The Changing Game of Education with Ana Lorena Fabrega

Ana Lorena Fabrega is an author, EDUpreneur, and Chief Evangelist at Synthesis. In order to pursue her passion as an EDUpreneur, a teacher outside the classroom who creates unconventional learning opportunities, she quit teaching in the summer of 2019. Ana believes that our current education system operates under outdated ideologies, holding back children from learning what’s important. She joined us today to talk about her book, ‘The Learning Game: Teaching Kids to Think for Themselves, Embrace Challenges, and Love Learning.’

School education is about preparing students to face the challenges of the real world, which the current education system is failing to offer continuously. The root of the problem is that the traditional educational system is not something that every student finds interesting. Every student has a different method of learning. Children learn better when they can feel they are not being judged or afraid of failure. Starting the conversation, we discuss how the current traditional education system holds back students from growing into people who are proactive and creative.

Obsessions can be a great motivator in life. If you are obsessed with achieving something, you get motivated to get it done by putting yourself out there, making mistakes, learning, and getting better every time you take a step. But most of the time, people are used to viewing obsessions from a negative perspective. We talk about how obsessions can be the start of something incredible.

We like to hear good stories. Stories about people who overcome mountains of challenges in order to achieve something in life. It brings us to the phase of ‘if they can, why can’t we?' We need a reminder that there are other people who went through the same difficulties as we did to achieve their dreams. In this phase of the conversation, we talk about the power that storytelling has over building motivation among children.
Overprotectiveness is natural. Every parent is overly protective when it comes to their children. But sometimes the good intentions over protectiveness can cause problems.

According to Ana, we are raising a generation of overly fragile children. Because we live in a world where there is suffering, pain, and failure, the more protective we are of our young children, the more harm it will cause. Parents have to expose children to the difficulties of the real world and teach them how to navigate them on their own.


00:00
06:06 The game of school
14:10 Parenting
20:32 The damage
30:00 Obsessions
37:00 Gamification
44:15 Storytelling
48:00 Questioning
58:00 Boredom
01:01:25 Fragility of children
01:08:00 Stoicism

Resources
Connect with Ana
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/ana-lorena-fabrega-32775768/
Website - afabrega.com/
Instagram - instagram.com/msfab_learninglab/
Twitter - twitter.com/anafabrega11
YouTube -    / @analorenafabregamsfab  


The Learning Game: Teaching Kids to Think for Themselves, Embrace Challenge, and Love Learning
by Ana Lorena Fábrega
amazon.com/Learning-Game-Teaching-Themselves-Challenge/dp/1804090093

Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be Hardcover – September 13, 2022
by Dr. Becky Kennedy
amazon.com/Good-Inside-Guide-Becoming-Parent/dp/0063159481