TED Talk: Why a Good Book is a Secret Door

Mac Barnett, a children's book author, delivered this TED talk in 2014 about the importance of fiction and imagination in a child's life. He begins his talk with an interesting first line that immediately grabs the attention of the audience. He introduces himself as a man with a career that involves lying to children. This opening statement successfully hooks the audience and sets the whole tone for the rest of the TED talk. He then begins explaining his main point he will be presenting throughout the entirety of his speech which is that it is very important to find truth in art, especially as a child. This TED talk is very entertaining due to Mac's comfort in front of a crowd. He constantly engages the audience in laughter with his colorful stories about working with kids as a camp counselor. During his time working at this summer camp, Mac entertained the children with his whimsical stories of his time spent spying for the Queen of England and other imaginary adventures he has embarked on. Mac truly believes in helping children find some truth in fiction that he even went as far to stash a cantaloupe in a garden to follow through with some of his stories. 

                  Above is a quote Mac used to introduce his main idea of the potential truth that can be found in art. 

My favorite part of this TED talk though were Mac's stories about his interest in secret doors and how he managed to incorporate these entrances to other worlds into his career. He is very passionate about tutoring children and assisting them with their reading skills so it only makes sense that he continued on into a career surrounding these interests. The first place he worked at was a pirate souvenir shop that led into a tutoring program through a "secret door". Mac described some of the merchandise to further emphasize this idea of an imaginary world. He explained the importance of having children walk through this whimsical setting on their way to study sessions because it really opens their minds to the idea that anything is possible. Reading fiction and telling stories about imaginary worlds allows children to express themselves by escaping into another life while still having a way to find truth in the lies. 

I chose this TED Talk because it discussed some of the similar interests as the Carnegie Center. This talk expressed the importance of books in a child's life which is something the Carnegie Center really focuses on with their work. The Carnegie Center offers similar services to those Mac describes in his talk which really caught my attention when I was listening. Both are equally interested in educating children in the importance of reading and engaging their imaginations whenever possible.


Mac did a wonderful job of connecting with his audience and conveying his idea in a practical, entertaining way. He was very comfortable in the crowd and confidently delivered his message. Although it was a rather long one, I thoroughly enjoyed this TED Talk.

Ted Talk Analysis

     Tim Doner is a polyglot, which is a person who knows and uses several languages. His TED talk happened about two years ago. Two years prior, the New York Times published an article about his talent of language learning, called Adventures of a Teenage Polyglot. He begins by explaining how the media twisted his story, making it essentially a sensational about a neat trick he could do, on a level with "a skate boarding bulldog in a baby suit." 

     Next Doner explains his real interest in language. He claims that, contrary to the popular opinion among linguists, language is very strongly tied to worldview, and thus to culture. He wants to learn about other cultures and world views, and that is one of his major reasons for learning languages. 

     Doner was immersed in language diversity from a very young age, being a child voice actor. His family and friends found that he had a knack for accents and inflections. Next, throughout middle school and high school, he studied Latin, French, and Arabic. But he was having trouble with them. After several years of a language, he was still not comfortable conversing in it. This made language learning frustrating. Essentially, he had only thought of language as lists of rules and grammar. 

     So, he tried a different method. In an effort to learn about the crises in the middle east, he began learning Hebrew. Instead of the usual method, he began watching television in Hebrew. Within a short amount of time, he could converse in Hebrew. This is often called an immersion method, which focuses on learning in the context of conversation. So, his success led him to try another language, and then another, and then another. 

     Another method he used to help him learn used Youtube. He posted videos of him speaking in various languages, and invited comments. Many who already spoke those languages would give him tips and encouragement. Essentially, he found a way to converse with people in languages which he could not usually. 

     Next he went over various methods for keeping vocabulary straight, and basically the logistics of learning languages. As a student of Latin and Greek, this was helpful for me! I really appreciated his tips, but I and the audience were more effected by his main point. He explained that languages are dying. He claimed that every two weeks a language dies, and with it, a culture. This is very sad to any linguist. And he calls the audience, not to fix the dying, but to learn languages as a way to open and expand your worldview. Learning about other cultures makes us good citizens and friends, but it also improves our understanding of the world and ideas around us. 

Doner giving his TED talk. A year ago, he knew twenty languages!

     Moving on! Doner's execution of the speech was excellent. He tastefully included humor, and his audience clearly enjoyed it. He also included an excellent call to action, appealing to the emotions and reason of his audience. The only area I can see for improvement would be that he could benefit from seeming a little more humble. Despite the fact that he has reason to be very proud, humility of speech appeals to audiences more.

     As a lover of languages and of learning about culture, I strongly appreciated this TED talk, and encourage anyone to watch it!

