Solving World Peace? (TED talk #8)

Based off of the TED talk by John Hunter on The World Peace Game

John Hunter gave an interesting and thought-provoking TED talk about how he has his students solve world peace. John Hunter, a teacher, invented a game that his students play where he puts all of the world’s problems on the table and has his fourth-graders solve them. This game is like the real world: there are countries, presidents, companies, money, and many more roles that the children assume. To win, all 50 problems must be solved, and the countries’ entire asset values must increase before the time runs out. The beauty of this game is that John Hunter allows time for his students to be creative so that they can figure problems out for themselves. Maybe if students were allowed time to have fun and play with the right side of their brain, they would become what Dan Pink is envisioning.

The main reason why John Hunter came up with this game is because he knew his generation messed up, and he wanted hid kids to have the tools to solve the problems that they created. It is very true though. All of the previous generations have created this world with global warming, political turmoil, shrining resources, hunger, and more. If schools teach kids that the world is fine, then the kids will grow up and have no idea what the statuses actually are. Schools need to bring in relevancy and criteria from today into our learning. I have had a great Social Studies teacher that I have learned more from than any other teacher. What makes her so great is not only that she teaches us all of the material in an easy to understand way, but that she connects it to the U.S. today. We don’t just talk about history; we talk about current events that are happening today. We could be talking about JFK, and then suddenly we will be talking about Obama. It all makes sense though, because she brings everything together that she teaches us into today. John Hunter is doing that with his world hunger game by having kids learn about the world today, but in doing so they also learn other skills.

Another beauty of the world peace game is that fourth-graders are the ones solving the problems. They can find out on their own what is right and what is wrong, what works and what doesn’t work because it is just a game. They can make mistakes without there being any real harm done, and then they can learn from them. It gives kids a chance to try out the real world, so that when they grow up they will already be one step ahead of people who didn’t play the game. Kids have a simple, no-complication way of looking at things, and that can be beneficial. When you get older you tend to make things more complicated than they need to be, which is why Adora Svitak’s TED talk comes to mind in this area. Adults have a lot to learn from kids, and this game proves it. Fourth-graders are very smart; they just need to be guided in the right direction. But, some of these problems are very adult-like. This game seems like it has a lot of information for kids to handle. Maybe if we start treating kids more like adults and with adult issues, they will be more literate and ready to tackle problems. However, when we do that, they lose some of that childish way of thinking. How can we have people think like a child in treating adult problems, but still have them have some of their adult assets?

In the game there is a secret saboteur that tries to undermine everything in the game. No one knows who they are, so everyone is a little more careful about who they interact with. John Hunter told a story about how there was a girl who, without warning or permission, decided to attack oil-rich ground. She had gathered her army and held the ground, allowing no one in or out. Everyone was upset with her, because they had no idea what she was doing, and this was the world peace game. A couple of days later though, it came to light that a country had military plans to dominate the entire world. Had they had access to that fuel, their plan would have succeeded. The girl was able to see the signs way before anyone else, and then started a small war to end an even bigger one. This reminded me of the movie National Treasure. In it, the main character steals the Declaration of Independence to protect it from getting stolen by someone else, who might have ruined it. He committed a crime to stop an even bigger crime from happening. He did something wrong to do something right. It is the same principle as is it good when a criminal is murdered? They were killed, but they did something bad.  Is it ok to break the law to save the law? The little girl went against what everyone else was doing, and stood up against what she knew. Sometimes you just have to follows your gut and believe you are right. A lot of the time when we are playing games such as jeopardy in class, I don’t want to answer the question because I am afraid that I will be wrong. It ends up thought that usually I am right, and then I get mad at myself because I had the right answer. It is good to have a saboteur/questioner in a group because they make everyone think more carefully and provide different perspectives to the group. In the game, if a military leader wages troops in a war, and some of them die, then the leader/student must write a letter home to the parents explaining why their son/daughter was killed. This again makes the kids think more carefully about what decisions they make, and it gives them a chance to explain their reasoning. How can kids start to think more carefully about what they say and do without having to write letter about everything?

