need in students and in ourselves to embrace that. I think to me, socially speaking, cell phone addiction, scrolling addiction, sort of mindless uh pervasive screen time is a much bigger problem than AI. I mean, if if you're involved in a in an interesting project and and you're you're talking with AI uh and and you're you're you're moving quicker, uh, I don't think that's cognitive decline. I think that's really good for you. I think if you're just sort of staring at one um, you know, post after the next, uh you probably are damaging yourself slowly but surely. And there's a lot more of that going on around us, which is why we've actually got a ban on phones in our school, as regressive as it might sound, because we want to give kids a chance to just put the things away and talk to each other. But when they're in the classroom, uh they can they can use AI if the teacher allows it. And I've always said, you know, this is part of our policy, don't think for a second that if you're sending them off to do homework, whatever that means nowadays, that they're not accessing AI, they will. So you have to work around that.
SPEAKER_00:So how have you, because some of the conversations I've heard and being a part of is the different opinions of it. Obviously, everybody has their own opinion, and then some teachers will completely shut it down. Some teachers are open to the tinkering with it. But how have you allowed those voices to be heard in regards to what their opinions are, but then have that basic threshold of this is how we're going to um not use it, but this is how we're going to address it in the school. So, you know what I mean? Like there's a fine line between telling somebody they're wrong. That's not how we're using it, or that's not what it's for. Um, there's a fine line between compliance in that respect and being open to people's views. So, how have you addressed that as a school leader?
SPEAKER_04:Our approach is it's part of the Suite of technological offerings that are there for pedagogues to use. And some will use it more than others. At least in the International School of Geneva, you know, we don't have a cookie-cutter approach to teaching. And they're pretty different approaches to technology. Some teachers they shock the laptops, it's books only. Others, you know, everything's happening through Google Classroom. You've got teachers who are pushing technology more than others. And we're happy with that because I think it's almost not about technology, but about teacher expression and agency and passion and understanding that different generations of teacher, different subject groups as well are going to use technology differently. We've got a STEM center with augmented reality. And so the biologists go down there and the kids put their headsets on and they're looking at DNA and they're loving it. The French literature class doesn't really go down there all that much because it's not a huge amount you can do with augmented reality. I mean, I took my philosophy class down there once to walk through the Acropolis in Athens. It was okay. I mean, it wasn't actually, it was a bit of a waste of time, but you know, it was fun. But I can certainly understand why science teachers want to get in there. And um, you know, we've got really techy teachers, techy teachers, sorry, and then we've got teachers who are uh, you know, less so. And I think that's okay. Uh, I think it actually gives the students a rich learning experience to have different expressions of it. Now we've got some policies, and a lot of them come from the from the IB, but I'm not that convinced about their AI plagiarism software. I mean, if you think about it carefully, how exactly do you know that something's been generated by AI? Uh, I was looking at my theory of knowledge essays with students who who I know wrote those essays. I mean, they wrote the things in class with me, and we're looking over some phrases that that the AI detection software had said were generated by AI. And so they tweaked some of the words, but but but it wasn't done by AI. I know it wasn't. So I think it's one of the problems is we're all in such a hurry to sort of grapple with AI, but it's it's it's still evolving. It's and it's it's an unfinished uh beast. My feeling is to step away a little bit, focus on the competences, not to be afraid of it, and to let people go with it as they they feel it fits their uh their subject area and their learning objectives. Uh, but to certainly to provide training and a policy for staff and and to have a position for parents, which is that we embrace technology. Uh we're not Luddites, it's not the day of the Luddites, you know. Yeah. You can't do that to young people. It's not fair.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I really appreciate because when when I hear you describe the school environment, I I feel there's a sense of psychological safety. So each teacher uh can approach it in their own way based on their style of teaching, based on what they think works, and you've given them permission to dive into it when they're ready and to the level that they want. And what comes up for me is uh self-determination theory, Dr. Richard Ryan and Dr. Edward DC. So I was lucky enough to have Dr. Richard Ryan on the podcast a few years ago, and obviously, self-determination theory is based on three human fundamental needs. So, you know, all humans will experience a deeper level of intrinsic motivation when their three human needs are met, which is one, that idea of relatedness so that there's relationships around them to support their learning and their growth and their development. Autonomy, you know, I can make my own decisions. So you describe that sense of agency that you provide for teachers. And the last one is competence, that I feel that I can excel based on my entry point to learning, whether you're a teacher or a student. So all humans want to feel competent. So it sounds like you've provided the conditions, you and your leadership team, where everybody has their entry point. That entry point is supported in order to continue to develop their competence. So with AI, that's a huge thing. So you've given permission to people to explore it uh at a level that they're comfortable with. So does that resonate?
