Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Dr. Ger Graus O.B.E., KidZania’s Global Director of Education, visited Monterrey, where he participated in different activities with education authorities, entrepreneurs and education experts, to promote a constructive dialogue among these entities about the future of teaching and K12 learning.

On November 7^th, KidZania Monterrey hosted a gathering where Dr. Graus discussed with local education authorities current global childhood issues, such as gender equality, poverty and deprivation and their relation with future aspirations.

During a very fruitful reunion, Dr. Graus shared with more than one hundred elementary schools’ representatives, how other societies face these problems and, most importantly, how can Mexico act upon these topics and how can KidZania contribute, with the objective of helping to improve children’s lives and leveraging their opportunities.

The next day, KidZania’s Director of Education was the opening speaker at EdTech Summit, which is the education forum inside INCMty 2018, organized by Tecnológico de Monterrey. At this event, innovators, entrepreneurs, learning mentors and investors gathered to discuss the future of K12 education, online learning, innovations on education technologies, and learning for life and work.

In his conference “Children can only aspire to what they know exists”, Dr. Graus highlighted the importance of building a creative approach that encourages social mobility for all children, despite their socioeconomic background, age or gender. He argued that the more experiences a child lives, the broader and enriching his/her horizon will become.

Concerning current trends in education, Dr. Graus mentioned that education should not be about teaching but about the ability to learn and foster children’s interests and skills. Learning about what makes each kid different from the others, will aid educators to understand what tools they’ll need in the future and how we can help to nurture them.

Regarding his recent journey to Monterrey, Dr. Graus stated: “This visit has been really productive since it allowed KidZania to strengthen bonds not only with educational representatives, but also with entrepreneurs and other learning experts. This interaction is highly valuable since children’s learning involves a whole ecosystem of stakeholders that need to contribute collectively to give children a purpose, nurture their interests and motivate them to pursue their dreams. We don’t need to build walls, instead, we need people to take them down.”