It all started when a young poor girl asked Richards What makes up success? He didn't have an answer but as he thought he came up with this, passion, serve, work, become good (practice), focus, push, ideas, and persist. These 8 things says Richards will lead to success.
As watching this talk i noticed that a few things contradicted what Dan Pink says in his books "Drive" and " A Whole New Mind" but some are similar. Both say that passion are important things, to have intrinsic motivation for your work and keep persisting. Another is to have good creative ideas. Having creative ideas keeps innovation alive.
One point of contradictory was that Richard said to get good at just one thing yet Dan Pink says to dabble in many aspects in order to be diversely knowledgeable about different things. The question is which is better. Personally, I would say that knowing many things is better than just knowing a lot about one subject, but if a person knows what they are going to do for the rest of their lives then they should excel at one particular subject or trade.
Ken Robinson starts off with a funny intro on himself and how the TED talks have been designed for the buildup of him coming and talking once again. But his main purpose was to spread the idea of new education and learning practices an dof what schools should be doing. Ken says that we are going through a crisis of human resources similar to the one of natural resources know as climate change. He says that we make very poor use of our talents or people who think that they have talents because many people don't believe that they are talented. He splits the world into two groups those who love what they do and those who endure what they do. People who don't get pleasure form what they do people who just go on living life are missing out when compared to the opposite group. This brings Robinson to his bigger point that schools and children's' educational career separates them from their natural talents. Robinson says to dig deeper and find those hidden "human resources" you can't reform a broken system but you need to revolutionize it to get what all children need, talent and skill and passion. There are things that society is enthralled to in education such as if you start here and do everything just like this then you will end up happy and successful in life. All in all his presentation showed that not every one has to do the same things and learn the same way and go to college at the same time to be successful but education and schools pull that out of all of us.
This is the opposite of what teachers and schools tell us to do. So the question is How can WE!! fix it? Because it is up to us to do just that.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Dave Eggers' Wish: One Upon A School
Eggers starts our by telling his story with some humor but one distracting habbit when he talks is he says um a lot which takes away some of the focus on what he is really saying. Dave Eggers big point and message throughout his talk was to spend more one on one time with disadvantaged students. He came up with a place where students could go after school and get help with English homework without bogging down class room teachers with so much unmanageable work.
This very much relates to my dad's school. My dad works in a very multi cultural and diverse school where 75% kids are on free and reduced lunch and many are from all over the world 10% of which are being taught English the language because they are students that come from countries that don't teach it. At his school there are 28 languages spoken from all over the world, but they also offer English lessons to parents so they can learn as well. Some under privileged students used to find help and support from teachers and staff in library until budget cuts and teacher unavailability became to great to support after school help. His school faced the same problems as the school talked about by Eggers yet he was the one who found a solution to the kid to staff ratio issue.
It was said on the video that with and extra 30-40hours a year of one on one attention a student could raise his or her grade by one level. If the students just had people sit down ith them ane listen to their creative thoughts on how to writ this of how to do that with help and support when needed. If this were implemented in schools across America or even Colorado, students would have a tremendous advantage. In my high school it is relatively easy to see a teacher during free periods, after school or before school, but not all schools have that support or flexible schedule.
The most important aspect that I took away was that this writing center that Eggers created didn't single anyone out. They didn't call it " The place to Get help if you can't learn well" , they left it open for any one to come in and learn in a great learning environment that had great role models. These role models showed kids that it was fun to learn in a non school related environment. This center was set up so that kids motivated them self to do well and so they did well because they were having fun while doing it. The different themes throughout the two stores of pirates and superheros are placed to spark the imagination and creativity of the students to help them have fun with it instead of a forced school like environment. This ideas is very much worth spreading to give every child that extra boost in their studies that should be put into action across the nation.
This very much relates to my dad's school. My dad works in a very multi cultural and diverse school where 75% kids are on free and reduced lunch and many are from all over the world 10% of which are being taught English the language because they are students that come from countries that don't teach it. At his school there are 28 languages spoken from all over the world, but they also offer English lessons to parents so they can learn as well. Some under privileged students used to find help and support from teachers and staff in library until budget cuts and teacher unavailability became to great to support after school help. His school faced the same problems as the school talked about by Eggers yet he was the one who found a solution to the kid to staff ratio issue.
It was said on the video that with and extra 30-40hours a year of one on one attention a student could raise his or her grade by one level. If the students just had people sit down ith them ane listen to their creative thoughts on how to writ this of how to do that with help and support when needed. If this were implemented in schools across America or even Colorado, students would have a tremendous advantage. In my high school it is relatively easy to see a teacher during free periods, after school or before school, but not all schools have that support or flexible schedule.
The most important aspect that I took away was that this writing center that Eggers created didn't single anyone out. They didn't call it " The place to Get help if you can't learn well" , they left it open for any one to come in and learn in a great learning environment that had great role models. These role models showed kids that it was fun to learn in a non school related environment. This center was set up so that kids motivated them self to do well and so they did well because they were having fun while doing it. The different themes throughout the two stores of pirates and superheros are placed to spark the imagination and creativity of the students to help them have fun with it instead of a forced school like environment. This ideas is very much worth spreading to give every child that extra boost in their studies that should be put into action across the nation.
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