SPEAKER_04:I guess. No, no, I like that. And you know, what it brings to mind is what I was saying earlier about feedback and scaffolding feedback uh according to readiness. So what I'm describing to you works well for, you know, teachers who are confident with that level of autonomy. But of course, we've got some colleagues who maybe haven't been teaching all that long, or they've just joined the institution, they need some odboarding, they need a bit more clarity. Uh, and so at departmental level, you know, there's quite a lot of scaffolding to help them along. And we do draw out our policies. But really quickly through time, uh, they express what I agree with you and with uh Richard Ryan are these fundamentally uh human aspirations for relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Makes me think a little bit of um one of my heroes, Luc Ferry, he's a French philosopher. He he he was asked this question once, uh, you know, how do you define happiness? And he very quickly took everybody through uh Homer's Odyssey. Uh, and he says, so you know, you've got Ulysses, or if you like Odysseus uh sitting on this island, um and he's been promised eternal youth and eternal health. Uh he's with this beautiful nymph Calypso, he has fruit and wine, and you know, what more could he possibly desire? But he's not happy because he needs to go back and find his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope. He needs that relatedness, he needs to have that cosmic connection. So he leaves, takes a risk and he leaves. And therefore, the autonomy comes in because he has to confront fear. Uh, he he comes across all of these monsters, the cyclops, um, the uh the Shari Distasilla, all of these, you know, terrible uh sea creatures. And that's another important key to unlocking happiness. It's it's uh overcoming your fears. And and I guess autonomy speaks to that as well, because you know, you have to you have to walk um at some point your your own line. Um and it's not quite competence at the end that he talks about, but it's more this idea of uh living in the moment, because when he arrives at Ithaca and he eventually finds Penelope and she sets this ruse for him, which is to to go and find the family bed or the nubital bed, and he he can't because it's been built around a tree and she knows this and he knows this. And at that point, she kind of clicks that it's him. It's what the ancient Greeks called anagnorysis, it's discovery. At that moment, the the way Homer, although we don't think Homer was one author, by the way, there's probably several, but um, he describes the world as standing still and everything stops, and and there's that moment of real bliss and contentment when Odysseus and Penelope connect uh and everything around them just sort of stops. And increasingly, I think you know, you're talking about psychological safety, we're talking about generative artificial intelligence. There's a lot of anxiety around us, and it's it's so important to find those moments, to try and find those moments, no matter how they come to you, uh, might be through music or through sports or through conversation or, you know, whatever it is, that ataraxia to use another Greek term, that that moment where you can slow things down and just connect with the present. It's a beautiful place to be for your well-being. Um so maybe I'd add that as a fourth one. But I agree with competence. You've got to be, I mean, competence is important for students as well. I've always said this, you know, we have to strive for academic accidents, sports accidents, arts accidents, accidents in any field, because students need to know that they're good at something. That gives you confidence. And when you have confidence, you've got everything. We've got to make sure that the 15,000 hours minimum they spend at school leads them to a feeling of confidence in some area, which is, as you said, competence. And it's the same with adults. I mean, you competence unlocks the the psychological uh gateway into you know huge potential. That's also why we're here as educators, right? Is to develop competence.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I had Dr. Scott Kretschmeyer on the podcast a few years ago, and he's a world-renowned uh physical education and health expert. And what he talks about is this idea of uh, you know, I'm here, but he used this beautiful metaphor, but he said basically, I'm here to hold you by the hand and lead you to the kingdom doors. My job is to open the doors and show you what's possible. And John Hattie talks about every learner deserves a year's growth for a year's schooling, which means we have to honor their entry points and we have to honor their strengths. And as Martin Seligman talks about with positive psychology, really honor their strengths and help them flourish in their own unique ways. And those are the conditions that you're talking about. And what I would love to segue into is your book, Changing Assessment, and really dive into that. And this will be more for the educators out there, but also the parents listening to this who have their own children in schools, is let's just start with your book and what it is you feel compelled to share in regards to your latest book. So take us uh through that journey and and what you want to share.