This game uses collective wisdom. Instead of a teacher standing at the front of the class and lecturing the students, the students are able to learn from each other. I think that this works better because the students are not just learning the teacher’s viewpoints; they are learning what every other person thinks through discussion. This brings in mind Clay Shirky’s TED talk about how together we can learn from each other. This starts in the classroom.

At the end of his TED talk John Hunter tells another story about a group who was almost going to win the game. They had solved all of the problems, but one poor country had lost money (to win each country needs to gain money). With one minute left on the clock, the rest of the countries pooled together money and offered it to the poorest country. They accepted it, and won the game. John Hunter presented an interesting idea-spontaneous compassion. I wish he would have elaborated on it more, because it is very interesting. Is spontaneous compassion better than regular compassion? What are the benefits/negatives? Does it work? What even is spontaneous compassion (example?)?

I found John Hunter’s TED talk very interesting from a presentation style because he has such a different personality than what I am used to. He uses words such as beautiful and amazing, and is very passionate about what he is doing. He talks slowly so that you can understand him, and uses sly humor that is funny. He also had videos and pictures. The videos were great because they gave a glimpse at what he was really talking about. John Hunter’s culture and personality were different, which made him fun to listen to.

What matters? That we address real-world problems to children today, because then they will have ideas for how to solve them for the future!

An Awesome Life (TED Talk #7)

Based off of the TED talk by Neil Pasricha: The 3 A’s of awesome

Neil Pasricha gave an inspiring TED talk about what most of us do not appreciate-the world is awesome. Drawing on past hardships and rough times, Neil Pasricha teaches the world how to savor the simple things in life. He starts out by telling a story of how his parents moved from Kenya and India to Canada. There his life was great up until 2008 where everything seemed to be falling apart. He started a blog about how even though his life was horrible; there was still a lot of good to be thankful for. The biggest lesson he is teaching here is that people need to stop and be thankful for all of the little things in life. In a world of increasing complex material items it can be easy to lose yourself, but stopping and wondering at the joys in life will lead you to have a fuller, happier life. Today, where life is better for most people than it was in the past, it is easy to take things for granted. If you have not lived without all of the luxuries we have today, it is hard to not take things for granted. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone is exactly right. I know that my mom tells me all of the time that I don’t know how lucky I am, and it’s true. I understand that I have a lot to be grateful for, but since I don’t know what it is like to live without the life that I have right now, I can say that I am grateful, but sometimes I feel like I don’t know what it is really like to be grateful. One of the only ways for people to truly appreciate what they have is for them to have not had it before. How can we get people to be thankful for everything that they have without having them lose everything?

Neil Pasricha then goes on to say that in order to live a fully awesome life, you must try to follow and incorporate the three A’s of awesome. The first A is attitude. If you are in a bad situation, there are 2 choices. You can mope around because of your slumps or you can mope around and then pull yourself back up. The difference between those who have awesome lives and those who don’t is that the awesome people choose option number 2. There are always 2 choices; look at something and just see the bad, or look at something and see the good. It is the difference between looking at the glass half full or half empty that makes the people who come out on top or the people who come out on bottom. Family crises result in the family bonding together, or they can drive them apart. You hear stories about people who were in hard times, but they learned from them and came out of them stronger than before (Neil Pasricha is a great example of this). It all depends on who will fall or who will fall and get back up again. The ability to take something that was not meant to happen and still learn from it and look for the positive is important in a society of imperfection. Everyone has problems and downfalls in their life, but that doesn’t mean that you can use them as an excuse to be grouchy or have a bad attitude. It is just part of life. A negative outlook on life can affect so many things: your health, your friends, your job, your motivation, etc. A positive outlook on life can bring so much, so why don’t more people have that?

