An interview with Leonardo Knol by Ria Uiterloo
Last year, I had the pleasure of being contacted by a former student of Sr. Regina School, who was pursuing his Master’s degree in the Netherlands. He reached out with a request for an online meeting to seek feedback on a project he was passionately working on – one that held promise for students in high schools both in the Caribbean and the Netherlands. The project in question was FutureED, a comprehensive study guide designed to bridge the gap between Education and Society.
During our initial discussion, I had the opportunity to preview the overview and chapters of FutureED. It became evident that this guide was dedicated to empowering youth by providing practical knowledge across various domains essential for seamless integration into society. FutureEd’s focus lies in equipping students with indispensable skills and information vital for navigating crucial aspects of their lives, spanning from personal finance to career development.
Collaborating with St. Dominic High School and the St. Maarten Academy, FutureED aims to prepare students effectively for life beyond graduation. As part of its pilot program, FutureED is currently being implemented for students in years 4, 5, and 1 of the International Baccalaureate programs at St. Dominic High School.
With the imminent completion of FutureED and insightful discussions with Andre Knol, who represents the creator on St. Maarten, my interest in the program’s content and objectives grew substantially. This curiosity led me to initiate a detailed interview with Leonardo Knol, delving into what I believe is a brilliant concept capable of profoundly impacting students’ preparation for academic pursuits both locally and internationally, while simultaneously empowering them in their personal and professional lives.
Leonardo Knol, born and raised in Sint Maarten is an Equity Options Trader and the Co-founder of FutureED. He has a MSc in Quantitative Finance – e Specialization within Econometrics which focuses on financial applications and modeling.
Read my interview with him below:
Describe your expertise in the field of education, particularly regarding the importance in learning?
“My first encounter with education was at Sr. Regina School, where thanks to you as the School manager that time and other passionate teachers, I was able to step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself with work which stimulated me to develop myself further in an educational setting. After rounding off my high school at MPC, I departed to the Netherlands to pursue a degree in Maritime engineering. Once I finalized my engineering degree in Delft, I realized that my educational journey allowed me to think of situations and tackle problems in a more critical way, but the one thing it lacked was the integration into the real world. With that I mean the continuous learning process involved in life after school and the different challenges that come along with it. It was also during my studies when I started becoming more conscious of self-development and started investing time into improving and understanding myself.
What motivated the development of FutureEd? Why FutureED? Describe how the desire to create this book came to fruition.
During the time in my Master’s degree, together with Sunny Hsieh, a friend of mine and current business partner, we sat down together to think of what would we have wanted to learn before going into university which would allow us to excel even more or faster in the challenges of life. Together, we came to the conclusion that there was a set of skills which helped us both not only excel in our academical career but also in personal endeavors. These basic set of skills included constantly setting goals and reflecting on them and challenging our old ways of thinking. There was also much more we learned aside from our study such as managing our finances and basics regarding taxes etc., where we were also surprised to see how many students still did not grasp these topics. But the core of what we all learned started with the basic set of skills which I mentioned earlier, and our curiosity to navigate the challenges in life which we were not prepared for by school. All of this led us to create modules to help the future generation who are in their teens, to be more prepared for navigating the society.
Sunny Hsieh, Co-founder FutureED
Sunny has a double masters – MSc Artificial Intelligence + MSc Quantitative Finance. He is currently a cryptocurrency trader.
Could you elaborate on the FutureED’s focus on empowering students with essential skills?
The truth is that there are so many skills in life which are essential, it is impossible to cover in our entire program. However, we have started by covering topics which in our opinion, along with a lot of feedback from other students, are deemed to be the most essential and are the least covered in high schools. We aim to keep evolving the course through time as the topics which are considered most essential can vary through time. Nevertheless, the main goal is to stimulate students to think (critically) in a certain way that can allow them to find and master these additional skills that are essential for their specific situation while allowing for a good comprehension of practical knowledge which forms the basis of this. These themes include topics such as effective time management, overcoming procrastination, goal setting, career development, personal finance, health and much more.
I think of metacognition when you address essential skills such as learning more efficiently)? Do you agree and if yes, how would you define metacognition, and why is it considered a crucial aspect of effective learning?
I 100% agree that metacognition plays a vital role in your development from both a personal perspective as well as in your career. Metacognition refers to being aware of your own thought processes and also being able to understand it clearly. Research has showed that already by the age of 8-10 years old metacognitive skills start to emerge. Furthermore, while your brain continues to develop in the years following 10 even up to the age of roughly 25- years, it is important in my opinion to train this skill such that you become better at it and harness its power that is available when you achieve a certain level of metacognitive understanding. It’s a bit like practicing a sport from a very young age, where you see that people who are not only talented but able to start from a young age, generally have a head start or excel in this sport compared to others who start later, especially when given the right resources to practice. Therefore, for us at FutureEd, it is important that education stimulates the development of this skill at a young age as we believe you can get much more out of life once you achieve a certain level of metacognitive understanding by the time you are finished with high school.