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. Thank you. Look, I'm I'm I'm happy about this book. It's my fourth book. This one's published with Brill, which is a publishing house out of the US and the Netherlands, actually. Uh, and it's with UNESCO. Uh, it's open access, so anybody can read it uh for free. I'll be doing four tutorials on it uh online with uh Toddl and UNESCO from September uh to break it down. But essentially the book it's it's as it states, you know, it's changing assessment. Um in a nutshell, one of the problems that we have in school is that we're not releasing the creativity, the interpersonal and intrapersonal growth that uh young people have uh or could be developing even more. And it's because of the end of high school assessment model, which is too narrow, too high stakes, too old-fashioned. It's the most change-resistant part of our uh school educational model. And it's actually the most important part because it casts a shadow, certainly over the end of high school, and even uh into middle school, uh, you know, depending on how frenetic parents get about their children performing at the end of high school, it can really start to spoil things early on, where where you forget that, you know, part of part of being at school is having fun, it's going to sports day, it's being in the school play, uh, it's uh it's doing projects and the examination system uh it creates teaching to the test, learning to the test, and a whole bunch of other things that are problematic, you know, one-upmanship, this rather ugly competitive uh streak, which we don't really need in today's world, uh inordinate pressure. Um and because it's highly politicized, the stakes are so high that the the emphasis is on reliability rather than validity. So, you know, and testing, validity is testing what you say you'll test. Um whereas reliability is making sure that the testing is done fairly and that it's standardized and that you don't have three different tests for three different people and that kind of thing. And of course you want the testing to be fair, but if if the result is, you know, multiple choice tests, university placement tests that are are again multiple choice, um, low, lower order thinking, item response type uh exercises, uh standardizing uh the examination experience by time. So, oh, it's important that you do this in an hour. It just becomes the tail wagging the dog. So we're stuck with this model, which is just so out of sync with everything we're trying to achieve in the educational model. I mean, look at the conversation we've just been having. Uh, how much of that stuff is going to get tested at the end of high school? None of it. Which is not to say that it doesn't happen, you know, and that those experiences aren't there. Um, and and you know, thank goodness they are. And that's the beauty of life and human beings interacting with each other in educational institutions. But um the message we're sending out to children is, you know, okay, what's really important is how well you do on this test at the end. So the book's about that. It's it's it's it's not just critiquing it. The first sort of half is about critiquing it, showing the historical origins of it, how we got there, uh, what it looks like in different um walks of education. Um, and the second half is is exploring models that that break what I call the checkerboard, uh the assessment chokehold, including this experiment that we we ran at my own school. So that's what the book is about. And I'd encourage anyone to read it. It's not too long. It's it's a little bit over 100 pages. Covers pink, which is quite nice. And it's free.
SPEAKER_00:So when you say covers pink, do you mean Daniel Pink's work?
SPEAKER_04:Or no, no, sorry, I'm being a bit facetious. I'm saying the color of the the cover is pink. Okay, well, forget about that.
SPEAKER_00:That was just well, you know, I just want to pause there because there's a lot of listeners from the IB world, but there are many listeners that really aren't familiar with it. So I'm just gonna ask their uh patience as as we go through this question and answer. But in particular, uh the the IB program focuses on the primary years program, which is K to five, and then the middle years program, which is grades uh six to 10, and then the diploma program, which is 11 and 12. And based on my experiences, there's a lot of my p and dp, so middle years program and diploma program teachers and leaders that are really caught up in this rigidity. And there's a lot of pressure on leaders and teachers to be sure that they, I don't want to say teach to the test, but that is basically what happens. So when you think about your own work and in particular this book, what are you proposing? What changes are you proposing, in particular for middle years program teachers and diploma teachers and leaders? Like, what is it that you're proposing that may be different that will loosen those constraints, those oftentimes self-imposed constraints that they place on themselves based on the what they feel are the requirements of the international baccalaureate programs? So can you just shed some light on that and any advice you have to NYP and DP leaders and teachers who consistently grapple with this, knowing that they have to change, but not knowing how to not loosen the reins, but let go of some of those self-imposed constraints.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so I'm gonna take that in two parts. The first will be sort of on the ground, some of the things I've observed in MIP and maybe how we can work uh around that. And then the second will be uh, you know, some of the concrete alternatives that I talk about in the book to this uh very high-stakes model. And and don't forget that you know the IB is one of the more forward-looking curriculum frameworks. There's so much that's fantastic, including in the IB diploma program. Uh, and there is, you know, a comparative amount of student agency. You've got some really forward-looking work going on there, school-based syllabuses, the ability to shake up the diploma model and do something slightly different, and students still come away with uh IB scores. Um, the whole assessment model of theory of knowledge uh is really interesting. The extended essays, a lot of agency there. So I don't want to start you know criticizing the IB because I think that they are they're doing as well as one can in this highly pressurized environment. But, but, but let's go to the MYP. So, I mean, MYP five, right, which is, as you're saying, is