If I tell you that the dish that is behind me, on this plate,
is a hot dish.
What do you think ?
To boiled eggs, maybe?
Well, no! It’s an omelet.
But not just any omelette!
This is the first omelette in the world to have been made,
without breaking the eggs.
And furthermore,
what’s more, by cooking the whites and yolks separately in a pan,
before remixing them.
Impossible !
You do not believe me !
And yet!
Let’s go back four years ago.
We are in Montreal, in a School of Business Management,
where a big competition is organized for hundreds of executives, managers,
in search of creativity.
The challenge that is proposed to them,
is to cook an omelette in 30 minutes,
in teams of 7 to 8, from different countries,
not all speaking necessarily the same language,
and having to present this omelette, after 30 minutes,
in front of an international jury, composed of starred chefs, designers,
who will evaluate them in the following way: a little like skating,
with a technical note, and an artistic note,
one for taste, and the other for creativity.
In the team where I am, the first question arises suddenly:
who knows how to cook an egg?
Who has already cooked an omelette?
Two out of eight! (Laughter)
Ouch!
Bad luck to win the contest! At least in terms of taste.
Rest the creativity!
An omelet…
Original …
But yes ! What’s more original than making an omelette without breaking the eggs!
“Yes! Goal… “
It’s impossible.
When you have an original idea, creative,
have you never heard that answer, opposite:
“Yes, but … it’s not possible!
Yes, but … we already tried!
Ooh there …! You can not ! “
The “Yes! Goal… “
The first limit to escape creativity!
And that’s what happens in the team. Two hands grab the eggs, saying:
“Let’s break them, we’ve lost enough time. Look at the other teams!
– Let’s wait! Another minute, think! The idea is too good.
If we are able to make an omelette without breaking the eggs,
we are sure to win the contest, whatever his taste. “
So, how?
Knives, forks, some instruments,
we decided to start drilling some shells,
– one millimeter, 2 millimeters, 3 … –
and shake them frantically, trying to get the whites out,
– which is not easy! – … 4 millimeters, 5 millimeters …
At the same time, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes …
We ended up being discouraged: the white did not come out.
It had to break the eggs finally, and catch up.
And then, on one of the eggs, the white appears. Ah! Miracle!
What a joy to see white appear from an egg! (Laughter)
We shoot, we shoot as we can.
And then, by dint of shaking, the whites end up falling on the plate,
the three whites of the three eggs.
We invented without knowing it, by the greatest chance,
a new method for separating whites from yellows
without using a cup or glass.
The whites were there in front of us. The yellows remained.
How to do ?
Still on the same table, we observed small cheese peaks,
kind of wooden toothpicks, decorative,
and we had the idea of taking some
to pierce the yellows through this little hole.
By piercing the yellows, they began to sink immediately. Miracle!
The time lost with the whites, was caught up with the yellows.
And the yellows began to sink in another plate.
We had before us everything needed to make an omelette.
At that time, two members of our team took the whites and yellows,
and ran to the kitchen where a stove was waiting for them,
to cook these whites and yolks separately, before mixing them,
Takes the secret of Mother Poulard’s omelette at Mont Saint-Michel,
that by doing so, the omelette tastes better.
The other members of the team wondered the question:
when the omelet comes back, how are we going to do it? (Laughter)
Since we have three shells pierced with small holes!
Indeed, when the omelette comes back on a plate,
wide, thick, slobbery,
we realize that again, it’s impossible.
“Yes! Goal… “
But one of us
cut out the paper tablecloth,
makes small cones,
– kinds of funnels –
and we try to fill … (laughs)
… the shells … with pieces of omelette
that we had pounded …
destroyed … liquefied …
to pack the omelette …
And it works!
We gradually fill the eggs …
… 10% … 20% …
But the clock is running. There are only 4 to 5 minutes left!
We will never have time to fill the eggs until the end!
We had prepared
a small marbled cream, just to decorate the plate.
What a good idea ! Cream ! She will save us!
