Education as the development of capability and transformational leaders in the context of a not-so-obvious question of what is the result and what is the consequence. This was the direction of the conversation among education specialists who gathered to discuss the current state of learning science and educational practices in Ukraine.

When Tymur Demchuk, head of corporate training at kmbs and lecturer at "Future" and kmbs, presented a slide with four portraits and asked the audience to name these people, the question was surprisingly simple for kmbs participants. After all, the School's teachers often refer to this case. These are "the most famous classmates in world history" (quoting Tymur Demchuk) and their teacher: Aristotle — Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Seleucus. How and why did Aristotle create his lyceum in such a way that its graduates were capable of founding empires, developing states? This was the main theme of the discussion.

Since the time of Aristotle, the forms of learning and motivation for learning have changed, but at least one thing remains unchanged: "Every student would like to have access to their own Aristotle." The role of the teacher is still fundamental in the learning system. Even in formats where the teacher is practically absent and children teach each other through a partnership system, the absence of a mentor equals the presence of their role function.

Olena Severenchek, head of the communications office of the "Junior Academy of Sciences" (who owns this partly witty remark about "access to their own Aristotle") mentioned one of the hit TED Talks speeches "Every Kid Needs a Champion", delivered by Rita Pierson. She works with people who have learning difficulties. One of her students wrote a test with twenty questions, eighteen of which were answered incorrectly. Pierson returned the work, which she graded not with the usual "minus 18," but with "plus 2." Olena Severenchek noted this approach as something we should strive for when talking about the role of the teacher in modern education. The mentor motivates, interacts, gives the right to make mistakes, among other things. Among other things, because there will be many more points, as the learning context is incredibly dynamic, as evidenced by the last year and a half.

Learning formats are undoubtedly changing, those who now wish for Aristotle as their mentor, wish for him in a different context. And it's not even about the classroom approach, which several generations have been accustomed to and from which, fortunately, they have begun to gradually move away. Anton Martynov, founder of the publishing house "Laboratory" and Librarius, rightly noted that learning formats are not just changing, but scaling. Any innovation in education remains a point experiment if it cannot be scaled — all participants in the conversation agreed on this.

The main transformation in learning since the time of Aristotle is the mass reproduction of knowledge: there are simply not enough Aristotles for everyone. And there is a danger (which specialized education fully faces): a once-learned approach is adapted by a person to solve issues from different fields. That is why it is time to abandon the comprehensive approach in favor of value-based learning (which is obviously impossible without radical changes in the system of pedagogical education).

Olena Severenchek drew the listeners' attention to the fact that today there are two hundred private schools and about five hundred public schools in Kyiv, with a higher percentage of students, of course, in public schools (and even with this, Kyiv schools are struggling with the growing population). No European city has such a number of private schools. And this means, — commented Ivan Prymachenko, — that the public education system urgently needs transformation, something in it is not working as it should.

Ivan Prymachenko — co-founder of the platform for massive open online courses Prometheus, shared their experience. The average age of participants is 35-40 years, videos on the platform do not exceed ten minutes. This is how the struggle for attention continues, this is how the struggle for a motivated student continues. An adult is brought into learning by strong motivation, the desire to learn to learn, and finally a positive experience — their own or someone else's. Education is multiplicative, everything that happens in the world is multiplied by education, — Ivan rightly emphasized, — new ideas need scaling, the learning system is no exception. "Some ideas about learning are fundamentally unscalable," — Ivan Prymachenko closed the discussion at this moment, dreaming of how every gifted student has direct access to a brilliant mentor. But the reform of pedagogical education is a real task to be accomplished.

Tymur Demchuk timely quoted the book Ron Friedman "The Best Place to Work" (recently published by "Laboratory"); the researcher advised how to reach the level of genius: work at the edge of possibility, use opportunities for development, and deeply reflect on your work. It sounds simple enough to be a complex recipe for the ability to transform in learning.

What Makes Us Capable Today: Education