basically grade 10. That's the end of the program. Well, you it it it's it's such a wonderful moment because the students are at the height of their intellectual, social, spiritual growth uh in in the middle school. They're about to go on to high school, and they've got so much to express. You've got the personal project, which is just a great assessment. Students showcase what they love, what they're passionate about. Um by the way, another fantastic assessment earlier on is the PYP exhibition. Really impressive. Uh, the inquiry-based, project-based learning. And it's it's relevant in terms of the curriculum because it's it really speaks to the kind of skills that you need in the world of work. Uh, parents uh tend to love the um the personal project. You know, I can still think back on my daughter's personal project and how important it was for her. So these are real milestones. Um, but what you sometimes get in that uh pretty formative, not just summative, but formative part of the MIP is it's people, uh, you know, administrators, uh, and even parents, especially parents, describing it as pre-IB. So it's no longer the end of the MIP. It's let's start doing the DP before the DP. Let's actually spend three years on the diploma program instead of two years so we can get the best possible score. Let's start raking down that high-stakes, you know, sort of, you know, very, very rigorous environment uh into the end of MYP because of interdisciplinary units and personal project and all this faffing around, fine. But in fact, you know, it's time to roll up our sleeves and get ready for this uh incredibly difficult, rigorous program. And I think, hold on, now you're you're spoiling the MYP by doing that. Don't do that. Defend the MYP, have confidence that it will bring out the kind of creativity, uh, teamwork, collaborative skills, communication skills that are going to be every bit as important later on, if not more important, uh than conventional academic test-taking skills. So that's one thing. You know, don't squander the end of MYP and turn it into pre-IB, please. Second thing is I remember I was teaching philosophy uh in uh the MIP is uh, well, it wasn't actually in the MYP, it was in one of our schools that doesn't do the MIP, but it was in that year level, it was in uh grade 10. Um, but it's the same in MYP schools. And the students, they you know, for a whole week, uh, they couldn't concentrate and they were doing something else. And a lot of them weren't even coming to class. It was because of this dreaded maths placement test that was going to decide which level they were in, because that was foregrounding whether they go on to do higher or standard analysis application and all the rest of it. And everything shut down around maths. And I thought, wow, I mean, you know, it's that's not what the architects of the IB believed or wanted when they designed this holistic program. I mean, the IB was actually started at the International School of Geneva. Uh, and in fact, you know, things like cask, creativity, activity, service at the core were seen as every bit as important as academic subjects, but you know, they don't count for points. And there's a kind of um status awarded to different subjects within the program. Uh, and maths is up there with science. You try running a music program uh in the IB diploma, uh, good luck to you uh in terms of numbers. Um, a lot of students get coerced out of following the arts uh because the feeling is, well, they should be you know focusing more on uh on sciences and maths. That comes from home from um from parents, and it doesn't really bear out with uh the uh the research that we that we see coming in on uh what the arts can do for you, and also you know, just uh a straight out analysis of the industry of the arts and the kind of employment opportunities that it's giving you. Um so what I'm saying there is uh this sort of Damocles of uh subject importance and great importance, it can interfere with the MIP at a number of levels. And I think that's one thing that you have to sort of fend off if you can, as an administrator, as a teacher, as a parent. Now, what are we going to do about all of this? Well, we've I explore in the book a number of alternative assessment models. So alternative transcripts. You've got, for example, the Global Citizenship Diploma, which is uh run out of a group of schools. One of them is in Hong Kong, a friend of mine, Teresa Tung, she spoke about that recently at a conference we held based on alternative transcripts called the Coalition to Honor All Learning. Um, so that's awarding students for their um yeah, the work that they've done around global citizenship. And it sort of um balances out uh their the the IB diploma with that. You've got the Mastery Transcript Consortium, which you must know in the United States has become quite a big business. You've got Melbourne Metrics now working in Australia on something. Uh there's a really interesting group called HoloTracker in Singapore, uh, which is using technology to um tap into student competencies whenever they they're picked up, whenever you notice them, and it and it kind of clusters them in a model at the end, which shows the user, it could be a university admissions dean, could be um an employer, um, where the student's competences are sitting. Uh you've got our own uh design, which is called the learner passport. What we've done is is found a system to nurture and recognize whatever a student's done in the last four years of schooling, whether it be in the classroom or out of the classroom. So sports competitions, artistic productions, uh entrepreneurial work that they do at home, maybe they're involved in the startup, community service work, uh, even the way that they put their subject packets together, the risks they've taken, how they've stretched themselves, electives, uh, passion projects, all of that shows up. And we found a way of mapping