The next A to follow for an awesome life is awareness. Awareness is the ability to take on your 3-year old self by wondering at the smallest parts of life. When you are 3 you are seeing the world for the first time, so everything in itself is a small miracle. When you look at something from the right perspective, it can be amazing. Taking something as simple as the smell of dinner cooking can either be normal or it can be wonderful, which relates back to attitude, but it is also about perspective. You can look at the simple joys of life as being normal, or you can look at them like a 3-year old and see them as incredible. People again from other countries can see the incredibleness of these gifts because they have never had them before. The world is amazing. Have you ever thought about how a camera works, or how a fruit all the way from Costa Rica traveled to where you are now so that you could buy it for 25 cents(with it not going bad)? Yet we are all too concerned with the more and more complex gadgets. The iPads and the luxury cars and the extravagant fruit pies would not be possible without the simple, basic necessities. What differs 3-year olds from adults in this case is that 3-year olds are seeing this for the first time. Adults are so used to all of the simple pleasures that it gets harder and harder for them to keep up this constant thought of awesomeness in everyday routines. How can people keep up this constant wonder of a 3-year old to be awesome?

The last A is authenticity, which is embracing yourself and following your heart. This is important because once you accept every part of yourself, you will be able to do more, see more, and become more. You are you, and you are cool with that because it is you and you are not going to change. More apparent in society today are people with eating disorders, getting plastic surgery, working jobs that they hate, marrying people for the wrong reasons, etc. They are not doing this for themselves; they are doing it for other people. Authenticity is all about loving you for you, but so many people find that hard to do. It is important to please others, but the main person in your life should be you! If people don’t try to deny their passions, then they will be more likely to follow them. Whatever you like to do, do it! If something really is a life-long dream, then you will never give up and you will keep striving until you have accomplished it. In order to be awesome you must first accept yourself, and once you do, it will change your life. So whatever you love, pursue it. You are the only person who is living your life. Why do we even bothering impressing other people in the first place?

Neil Pasricha is a very effective speaker because of the tone of his voice. He does not talk as if he is giving a lecture, but as if he is having a conversation. He speaks at just the right pace, and his words flow smoothly together. He only says a couple of ums and uhs, but they were not in the middle of a sentence (it was where a natural break in his talking was). Having him tell personal stories really made his topic stand out because it made it personal. He was talking from past experiences, as opposed to talking just from facts and learning from other people. His slide show of family photos made the presentation even better by giving the people something to relate to.

One big question that arises after I watched this TED video is why do people only ever see the negative in their lives? Why do they only see the flaws, and not the assets? Why do they not see the awesome in the simple? And how can we change this so that they do?

Helping Kids to Help Education (TED Talk #6)

Based off of the TED talk by Dave Eggers: Once Upon a School

After watching the TED talk by Dave Eggers I was taken aback by how one man saw a problem and came up with a creative solution that did more than merely solve it, but changed the world. Dave Eggers had many friends whom were teachers, and he had heard them talk about how they were having trouble getting inner city kids to read, write, and do their homework. They wanted to be able to have one-on-one time with each student, but with classes of 30-50 people that was impossible. He realized then that, being a writer, how many of his friends and co-workers had flexible schedules, and therefore ‘free time’ to spare. He created an office space where kids could come in and receive free one-on-one tutoring from hundreds of volunteers. As his business grew he tackled problems along the way, and his idea eventually became such a success that other people started to copy him around the world. Today his business is still growing, and a website has been created to help inspire people to come out and help kids in need of education.