In the context of FutureEd’s goals, how do you see metacognition intersecting with practical personal finance education?
The general misconception of personal finance is that it is merely a topic that needs to be learned and once you have access to a high income you are financially successful. However, the core of practical personal finance lies at being able to be aware of your decisions and the consequences thereof, regardless of your income level. Therefore, by indirectly training your metacognitive abilities, it is already possible to improve your future with respect to personal finances. Of course, the access to basic concepts regarding personal finance will help you improve your decision making in this field, but plenty of the basic concepts are very much intertwined with metacognition.
Can you provide examples of how metacognitive strategies can be applied to independent living education, such as housing, insurance, and car management?
One example of the role of metacognition within car management is being aware of the total costs of owning a vehicle. Thus not only the gasoline expenses, but also how much does it cost to maintain and insure cars. In Sint Maarten owning a car allows you to travel much faster from point A to point B, but in some other countries this might not be the case. That’s why it is also important to outweigh your other options of transportation and look into all the pro’s and con’s not only of the costs but of the environmental impact and the time value it provides. Critically assessing all the relevant outcomes and continuously revising them as your situation changes, is essential in making the right choices. The same goes for Insurance and housing, you first must understand your own needs (and don’t confuse them for your wants!), use research and comparison to weigh the different options against each other and use a critical thought process to ensure that you are making the right decision, and finally review your decision making as you can always take home a lesson from it regardless of the outcome being successful or not.
Mental health and social media tools are emphasized in FutureEd’s objectives. How can metacognition aid students in utilizing these tools effectively while maintaining their mental well-being?
Mental health and social media tools are emphasized in our objectives as research has shown that since the use of social media has been increasing, there is also a decrease in the general mental wellbeing, especially within the group of teenagers. Through this module we aim to emphasize the importance of your mental wellbeing and how social media can affect this. Essentially, being aware of the consequences and the subconscious effects that social media has on your mental wellbeing helps you navigate the negative aspect of social media. Apart from the great innovation(s) social media has brought, namely, keeping us all connected with each other at any time and any place, it has its negative effects which need to be fully understood and reflected upon such that you can make the most out of the positive experience and not get caught in the wrong end of social media consumption. Currently we focus on the digital detox aspect, which includes reducing your time on social media, but in the future, we see ourselves going deeper into the details of navigating social media as this is an important topic.
Career planning education involves building skills like CV/LinkedIn development and networking. How might your suggested approaches or enhance students’ abilities in these areas?
Career planning education is a topic which is already being tackled in most educational institutions. However, what we noticed is that the current educational setting generally looks at career choices (such as which job or study do you want to pursue) and lacks a bit more of direct practical experience such as what is important in achieving these choices aside from good grades. We believe that providing a framework that goes hand in hand with current career planning education will allow schools to go more into the practical aspect and topics regarding the career planning of students such as CV building and networking. We hope that through this method students can begin to prepare for any career path they may want to pursue.
Life skills such as efficient learning, time management, overcoming procrastination, and goal setting are crucial. How can this platform serve as a foundation for mastering these skills?
Ultimately, mastering the skills require discipline and practice. Our platform merely aims to set the foundation for a successful framework regarding the approach to tackling these crucial skills. There are no one-size fits all solution to successfully applying these skills, and therefore also encourage students to think critically if they think that there is another approach that works even better for them. However, we do believe that the main aspect of mastering these skills lies within a strong foundation with discipline and practice.
Considering the specifications for a robust online platform, what are the principles into the design and delivery of learning experiences?
We believe that the main principles must include simplicity and be to the point. Allowing for a simplistic design and approach to the contents enables students to quickly focus on the main essence of the topics. This also connects with the statement of being to the point as often times people tend to get distracted quickly when using technology. Therefore, each section is made to be as concise as possible such that it makes it easier to focus on completing each module. We still envision many improvements such as introducing rewards systems to keep students more engaged and motivated to complete each section, or the help of artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can help personalize their experience.
What role do you believe technology can play in facilitating metacognitive development among students, particularly within an online learning environment? Or any development?
With all the information on the internet available today, it is definitely possible to learn almost any skill or stimulate different ways of thinking. However, the difficulty of the internet is finding the right sources of information and not getting distracted with applications or information that are not leading you towards your purpose. We also see the development of AI as a very positive force which will allow online learning environments to be much more customized on a user basis which can then benefit every student much more. However, the role of a teacher in education can never be underestimated as the ones who can make the greatest difference in a student’s development are the teachers who are guiding them.
How do you foresee FutureEd’s initiatives impacting students’ metacognitive abilities and, consequently, their overall success in navigating life after graduation?
We hope that with our platform students will be more aware of their own metacognitive abilities and invest their time into evolving the essential skills, which they can leverage aside from their academical and practical skills that they learn at school, to get more out of their life after graduation.
See also part 2 of the interview.
