At the core of The Mona Lisa Effect® is Matthew’s passionate and relentless belief that every single student, without exception or condition, should be able to “be seen, be heard, be known” and “belong”. 

In this keynote, he will argue that data and assessment must not be cold or cruel, rushed or remote. Instead, he believes that they can, and must, remain kind and ‘warm’, ‘street’ and slow.

Kind because it is too easy unintentionally to commit small or large acts of violence. Warm because each and every student and school is an ecosystem, and we must embrace its complexity. Street because it is our moral duty to identify the margins in our school and listen to their stories. And slow because we simply do not have the time to hurry.

This is his argument for holism, and he cannot wait to share it with you.