What really strikes me about this whole thing is how Dave Eggers was able to take a problem with no apparent solution and come up with such an obvious, easy answer. The problem was that kids did not get enough one-on-one time, and then the solution was to just have people volunteer their time to help tutor kids. It sounds so simple, yet if he had done it any other way I doubt that it would have been just as successful. One of the main reasons this works is because it is volunteers that are doing the tutoring because they want to. This ties back to Dan Pink and internal motivation: if Dave Eggers had found people and paid them to tutor children for free it would have not been as successful because the adults would be less motivated to help the kids. The volunteers want to help the kids, and in return they get back something even more special, which is hard to put into words. The adults get the satisfaction of helping out someone in need, and in return also learn from the kids. This reminds me of what Adora Svitak believes in her TED talk, which is that adults and kids need to be involved in a mutual relationship. In this instance, they are. What is so great about this system is that the volunteers do not need a master degree or have to be a teacher; they can just be regular people wanting to help. They also do not have to have a commitment. All that matters here is that an adult is volunteering some of their time.

Why the kids like this set-up and are participating in it I think has to do with the fact that they are not walking into a place labeled ‘Center for Kids Who Need More Help’. When they walk into a store, they feel normal. People do not want to be labeled as someone who is struggling, they like to think of themselves as smart, and they like other people to think that they are smart. When you walk into a tutoring place, it is almost as if you are admitting that you are not smart. With this system though, the kids walk into a pirate supply store. They are not being taught by teachers, they are just getting help from other adults, almost like they are getting help from their parents.

What Dave Eggers believes is extraordinary, and if other people could participate in what he is trying to start, the world of not only education but of parenting could be altered (in a good way). He thinks that all kids have potential, and that all kids are smart. All it takes is a teacher who will guide them in the right direction. Think about how many kids are given up on because they do not seem smart enough at first glance, which makes sense. Adults put most of their effort into the children who they think will succeed and become someone great. If everyone got the same amount of attention as those select few, think of how great everyone could become. When a teacher assigns a class of 40 a paper, students will be less inclined to work hard on it, because it feels impersonal and they think the teacher won’t care as much since she has 39 other students she assigned this project to. But when a student has someone who is giving their writing a close look, and is helping them every step of the way, suddenly the paper starts to feel personal, and the students feel accountable towards the adults and want to do them proud. What is also interesting is that students will work harder on writing than they ever have if it is going to be published (like in a book). Once they know it will be permanent and no one will be able to change or deny what they said, their writing improves greatly. So I wonder how we can make kids work this hard on their writing and turn up good results all of the time instead of just when their work will be published?

It was hard not to miss the immense creativity involved in this idea. A pirate supply store-the idea is funny, original, unique, and it will attract people to buy the products. This is what Dan Pink is talking about when he says the future will belong to right-brainers. People who can creatively solve-problems will make the world a better place (maybe this is what schools should start focusing on). I also couldn’t miss how Arapahoe has something much like tutoring-writing lab! Writing lab is open to all students, and they can take any schoolwork and receive one-on-one help with another language arts teacher. Having been to writing lab several times, I know how helpful it is to have a teacher only focus on you and your writing. However, in order to reach more students writing lab should be offered every day, instead of just Tuesdays and Thursdays.

While Dave Eggers speech was inspiring, it could have been better if he had not said so many ums, ya knows, and uhs. It was sometimes hard to follow his speech because of all of the pauses and stuttering. He did use real photos on a slideshow to have the audience visualize what he was saying. The photos helped because instead of the audience just hearing about his points, they actually got to connect a place with a name. He elaborated on the funny parts of his story (the pirate and superhero store), which made his TED talk overall more enjoyable. I also noticed that he calls himself out on his flaws, saying how he is not speaking the English language very well and how he is very nervous.