TED Talk Analysis

This TED Talk was given by Geoffrey Canada and focuses on how we can improve our education system. It was delivered in May 2013 at a TED Talk Conference and was delivered in order to inform the audience about the issues with the current education system and to persuade the audience that the design of the education system is currently flawed and that major changes are needed to correct the problem. One of the missions of the Carnegie Center is to help underprivileged children and adults improve their literacy and critical thinking abilities, so I thought that this TED Talk had a relevant link to my service learning organization. He was a very effective speaker.  He incorporated humor well in his talk and also immediately established the relevancy of his topic by appealing to the audience’s emotions. He appealed to their emotions by talking about how the system effectively guarantees children with poor financial background to fail. 

Geoffrey Canada has worked to improve the Harlem Education district for years and has seen firsthand the issues stemming from the current system. He urges the government to review its education system and see what it can do to serve the students more effectively.

He expected the audience to have a reasonable amount of knowledge about the current education system. He uses extended similes and metaphors for the education system (such as comparing the system to a farm that plants its crops at the wrong time) to help the audience understand the logic that he is using. He berates the government for employing the same basic school system as was in place nearly 50 years ago, saying, “If it did not work then, why would it work now?”. Using these similes helps members of the audience who may not know as much about the system understand the faults he sees in the system. 

He was also very animated in terms of nonverbal communication, displaying energy and urgency in his gesticulations and near-constant pacing to show the urgency of the matter. He says we have “run out of time” to delay changing the system and that we are approaching an “education cliff” due to the current system. He proposes that we change the calendar that schools tend to use (August-May) to a year-round schedule. To compensate, Winter and Thanksgiving breaks would be longer and there would be a small break in June that serves as a summer break. He says the three-month break currently used for summer break leads to dramatic regression in students’ abilities. He also encourages the government to actually use the results of their educational studies to improve the system as a whole. 

Overall, he was a very effective and persuasive speaker, appealing to the audience with emotion and logic while providing humorous anecdotes to maintain their attention level.

Ted Talk Blog

Ted Talk Review
By Libby Rose

Click here for Ted Talk on the Importance of ______ In Community Service

To the left is a six minute Ted Talk about the importance of two things when it comes to community service, "warm and fuzziness", and "awkwardness". The speaker is giving this speech on account of her own personal experience of volunteering for something called "Midnight Shifts".

Beginning of the TED talk.

During these midnight shifts a truck full of students goes downtown to homeless people on the street and gives them things like a boxed meal, clothing, and toiletries. The speaker seemed to be passionate about her service work and the cause. She mentioned that midnight runs "aren't permanent solutions" which is something the world needs to realize about service work. No, giving someone a meal and clothes isn't going to get them out of homelessness, but it builds the connections and regular human interaction that they can use to help themselves. Because my Service Learning organization provides books for homeless people through Triangle Park, it relates to the Ted Talk in that both are providing a tangible good for those in need.

In the screen shot to the left, the speaker is focusing on how awkward moments in community service are really valuable in the take aways. I didn't totally agree with this/ thought it could have been said in a different way because I myself have done community service and yes those you are helping might make you feel uncomfortable at times but it's up to you to just ignore the awkwardness and do your job as to not make them feel that they have done something wrong. The speaker talks about compassion and gaining compassion from awkwardness but I believe that if you have compassion that can limit the awkwardness right off the bat.

I also thought that her visuals were a little awkward. She used a picture of a cat and a picture of a pad to demonstrate "warm and fuzzy" and then awkward. While the multi media aspects might have caught the audiences attention I thought they were kind of bizarre. She did however seem well rehearsed and like she knew what she was talking about but use of statistics could have been incorporated to make her point seem more astounding or important.

Ted talk analysis

In 2013, Ken Robinson delivered a TED talk called “How to escape education's death valley” in which he discussed why our education system is failing in the United States.  

              

Ken Robinson (educator) giving his Ted talk.

At the beginning of his talk, Robinson captures the audience’s attention by introducing a humorous stereotype about Americans. He says that when he first arrived in America, he heard from numerous sources outside the U.S. that Americans do not understand irony. Before he loses the interest of the audience, he then relates that stereotype to an act of legislation passed in the United States called “No Child Left Behind”. He said that when he came across this act of legislation, it was evident to him that whoever thought of that title definitely understands irony, because it is actually leaving millions of children behind. In fact, the no child left behind act is doing more damage than it is good.

         He then explains why the no child left behind act doesn’t work, and he does this in a way that is very relatable to the audience. He first asks how many of them have children, which is the vast majority of the crowd. He then asks how many of them have more than one child. Many of the audience members responded even still. He very cleverly pointed out that if you have two children, or even know two different children, then you know that they are very diverse no matter how closely related they are. This is what is wrong with the no child left behind program, because it assumes that all children conform to certain standards, which are measurable by standardized tests. The standardized tests only collect data from a narrow spectrum of abilities; math and reading are the subjects that are primarily focused on. Since the tests do not measure a child’s artistic ability or their physical ability, schools have simply stopped teaching these skills.