We take the cream, pour it into the eggs.
We save a lot of time. They fill up faster.
A layer of cream, a layer of omelette …
A layer of cream, a layer of omelette …
Two minutes … One minute … Thirty seconds …
We plug the eggs with two small pieces of cheese.
We return the eggs on the plate. Phew!
(Laughter)
Arrived before the jury …
(Laughter)
– memorable moment! –
laughter in the room!
I see in their eyes that they say to themselves:
“The little jokers, they made three boiled eggs! (Laughter)
Creative! “
And we present the omelette,
masterfully: the omelette à la coque!
(Laughter)
The first omelet in the world made without breaking the eggs.
Jury members, incredulous,
tell us: “But … how …
how to eat this omelette?
– Like a boiled egg, but it’s an omelette. (Laughs)
They break the top of the egg, open the operculum, and begin to taste,
one of them saying, “- They are all hot!
– Yes, they have just been laid, so … (laughs)
They arrive, live! “
They taste one after the other:
“But, she is good! But it’s omelette!
– She is very good ! Wait, there is cream!
– No ! Cream ? – And again omelette! “
Ten teams, thirty minutes, a great idea,
a “Yes! Goal… “,
and we win the contest.
You guessed it, I’m not a cook.
(Laughter)
I am a university professor.
I teach genetics, molecular biology at university,
and I say to myself: “Can we innovate in pedagogy,
without breaking the eggs? (Laughs)
Rather than teaching masterfully, always in the same way,
by transmitting his knowledge,
facing students, or students
who listen to you, who write, write, learn, reply,
could we orchestrate his course in a different way,
and be creative? Yes! Goal…
This is not obvious.
Many teachers have tried: reverse classes, “serious games”,
mental maps, project-based learning,
a whole battery of innovations!
For my part, I decide to go further,
push the limits of the impossible.
After all, since I made an omelette without breaking the eggs,
who can stop me? (Laughter)
I talk to my university colleagues and say, “Listen! I have an idea,
which may seem stupid to you, but I find it interesting:
and if I asked my students …
to do everything on their own!
In other words, in another word, I do not do anything, they do everything!
(Laughter)
They answer me: “Yes, it’s original, but … But! Impossible ! “
So I decided to start and, four years ago, in front of my students,
– lined up a bit like you in front of me, the best in front,
means in the middle, and …
(Laughter)
(Applause)
and the least good in the field of genetics
because I suppose that in other courses you place yourself differently –
I say to them, “I do not propose the inverted class but
the “do-it-yourself” in other words, you do the courses yourself.
You are looking for information, you write courses,
you do the courses, you ask yourself, formulate the questions,
you make the exams, distribute the copies, fill in the copies,
pick up the copies, correct the copies. (Laughter)
And I am here to help you! (Laughter)
For four years, my students have been using really interesting exercises,
inverted QCMs, intelligent MCQs, mandatory cheating.
(Laughter)
And they rotate the paintings. They turn the tables:
rather than wasting time explaining to them with a diagram,
I ask them to co-build what they find on paintings.
Every 3 minutes, they change position.
They complement the work of the other teams.
And in the end, we go to the most complete table,
and I give them the explanation.
So, to succeed the impossible,
as you have just understood, there are two secrets.
The first secret,
it’s getting out of your zone of trust.
The first secret is to take risks, to agree to no longer be the expert,
– whoever knows – dare to say to his pupils:
“I do not know, teach me! “
The second secret,
is that the students, between them,
not only trust each other but help each other,
– that they learn to work differently –
and at the same time, that these students trust the teachers,
who no longer teach them the subject only,
but to accompany them,
in a more pedagogical way.
“Pedagogue”
Do you know that the pedagogue is not a teacher?
In antiquity, peda-gogue was a slave, without knowledge,
who drove the child from home to school.
The child was learning from the master,
and the pedagogue brought the child from school back home,
no doubt protecting him on the way,
maybe, helping him with his homework.
