Reflections from Bett Asia 2026

The journey home feels incredibly different from the departure from Singapore yesterday morning. Yesterday, I was a bundle of nerves and adrenaline, and spent the entire hour on the plane rehearsing what I’d say on stage. Now, on the return flight, I feel mostly grateful. Grateful for the support back home that allowed me to leave my boys for a night, grateful for the kindness of people I’ve met in the past 30 hours, and grateful for the connections and smiles I’ve received at the event today.

It’s wonderful to be in a conference room filled with passionate educators, and it’s clear that people care deeply about education; and how the younger generations are receiving education.

My opening line today was this: The most important AI skill a young child can learn is not how to use AI. It is how to notice, how to think, and how to understand another person without it.

And I truly believe that. Not just for children, in fact. For adults too.

Towards the end of our panel session, our moderator, Anggita, invited each of us to share one small change that educators in the room could implement in their classrooms the next day.

If I had time for a second answer to her question, it would be this:

Instead of asking a learner “what is the answer?”, ask them “how do you know?”

When learners have to explain their reasoning, even if the reasoning is shaky, they build much deeper understanding than when they simply produce a correct answer. It also tells us far more about what is in their heads.

And in a world where answers are becoming cheap and instant, the ability to explain how you got your answer is exactly what we should all strive to keep.

Of course, the script I prepared for my session will not be for naught, so I’ll be posting that in the next blogpost.

p.s another one for my gratefulness list: to have this little corner of the internet to ramble about my thoughts and topics important to me!