uh the competences that they have developed in these different uh explorations uh with the actual passport recognition system, not only for extracurriculars, but in academic subjects as well. So the vision is if a student is excellent in the humanities, let's say in geography, um, and then another student is passionate about the environment and is involved in some kind of environmental custodianship project, they're both showing up with a similar type of competence, which is uh interacting with the world. And we're trying not to say that the academic expression of it is better than the non-academic one, but to actually put them in the same assessment system. Um, if a student is doing well in maths, that's great. They get that recognition. But uh, you know, another student might be starting up a business. And maybe we need to recognize that uh in a similar catchment area. So it goes on like this 37 global competences with a number of macro competences under them that we think are life-worthy and are a better expression of the road we're on to to become educated in today's world than just sort of mere academics. And students will will graduate with this transcript, which actually is a donut, it's a circle, so that the idea is that everybody's competent, everybody's got 100%, but you've got different band lengths according to the competence which has picked up the most uh areas of recognition over the four years. Um, and I think you know, the beautiful thing about it is we're not all trying to be the same. It's not like, oh, we're all trying to get 45 points and you got 38 and you got 30 and you got 42 and whatever. It's no, you know, you've got a lot of interacting with others, the students got a lot of self-agency. Over here, we've got uh a lot of transdisciplinarity. And that's okay because in fact, everybody's different. Uh, but our goal, you know, was to recognize and nurture those passions as they came. So I think the game changer for us was when the IB led us to do the CAS program through the passport so that it's not additive, but it's actually integrative. The part of the IB diploma is doing the passport. And another game changer was through this group, the Coalition to Honor All Learning, which I set up, there are about 50 schools involved and some universities. We've had some traction, and some universities actually uh recognize the passport and have a look at it. So the dream is that one day uh a system like this, and it doesn't have to be the passport, it could be any alternative uh transcript. And in fact, I think there should be several different ones, because I don't think we should all try and be identical, that these will actually surpass the traditional academic graduating system and allow students who are wholly different to the production line test taker that we are developing today to come out with flying colors and it allow every bird to fly and every star to shine. Students with special learning needs, students whose interests uh in a traditional setting might have actually caused them to drop out of school. No, they'll stay in school because schools are interested in everything they're doing. You see, so that's that's one example, the learner passport, out of several. I talked about three or four or five, and it's under this cluster of alternative uh transcripts. Still a lot of work to be done. Part of the book explains that there's a lot of, you know, there's big money in uh high school um examination boards, and there's a lot of politics involved as well. Universities, you know, have to recognize certain qualifications. So there's a lot of frustration. But I think a ground up movement is necessary where schools start to say, hey, this is what's important for us. These are who our students are, whether you're actually asking us or not, because we want them to know it. We want them to think that way, and we want the world to change that way. And then steadily, maybe there'll be more and more pressure for change. And I was disheartened to see uh IVs move away from uh test optional. I know I know there was a whole argument for it not actually being any less biased than testing, but um I could feel the difference as a parent. My both of my kids are studying in the US, and you know, my daughter went through the test optional, and it just felt so much more open-minded and qualitative. Whereas, you know, to go back to SATs and to have everybody back in that uh production line of cramming, uh, it just seems like a step backwards. So there's a lot of work to do to take us to an evolved model that's that's really working with people as they are and how they are, rather than trying to force them all through the same rigid set of checkerboard pieces.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I love that. And I I love everything you've said. And it we can map that directly back. We can go full circle back to who you are as an educational leader and why you do the work you do. You know, because a lot of leaders will say they're student-centered, but then they let a lot of things get in the way, right? So it sounds like what you're describing is for schools to continue to explore what's possible, where every learner can thrive. So if they're uh driven by test results and the parents want their rigorous DP program, they're gonna have that. But if not, that's okay because we have multiple avenues for the students to explore in order for them to ultimately flourish. And they're not undervalued compared to a rigorous DP student who's going for a 45, as you say, 45 the top score, but really creating those conditions where everybody, based on their entry points, can develop their passion. Because, as you said, when we don't allow that, the manifestation of that is poor behavior in the classroom, it's kids not being interested in school, dropping out, whatever it is, right? So that donut you described, which you called what did you call that again?