Do You Believe in Magic? (TED talk #5)

Based off of the TED talk by Keith Barry: Keith Barry does brain magic

After watching the TED talk Keith Barry does brain magic, I feel even more perplexed and amazed about the human brain and what feats we can do. The brain is such a complicated organ that it is hard to say any one thing about it, which means that everything that we are learning has some truth to it, but it is never one way or the other. It will always be a combination of what the future will need and what we have had in the past. Keith Barry starts out by having the audience perform a stunt with their own hands (you must cross your arms a certain way, and then uncross them, which no one can do). After spending a couple of minutes trying to figure out what he did, I was stumped. He made a very interesting comment which was that people only saw what he wanted them to see. This relates to many other things in life as well. If someone is being bullied, or doing things that they should not be doing, they can manipulate their parents to see what they want them to see, which is that everything is fine. I have heard of too many stories where friends and family think that everything is OK, but in reality it is not, because they are only showing what they want people to see. Everyone hides secrets about themselves that no one knows because they do not want people to know them. Sometimes it just takes someone to really dig deep and find what that person is hiding, just like with a magician: you must really look to learn their secrets.

Keith Barry then goes on to show a movie clip where he is driving blindfolded with a stranger in the passenger seat. He never crashes, but he claims that he was seeing through the eyes of the girl in the passenger seat. Now I have never really believed in this magic voo-doo type of stuff, but it was pretty crazy to watch him drive a car blindfolded but to seem to know where he was going. I caught myself making up numerous explanations for how he was driving: the car was automated, the blindfold was see-through, he had traveled this road a hundred times before, he was lucky, there were bumps on the road to guide the car, and on and on. After understanding what I was thinking, I realized that all of these explanations were pretty crazy and could never happen. Afterwards, he makes another interesting comment, which is that most people try to come up with explanations for things that they do not understand. Our brains do not see the logic in magic, and so we try to come up with things that we can make sense of. This reminds me of the left-side right-side argument about the brain. Since the right-side is more creative and the left-side is more logical, I wonder if people who are more right-brain dominant would have an easier time accepting this stunt. Right-brainers think more outside the box, and they are also probably the more extremists. For left-brain people, something has to make sense, or else they are skeptical. I would consider myself more towards left-brain, and I am having a really hard time believing that what he did was for real. Since society as a whole has grown up thinking, teaching, and living basically left-brain, that could explain some of why magicians and voo-doo practitioners have been shunned from society as crazy.

To prove his point, Keith Barry then held other experiments. I had a hard time believing these demonstrations of magic, and I think that part of that was from personal experience.  I have had a couple of magic kits before, and even when the tricks seem impossible to explain, there was always a clever way to explain how they were doing the tricks. Some types of magic are like a big problem-solving puzzle that you just need to figure out the answer to. I love those problems that are seemingly-impossible to solve and have a very clever answer, and once you do solve them you feel so accomplished. Magic tricks are like that because when you finally figure out the trick behind the magic you immediately say ah-ha and then smile at the trickiness of it. But even if it was set-up beforehand there was no denying that they were pretty cool. I wonder how he came to be a magician, and what his lifestyle is like. No doubt, that would be a fun job.

I found Keith Barry’s TED talk to be extremely fun and exciting to watch. He incorporated some of his thoughts about magic with some actual magic tricks. He had a movie to show in the beginning to capture the audience’s attention, and to help explain what he was all about. He actually used the audience in his presentation, which was fun because it made the audience feel a part of the show. Audience participation is a plus! Having interesting, intriguing, and most of all cool activities to do definitely highlight his TED talk, and made it a memorable one. He had a sly sense of humor, and even if something did not go as planned in his talk he was able to play it cool and go along with what happened.

Some things are hard to believe in life because they do not have the science and absolute proof behind them, but this is where faith comes along. I can see magic tying in with religion because none of them are 100% hard evidence, and so it is up to the person to believe what they want to believe. Faith is all about accepting things that we cannot prove, and so if people around the world want to believe in the type of magic that Keith Barry does, then that is fine. It is all about people’s own decisions of what is real and what is fake.

