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  • I am not sure whether we really have a strong need for hard data in soft aspects of human

  • improvement. We need hard data in terms of measuring skills of course, especially in

  • math, reading, mastering of computers, digital technologies more generally and so on. So

  • these are the kind of hard measurable aspects of human capacity. But then there are ways

  • in which one can stimulate creativity and not very easily defined in data. Let me give

  • you an example. In Slovenia we have a very good network of musical schools. And there

  • are many people, young people who are learning to play various musical instruments. And I

  • think the overall effect of this doesn't depend on anything measurable but really on the energy

  • of the mothers of children to make sure their children go to musical schools at the right

  • age and that they learn.

  • Now I have been President for five years and I have visited many small places in Slovenia,

  • talked to musical school directors and mothers and so on. And I have seen how important this

  • motherly energy is for the learning of music at a young age. Of course many children are

  • not talented in this direction and of course they may even have some traumatic experiences

  • as a result. But on the other hand the overall effect of this is that we have pretty good

  • generation of young musicians in Slovenia and that has to do with something which is

  • really very difficult to measure.

  • I would like to propose that all governments stimulate everything that has to do with creativity

  • and it starts often with something which is really very simple. For example, when I visited

  • schools as President I often said to the teachers and to students, I said, "Well, you know,

  • you are usually told to be diligent. But I'm telling you be creative. Diligence per se

  • is not enough. Diligence may be good but not sufficient. So please teachers, teach your

  • students to be creative. Invent something in your own matter to work with your group

  • of students which would stimulate their creativity."

  • Now in Slovenia which is part of the central European educational tradition this is not

  • unimportant because that tradition has been for centuries based on a kind of a top down

  • model of education which still exists. And therefore there is a need to deliberately

  • inject the idea of creativity into the educational process. I would very much like that to expand

  • but I have seen since I lived in the United States for 13 years as well and my daughter

  • went to school in New York that the American tradition is different. There, I think, much

  • more effort and much more emphasis is put on individual talent of students, stimulation

  • of talent, can do approach, optimism and all these things. And of course that educational

  • tradition I find quite beneficial, something that we in Europe have to learn from and perhaps

  • develop creativity by using the techniques of education which put creative elements more

  • at the center.

I am not sure whether we really have a strong need for hard data in soft aspects of human

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