In a recent survey conducted with over 600 leading educators from around the world, Dr. Tyson asked two questions:

• To what extent do you truly believe in your heart that school age children have the capacity to make a significant and meaningful contribution to our world?
• About what percentage of children in your school (or school district) last year do you believe actually did something that you believe made a significant contribution to our world?

The disparity between what we believe is possible and what we believe is actually happening is inescapable. 76.4% of survey respondents stated that they truly believed that school age children have the capacity to make a significant and meaningful contribution to our world. Yet 68% of those same respondents stated that less than 25% of the children in their school actually did something that they believed made a significant contribution to our world with 42.4% stating the number to be less than 10% of their students.

This keynote explores some of the unprecedented changes that have taken place in the last 100 years, including the role of children and the nature of childhood, the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society to the information age, and the impact of globalization on our lives. With the ever increasing scope and pace of change, how do schools prepare students not just to be competitive in the job market they will face, but to lead and shape the future? Dr. Tyson makes the case for creating an educational framework that strives to make learning irresistible within a context that reveres a culture of personal best and requires meaningful contribution as the highest level of learning.

Can today's children make our world a better place?