Cognitive Surplus (TED talk #4)

Based off of the TED talk by Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world

Clay Shirky gave a mind-blowing TED talk about cognitive surplus and how cooperation with each other and human generosity will end up prevailing in the world to come. Using the first example of Ushahidi, an online map that takes information from multiple sources and combines it into one easy place to get information, Clay Shirky illustrates how one person had a problem (one person not being able to keep up with a mass amount of information), 2 other programmers heard about it and decided to help, and with the technology that is possible today they made a tool that helps society. Using this idea, Clay Shirky introduced the idea of cognitive surplus-the ability of the world to come together and contribute into collective knowledge to do good in the world. What is interesting is that the problem of not being able to keep up seemed complex and almost as if it didn’t have an answer, but then the solution was so simple. Sometimes the answers to our problems are just in front of our face, and all it takes is a little thought and creativity to come up with them. To me, cognitive surplus sounds a lot like Communism, in the sense that everyone is coming together to share their knowledge, but in a good way. After just learning about the Cold War in Social Studies and the fear of Communism, I can’t help but wonder how the world will understand and treat this idea of cognitive surplus. Since the reaction of the people to Communism was not all that great, I wonder if the people will accept it or reject it. This reminds me of what the class discussed with Cory Doctrow and Little Brother: people fear the unknown and change. Implementing cognitive surplus might be a long and slow process.

According to Clay Shirky there are two parts to cognitive surplus: technology and human generosity. It takes technology to solve the problem, and the human generosity to manipulate the technology to solve it. The reason we have not seen a rise in cognitive surplus until now is because technology like todays has not been available until now. People did not want to sit around and be couch potatoes, they wanted to be creative. It is just that up till now people really did not have a way to be creative. Using this idea of cognitive surplus, websites like Wikipedia were created, where someone wants to know some information, and so someone else spends their time giving it to them. This is civic value. Ushahidi and Wikipedia are created not only to help the participants, but to help society as a whole. But if I am doing a research paper, one of the first things the teacher says to the class is, “you cannot use Wikipedia”, or something along the lines of that. I understand that Wikipedia sometimes isn’t always reliable, but if mass amount of information are being pulled together just to help me, or someone else, then I should be able to use them. We are never going to be able to implement Clay Shirky’ s ideas if we cannot use the websites that are being created from his idea. Tools like yahooanswers.com or answers.com are exactly what Clay Shirky is talking about, but high school students are not allowed to use them. Problem? I think so.

The other type of cognitive surplus is called communal value. This is creating something by the participants for each other, just because. LOLcats is a great example of communal value. They are a branch of creativity that is created mainly for laughs, but it is the idea of someone spending their free time to make something for someone else. YouTube allows people to make videos because they want to and share them with others. Even though LOLcats are probably the stupidest act of creativity, they are still an act of creativity. Is it still worth it to do something creative, even though it is stupid? Yes, it is, since at least whoever is making the LOLcats is trying to do something. Whenever you try something, you are bound to get better at it. Like everything else in life, you are bound to get some of the practical and purposeful (Ushahidi), along with some of the just for fun (LOLcats). Ushahidi has a purpose, which is to gather information, while LOLcats is really just to please people and make them laugh. This slides right in with what Dan Pink is trying to say; he believes that there will be a jump from more people wanting practical to more people wanting pleasing. Products’ design is going to have to compete for who can be the best. But what do these purposeful and pleasing items have in common? They both are designed by people because they want to.

Motivation also plays a key role in making cognitive surplus work. Intrinsic motivators are becoming more popular and important. Cognitive surplus works because people want to help others, and they want to be creative. If a boss told someone that they had to write answers to people’s questions on answers.com or make a video for YouTube for entertainment, the work would immediately become a burden and the quality would decrease. Why? Because since it is work, people think that it does not matter as much. The idea is that people take their own free time and help someone else because they want to, and that is what they enjoy doing. As soon as the word work is involved, people feel that they do not owe the person as much, since it is work and they have to do it. Taking the thought of human generosity- that people will help other because they want to-immediately makes the time spent on it longer, the quality better, and the project more meticulously created. People are spending their own free time on this, so why not make it the best?

