World Teachers’ Day is back, as always, on 5 October! On this occasion, we aim to celebrate inspiring teachers around the world, whose work deserves to be highlighted. In this article, meet Egoitz from Spain, a prominent leader in the Teach For All STEAM community and the founder of AIEDUtech, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating the adoption of AI tools in the education sector.
We met Egoitz through the Teachers for the Planet Programme, a global coalition co-led by the Aga Khan Foundation, Learning Planet Institute and Teach For All, which witnesses inspiring examples of outstanding educators all around us. It puts teachers and education leaders at the centre of the educational response to our climate crisis.
Are you an exceptional educator like Egoitz, working to address the climate crisis in your school? We are now collecting solutions, 100 of which will be presented to policymakers at COP28.
What are your sources of inspiration?
My inspiration lies in seeing each of my students as an inexhaustible source of talent that I am committed to accessing, and knowing the person behind the student and seeing how this process has had an impact on them. After years of teaching, I have seen students grow up who were lost and now, besides being great professionals, they are people with purpose, concerned about the problems of society and understanding that they themselves are the ones who have to provide solutions to the problems instead of expecting them from others.
How do you involve kids on topics that are important to you?
I believe that each teacher and each one of us has to approach education from a different point of view, trying to transmit from our passions. We try to generate meaningful experiences for our students what moves and motivates us. My passions have always been STEAM, entrepreneurship and climate change education. And I think the involvement of the students has been a very natural way because they really are also aware of the importance of these three pillars in their future and present.
What’s the best advice your students have given you?
Perhaps the best advice came from a former student who, when he came to visit me after years away from school, told me that he still remembered those activities he did with me in the classroom and that it would never change that I continued to question myself on the whys and wherefores of teaching and trying to focus on what the students needed rather than on what the curriculum required me to teach.
What are your main challenges as a teacher?
The main problems have been how to transfer my different point of view of education and teaching to the classroom in the first place and without hindering the demands that the curriculum of the subjects forced me to perform. Another challenge is to try to make other teachers of the center understand the need to connect with the students to find their strengths and motivations and to put this before the needs of the subjects.
How does teacher shortage affect you in your daily working life?
In Spain it is curious but the situation is the opposite, the working conditions of teachers are so good that many people from private companies are coming or are trying to enter the educational world in search of these conditions and not always because of an educational vocation or because it was to change things.
Do you feel valued as a teacher? Why? Why not?
As a teacher I have felt validated by students and families but not always by the school’s management team. I understand that many times having an atypical teacher who is continuously asking for resources for projects is not easy for a principal but I think we are the profile that all schools should have (alongside traditional teachers) to continue generating impact and innovation in the classrooms.
How do you think the teaching profession could be better valued?
It will be better valued when society in general understands that education must always be the pillar and the engine of society, since the generations that are currently in the classroom must lead the change and the world in the coming years. We must not only nurture students with knowledge but also with values, purposes in life and the desire to change the world. When we are all aligned on this idea, the education system will evolve into the pillar it once was.
How do you think the teaching profession could be better supported?
Generally the students and their families are the ones who transmit the most support and push us to continue generating change and to discuss the why’s of education on a daily basis. A Polish colleague recently said at a conference that without revolution there is no evolution, and the obsolete educational system we have today will not only evolve by integrating technology, but by making a deep reflection by all stakeholders involved, policymakers, school principals, teachers, families and students.
Meet Egoitz
Egoitz Etxeandia is a distinguished educator and innovator, honored with the National Entrepreneurial Teacher of the Year Award in 2021. He is a prominent leader in the Teach For All STEAM community and the founder of AIEDUtech, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating the adoption of AI tools in the education sector.
With a degree in International Business, Egoitz possesses extensive experience in project management and mechanical development. He is known for creating numerous entrepreneurial projects based on the principles of the Circular Economy. Currently, he is the STEAM Lead Consultant on a research project with Harvard University and Teach For All focused on integrating STEAM methodologies with student leadership on a global scale.
Egoitz also serves as the Educational Leader for Global Shapers Bilbao, an initiative founded by the World Economic Forum. He is the mind behind Funghi Thinking, Ekonomia Ikasiz, and Math Mystery Box.
