Dalton International Symposium in Wenzhou 2023.

An interesting panel discussion with Zhou Wenye, Professor, from Institute of Curriculum and Teaching, East China Normal University and Wang Hongman, Vice President of Wenzhou Education and Teaching Research Institute, Liz Zhang, a directore of Shenzhen Xinhua Dalton School and Agata Rohner on a future focused education.

Main aspects of the discussion were among others:

1. In the meantime, the social environment is challenging to educational works. We all face a lot of anxiety and confusion. Why in these circumstances, we need to give more space and trust to schools and teachers? And how can we all contribute to this task?

2. Under the International background, what are the familiar challenges to all the schools, teachers, and educators in the world nowadays? What could we do to deal with it?

3. Educationists started to talk about future-focused education thirty or forty years ago, but although we use many new words, our education systems have not changed very much. In what sense, Dalton education is more actual nowadays than before?

4. How can we all balance “4Cs”: creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication together with ‘soft’ skills— for example, innovation, agility, entrepreneurship, digital literacy, and design thinking?

5. How can we make a Dalton school, a school rather than test and exam training center full of bureaucracy and administrative work? How to balance parents' expectations with what is possible for each and every child?