A quote about art education from Robinson's talk.

      Since schools have stopped teaching the arts altogether, that brings Robinson to another point. What effect does this have on the children? It can’t be doing any good, because he mentions dropout rates being as high as 60% in some areas of the U.S. More importantly though, the blame is being placed on psychological disorders instead of where it rightfully belongs. In the last decade, there has been what Robinson describes as an “epidemic” of ADHD. He then goes on to explain that there is nothing wrong with the children, they are just not able to sit stationary all day and pay attention as adults do. He adds humor to this by saying “Children are not, for the most part, suffering from a psychological disorder; they are suffering from childhood. I know this because I spent my early life as a child, I went through the whole thing.” Art and physical activity gives children an outlet for their energy and creativity; it has also been proven to improve math scores. So why has it been removed from our education system?

          Robinson hypothesizes that in the United States, we treat education like a machine. We think that if we have better ways of measurement, or better information that learning will increase. That is not the way education works. He compares education instead to an organic system, because there are seeds readily available just waiting for the right conditions in order to sprout and grow. The current classroom conditions are causing children to become bored and dislike school. He ends his talk with another memorable quote from Benjamin Franklin "All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move." He follows the quote with a call to action by saying that we need to encourage people to move; if we can encourage enough people to move we will then have a movement, and if the movement is strong enough then we will have a revolution. He says that a revolution is what we need, and I believe that he is absolutely right.

Video Reflection

     I have had the privilege of serving an organization designed to educate people. Despite scheduling issues and other difficulties, I am grateful to have an opportunity to serve other people. I am also thankful for Erica Cook, who has been patient and helpful in working things out so that we can fulfill class requirements. Attached above is a video of some of my thoughts about the Center and my experiences with it. 

     One pretty fascinating performance which they had during the International Eating and Reading Night was Capoeira, an African balancing game set to music. The music is intentionally designed to get caught in your head, so fair warning! Above is a clip of the performance. 

     The Carnegie Center is especially oriented around educating children. To this end, they have tutoring, family classes, and also they have authors come in to read their children's books. One child wrote this sweet thank you note, and this was really touching to me. 

Alecia Whitaker is an author originally from Kentucky. She now lives and writes in New York, but the Carnegie Center invited her to visit and read one of her books. 

     All this being said, I think that it would be easier to serve my community if it was not through a class. Without the pressure of class deadlines and confirmations of service, I believe that young people could help the community more effectively. I strongly encourage anyone to volunteer at the Carnegie Center in their free time.

Video Reflection: Setting Up for the Event

Above is my video reflection for the Carnegie Center. I explain what it was like to volunteer for the first time and discuss my feelings towards my service site. I am very pleased with the Carnegie Center and look forward to volunteering again.

Video blog reflection

I am now a little over halfway through this service learning course, and I have to say it is going a lot better than my previous experience with service learning, but there are also some things about it that i'm not so fond of, as I explain in my video reflection. I think that if I had voluntarily chosen to do work with the Carnegie Center, and wasn't trying to squeeze in volunteer hours around my classes and psychology research, that I would have had a much better experience. The experience that I have had so far has been very limited, as I have only attended one event, but it is very evident to me that the Carnegie Center is a great place for children to go if they need help outside of school. They have a passion for helping children and a love for literature that I have never seen before. Unfortunately, I am not able to attend the event they will be hosting this saturday, but if you are viewing this blog out of curiosity and want to see what great work the carnegie center does, I HIGHLY recommend that you check out this event; It should be fantastic, and carnegie classics are only hosted once a year.

Artistic representation of the classic novel "Fear and loathing".

The image above should give you a sense of the aura created by the book, which should be present this saturday at the carnegie center as well. I will be helping turn the inside of the carnegie center into what looks somewhat like the setting of the book. I believe that those who decide to attend this saturday are in for a treat.

Video Reflection

Having worked one event thus far, my experience with the Carnegie Center is far from complete. However, we are also pretty far removed from our orientation and initial event, and this time has given me ample opportunity to reflect on my experience as a whole and prepare for my upcoming experiences with the Carnegie Center. In this video, I share some of my thoughts and opinions on the service learning project and the Carnegie Center specifically.

 Their annual book-themed party is occurring this weekend and preparations will be hectic. .

The novel for this year's event at the Carnegie Center is "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter Thompson. The 70's settings in the novel should make for an interesting and exciting event Saturday night.

This event has been a huge success in years past and I am excited to help continue its success over the next few days.