Pedagogy is accompaniment.
So, innovate in pedagogy, yes.
But why not also innovate in evaluation?
How to evaluate students? The rating on 20!
Can we get rid of this sacrosanct note on 20?
” No ! You have no right ! “
” I do not have the right ? So, I do it! (Laughs)
I disobey!
Innovation, finally, is a …
disobedience … who succeeds.
I try !
And I transform my notes on 20, in points,
– in good points -,
to build scores.
I finally rehabilitate the good points. And I’m full of my pockets.
For any work done by team or individually,
I give points,
which allows me to note, not only their ability to learn,
but at the same time, their skill development:
are they able to help each other?
You know, there is one thing that is never evaluated at school
with a rating of 20,
– it is Salman Khan who says it, the founder of Khan Academy -:
it is the ability of a student to help classmates.
We know that a student who helps his classmates,
tomorrow, it’s a work colleague who will help his employees.
So, we must work in this direction.
Change the rating to 20 for a teacher, it’s pretty easy,
since at the end of the semester, nothing prevents me from turning my good points
in notes out of 20 for the secretariat, of course.
But, for students, it’s different.
I value them by offering them a capital-points.
They get richer every time they come to my classes.
I never take away points. Nobody seeks to have the average.
Everyone is looking to get rich in points.
So, could we do it together?
I decided to do it with teachers of preparatory class,
who love the rating on 20!
And I asked them to invent together, to co-draw together
a new method never experimented,
to note students without grades out of 20, without letters A, B, C, D,
without color code, without presentation,
without copies, without memory,
in short, by forbidding them all that was possible to do …
“Yes! Goal… “
(Laughter)
And to help them – because I’m not sadistic! –
I suggested they use a great tool:
the table football. (Laughter)
How to evaluate the level of knowledge of your students in math by the foosball?
” – It’s impossible ! We will not succeed!
– Put yourself in teams!
I propose you a method of co-design, of co-elaborative work,
with methods of divergence, convergence,
we will see what your ideas are. “
There were always teachers saying, “We will not succeed. “
I answered them: “Hurry up, the others have started the work … (Laughs)
You are wasting time! 30 min! “
What was our surprise to see after 2 hours and a half,
Prep teachers offer us
something incredible: a football tournament
three hours …
with qualifying hens,
eighth-finals, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals,
giving a complete ranking of students
from the best in math to the less good.
And to prevent a French foosball champion from winning the exam:
a system of bonuses and penalties,
students answering math questions,
getting bonuses when they know the answer
(eg I have the right to shoot the penalty 10 times until I succeed)
or penalties when their level in math is low
(eg I have to play foosball,
with one hand, raising one foot, 3 m from the baby) … (Laughs)
At the end,
a 3-hour ranking of fun tournament events for students,
and which gives you the ranking of students according to their level in math.
Unbelievable !
And gift for the teacher: more copies to correct the weekend! (Laughter)
Dozens of hours to devote himself to his pleasures, his hobbies, his family.
Creativity (having new ideas),
innovation (when the idea meets the hand of the user):
[are] two different things.
To move from creativity to innovation, you have to experiment,
do not be afraid of “Yes! Goal… “,
and especially remember one thing: never give up the fundamentals,
a bit like the canopy of a forest, this place of biodiversity
so interesting.
It would not exist without tree trunks
with such simple and rigid aspects.
Educational innovation
does not work if you do not respect the disciplines.
In the company, it’s the same thing.
To innovate requires to respect the academic.
The omelette, even the most original in the world,
remains an omelette omelette.
The genetics course, even if it is reversed, remains a course in genetics.
So, finally,
if we had to remember only one thing,
do you say that you have ideas,
transmit them,
dare to take risks, go out of bounds,
move on to experimentation,
is something extremely motivating.
And then, especially … refuse the received ideas!
Especially when it comes to sayings!
And do you say that we are capable of everything
when you know how to cook an omelette
without breaking the eggs.
(Applause)
”
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