Clay Shirky utilizes many effective speaking techniques. He never says um or like or any other pause that would take away from the presentation. He uses the screen to illustrate some of his points and to back them up more. Perhaps some of the most effective techniques were his ability to incorporate humor into his presentation. The LOLcats were funny and unexpected, yet they fit in perfectly with his points. He talked about them as if they were something as serious as the weather. He also had many examples and outside sources to back up his points. Using the Ushahidi example, the outside study done on daycare centers, the LOLcats, and quotes from other leaders, he brought more validity to his argument, and made it easier to understand.

What matters? That we utilize the want for us to share and help others to create a better world. Cognitive Surplus.

   

The Truths Behind Motivation (TED talk #3)

Based off of the TED talk by Dan Pink: The surprising science of motivation

Dan Pink gave an interesting, surprising, convincing TED talk about what motivates humans. He started off with using an activity scenario about a candle, a box of tacks, and a match. The goal is to get the candle to stick to the wall so that no wax drips down (the solution is to take the box that the tacks came in and use that to make the candle stick to the wall).The point of this activity is to asses a person’s ability to think creatively and out of the box. When rewards are added for people who can solve the problem, they actually end up taking longer to solve the problem, which is not what some would expect. Why? Dan Pink’s theory is that there are two types of motivators-internal and external. The external motivators would be the ones such as a reward (money, candy, etc.), but the internal motivators are what people do not take into account for. Some internal motivators include autonomy (urge to direct our own lives), mastery (the desire to get better and better at something that matters), and purpose (the yearning for something larger than ourselves). It is hard to believe Dan Pink, because I (and I am sure most Americans) though before is that rewards were always the way to go. If you want something done, give an incentive for it and then it will be done. Rewards still work, but they only work for certain types of problems. For example, if you offer a reward for solving an equation in math, you would find that the reward would help people solve it faster. But if you wanted to try to get someone to figure out why a formula worked and offered them a reward for it, they would spend more time trying to figure out the answer than someone else offered no reward. Rewards narrow focus (and creativity)and work well for simple, straight-forward tasks. However, because of the changing world, society is experiencing a decline in this type of thinking. Getting into Dan Pink’s other book A Whole New Mind; left-brain (solving straightforward questions) thinking is going to have to move over for right-brain (solving out-of-the-box questions) thinking. Hence, the rewards that worked so well for left-brain thinking are not going to work for this new age of right-brain thinking.

Dan Pink then goes on to explain that instead of rewarding people (which, thanks to science, has been proven to not work), we need to focus on those intrinsic motivators. People want to do stuff because they like it, enjoy doing it, and it brings happiness to them. Something very interesting is that when a person wants to do something they will do it; but as soon as someone says that it is required, they want to do it much less. Having things that someone must do immediately makes the task less appealing. I am not sure exactly why this is, but I think that it is because people want to things that they like, and they do not want to do things that they do not like. Going off of this idea, he details how some companies are starting to implement procedures such as FEDEX days (days where people get the day off of work to create whatever they want) or ROWE days (people can work whenever they want, just as long as they get their work done) where creativity is encouraged and people get to do what they want to do. These types of days end up helping a company much more with willingness, new ideas, and work ethic, mainly because people get to choose what is best for them and make their own decisions. However, many of these suggestions for a better reward system seem very eutopian to me; if work has no structure to it, then would people really get things done? Sure, that is great that during “free time” everyone would work, but in reality, I doubt that that is the case. As more and more buisnesses start to lead off in this direction of work ethic, society will have to see if this method ends up working or not.

After watching this TED talk, I could not help but notice that the school system is set up in this same way of the if then reward. So far it seems to have worked, but the world is changing, and since the world is changing the types of thinking have to change, and since the types of thinking have to change that means the way we motivate that thinking must change too. Maybe if schools started using motivators such as creative days much like the FEDEX days instead of grades, students would start to become more creative, which then means better prepared for the future. Dan Pink also mentions carrots and sticks many times (carrots-reward people with material objects, sticks-punish them with sticks). He has talked about how the carrots do not work, but I wonder if the sticks work. How is punishment as a motivator? If you don’t do this, then this is going to happen to you. I am curious if that affects the left brain or the right brain. Material objects do not work as motivators, but what about the threat of being bad or being punished?