SPEAKER_04:It's the learner passport.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the learner passport. And how within that, you know, you have a narrow band, you have a wide band, but it's very, very much based. Based on uh their talents and their skills and and how they've given back during such a complex, chaotic time in the world, there is no greater value than uh creating the conditions for students to to truly thrive to find meaning in what it is they're meant to do. So I really appreciate that. And that it goes back to the concept of psychological safety. And we know, regardless if you're a leader, you're a student, whoever you are, um, you cannot be your best if you don't feel safe. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. It's um it's not a good space to be in uh when you are being bullied, uh, when you're being gas lit, you're being ignored. Uh and a lot of people they suffer because of it. Uh a lot of adults in the workplace. Uh it happens in schools. It's obviously happening to young people. You know, bullying is a problem uh online. And as you say, I mean what that does is it just closes down, we know from the from the neuro, the neuroscience of it just closes down your prefrontal cortex, your creative ideation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it makes you retreat uh and uh it makes you go into fight, fight, flight, freeze. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. And there's some people who still think that's the way to go, you know, kind of uh you know, I'm gonna shame you, I'm gonna instill fear in you, you know, I'm gonna be a draconian and you know, you pull your socks up, this all kind of Victorian model, but it doesn't really work. It might work for some people short term, but what it does is it creates behavior compliance, it doesn't create deep learning. Yeah, so there's there shouldn't be any school that's operating like that in 2025, frankly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, can we go back to I appreciate that your book uh is free access? That's amazing. Yeah. So where can the listeners, parents, leaders, uh teachers, where can they find that?
SPEAKER_04:Well, you can Google it. Uh it's called Changing Assessment uh by Conrad Hughes, Designing Curriculum for Human Flourishing. You can find it on the free access, it's on the Brill site, B-R-I-L-L. So if you just put in changing assessment brill, you'll get in there. Yeah. Please have a look.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. And uh the title courses will will be uh starting off when?
SPEAKER_04:They're gonna be coming out in September. So I'll be putting those online. And that's a kind of um synopsis in four parts of the book, just looking at uh the four major movements that it covers.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, okay, that's great. And um to close, yeah. Firstly, I really appreciate the conversation, Conrad, and your time and your energy. To close, I uh I want to share Denzel Washington, I've shared this before on the podcast, gave an amazing commencement speech to a group of graduates, I forget the school, and what he talks about is this idea of the ghosts of unfulfilled potential. And if we project forward, it's a bit morbid, but if we project forward to our deathbed, he said you're gonna be surrounded by these ghosts, and they're gonna be angry and they're gonna be upset with you because they gave you talents and strengths that you didn't access. They gave you opportunities that you shut down. And they're upset because they're gonna have to go to the grave with you unfulfilled. And he uses that story as a metaphor for really tapping into your what he calls God-given talents and strengths. And uh, we're all unique in that sense, but we have something very important to contribute and hopefully we've experienced a life of being mentored and uh experienced a life where we have been uh encouraged to thrive. Uh, when you project forward as morbid as as it is, uh if you project forward, how will you know when that time comes that you're not surrounded by any ghosts of unfulfilled potential and and think about beyond your career when you retire too, but what evidence will you have that you've lived a life of of true fulfillment and meaning and purpose?