Part of the reason that Dan Pink’s speech was so successful was because of his speaking techniques. He used a slideshow to show important quotes that really make the points of his argument. He spoke with a clear voice, not saying any ums or having any awkward pauses. His entire speech was almost like an analogy to a court case, which was funny and unique. He used humor to make it even more interesting, and by having many outside examples and sources he provided validity to his speech that was very convincing. Throughout his entire speech he made his points clear and concise.

After watching this TED talk there is clearly a mismatch between what society knows and what business does. It is also clear that the types of motivators that we have now are outdated and are not going to work in the future. The world must change its ways in order to be successful in the science of motivation.

Kids Deserve more Credit (TED talk #2)

Based off of the TED talk by Adora Svitak: What Adults can learn from Children

Adora Svitak, a 12 year-old girl, gave a fantastic TED talk about how the world needs more childish thinking from adults, and how kids need big expectations that start with a reciprocal learning relationship between adults and children. One of her first points is that adults need to be more like children: thinking more positively and believing that anything can be done. I completely agree with this. Adults too many times give up on ideas or creativity because it seems too unrealistic or too unpractical. All new inventions come from a dismissed and seemingly-impossible notion. Like Sir Ken Robinson said, “creativity is educated out of people”, and since creativity brings so much to the world, it is imperative that adults start learning how to be more like kids. Children have much to offer the world. If a kid tries to speak up, sometimes the response is, “oh-that’s childish” or “you’re only a child!”. One of the points that she is trying to make is that kids need to be heard and not ignored. Adora Svitak is living proof of that. She is only a 12 year-old girl, and yet she is talking about world-problems that some people her age would not even understand.

She then gives an analogy about how a teacher should not just stand at the head of the class telling students what to do, but that the students should also teach the teachers. This reminds me very much of Mrs. Smith’s class. Multiple times Mrs. Smith says that she hates standing at the front of the class and lecturing. She believes in discussions and a more open learning environment, because then she learns from the students as well. Children have diverse perceptions to offer to the world, but most often they do not ever receive a chance to share them.

The next point that Adora Svitak makes is that children’s expectations are too low. When adults underestimate kid’s abilities they never rise to their full potential. A great point that she says is, “When expectations are low, trust me, we will sink to them”. It is the parent’s responsibility to take a chance and trust their child with high bars, and then see where that leads them. Children need someone to push them in the right direction, to help them become great. That is a tricky road though, since it is easy to control their path too much. Kids still need to make their own decisions, but sometimes what are best are high expectations so that we can rise to them.

Kids are the future. We are the generation that will be taking care of the current adults. We are the ones that will be making political decisions and coming up with new inventions, so isn’t it important that we are raised in the best possible way? Progress happens because each generation grows and develops, and learns something from the previous one. Opportunities are key, and are what really matters for the future.

Adora Svitak has a very successful presentation, and in the most part it was because she was prepared. She knew what to say (even though she had notecards) and connected all of her ideas together by relating it back to her opening paragraph. She told personal stories, which made it more interesting to listen to. She also did not use any ums or likes in her speech that would have detracted from the message trying to get across. She did use a Prezzi in her presentation, but it was not the main focus. The Prezzi just added to the presentation by giving the audience a visual image to go along with the talking. However, she talked very fast. Sometimes it was hard to understand her, and it would have helped if she had paused more in between transitions. At parts her speech sounded a little too rehearsed. By utilizing some humor she made some parts funny, but the majority of it was serious. Even though she was only 12, Adora Svitak had a presentation worthy of an old wise scholar because of the professionalism and rehearsal that was obvious when she gave her speech.