SPEAKER_04:Okay, yeah, this is this is interesting. Uh maybe I'm gonna go a little bit against Denzel Washington um on this just to say that um actually comes from the coaching approach. Uh Ericsson Milton Erickson, he has these principles of coaching, and one of them is um you can only take the best decision possible in time and place. You'll you'll always be wiser afterwards. And I think uh it's important not to be too hard on yourself because the road not taken is a plenty. Uh so I don't want to go to my deathbed or even I don't want to, you know, toss and turn in my bed tonight about what I I I should have done and what I didn't do and what I could have done. Uh because that's not going to take me anywhere. I think um I've actually learned this from looking at my children because they're both high performing athletes. My son's a basketball player, my daughter's a tranquil field athlete. And so, you know, we've seen lots of disappointment and success. And at one point, I think I was dwelling on the you know, the injuries and uh the loss of a season or the loss of an opportunity or not cut, you know, getting that getting it into the team for this and that tournament more than they were. And and they were they managed to look forward and just say it's okay, you know, move move on. So yeah, we have to do what we can as educators to make sure that unfulfilled potential doesn't linger ghost-like around students. But then as students grow into the adults that that they will become and that we are today, you know, let us all be kind to ourselves and not look back in anger or in regret at anything. Um because you could have gone A, instead you went B, and the fact that you went B is great. And if if that means that you're looking back at A and saying, Oh, I should have actually done that, well that's fine, but it's because you went down B. So it's it's it's a futile thought in a sense. Um so it's important for our own well-being and our mental energy, uh, I think to uh to celebrate whatever we've done and to deconstruct our mistakes, to learn forward, but not to regret.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's great advice to end. And I really take that to heart. You know, I I grew up in a very dysfunctional family environment, and I've had a brother die of drug addiction, another of suicide, and um in looking back at my life, obviously, deep tragedy and trauma uh can be manifested in many ways, right? And for me, for many years, I was caught up in this place of deep regret and shame based on what my family went through and looking back instead of looking forward. And even though I knew that I was moving in a direction that I was meant to move, I was plagued by these uh demons of of trauma and some of the hard things I went through. And I was almost killed in an accident in Cambodia in 2011. My ulnar artery was severed and I almost bled out. And my life was saved by a Scottish orthopedic surgeon who ran a volunteer uh well, he ran a charity where he did volunteer surgeries on landmine victims. And there was no I needed an orthopedic surgeon, long story short, but there was no no orthopedic surgeons that were in the city that day in Phnom Penh. So after that accident, I felt maybe blessed in a way, but I really, really embraced gratitude and I really embraced um this idea that I am meant to do something. You know, so that idea of instead of looking back, yeah, we look back and and we regret. You know, Daniel Pink has a great book about the power of regret, how looking back helps us move forward. And it allowed me to focus on what I needed to focus on to move forward in empowering ways and to accept everything that I went through as part of my unique journey. You know, you talked about Homer. Uh, there's another book I can't that doesn't come to mind right now, but this idea that we all go through what we have to go through. And it's not just about facing our fears and living with courage, but there has to be this idea of acceptance and realization. And I think I just wanted to kind of end with that is sharing how important that is to honor our unique path and to honor our strengths and to continue to move forward, maybe with some regret at times, but to learn from that and dissect it and to understand it and uh to be easy on ourselves, as you say. So wanted to share that.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you for sharing. That's very powerful what you said. Uh, and I appreciate you sharing it with me. Yeah, uh life's uh life is i is quite something, and we don't really know what's on the other side, but it is precious and it's it's important to do what we can to enjoy it internally. Um as uh easy as it sounds and as difficult as it is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So to close off, can you let the listeners know where they can find you on social media? And I'm not sure if you have a a personal website or whatever, but it would be great for the listeners who want to know more about you um to know where they can find you.
SPEAKER_04:Sure, yeah. Um I've got a website, but uh I'm I I post quite a lot on LinkedIn. You'll find me fairly easily uh on online and uh stay in touch. If you don't get a look at the book that you'll uh maybe uh catch up with some of the other work I'm doing. But you know what's what's more important is um just to uh to keep to keep exploring, keep seeking, keep learning. I've definitely enjoyed the session, learning from you and discussing with you. Uh and uh I'd like to thank you for the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you, Conrad. Um, I will actually put a um you said it's on Brill your book, um, so I'm gonna put the link in the show notes, and then I'll let listeners know in the introduction, they can just go to the show notes and they can access it right away. So I'll make that available to uh all of my listeners right away. But yeah, thanks for your time today. I'm just gonna close off the show and and uh we'll we'll say goodbye. So everybody, thank you very much for listening to this episode with Conrad Hughes, and I hope you come back to listen to future episodes.
SPEAKER_01:Treat your mother like she's made a gold. After all, she brought you here. If your lost go see the ocean, you will always help you stay. You will be stronger than one. You will not do everything. You still have it in the way, you get a kid up to get a big You get up to get a pick. You get to get up to get a kid, you get to get down to get up again. Now, and I still won't know everything When I'm passing up and over the clouds. I hope that you all have learned from me. Someday you will be stronger than you are now. But you will not know everything When the wall is spilling over the power, you'll still have been away.