I've really enjoyed the last few Ted Talks I've watched, but this one was very interesting.
Child prodigy Adora Svitak addresses problems with the word "childish", the importance of optimistic thinking, and why adults should learn from and support children. She points out that the word childish implies irrational behavior that is often also found in adults. She also says that children are kept under strict rules when they should be part of the rule making process. She goes on to say "what's even worse than restriction is that adults often underestimate kids abilities. We love challenges, but when expectations are low, trust me, we will sink to them". In her childhood her parents were very supportive, which is how she wrote over 300 short stories and got published. Her closing statement is that she hopes today's children will be become better adults than today's adults, and that the world need child-like thinking.
Adora Svitak was 12 when she gave this talk in 2010. It's very impressive for her to be a published author, but I did not like listening to her talk. She sounded like she was trying to talk like someone else, like she was trying to sound older (pretty ironic). I also think some of her jokes were a little forced. There were also sometimes when it sounded like she was gasping for breath. Breath support is huge in public speaking in order to project. The evidence she used was based on things that have happened in history, however it is harder to believe someone else's interpretation of an event than facts and statistics. I also disagree with her point about students teaching teachers. It happens ALL the time. Just as parents learn how to be good parents from their kids, teachers learn better ways to teach by how there students respond to certain methods. For example, our ELA class loves to discuss things. Deeply. Even in the first week of school, we were side-tracked all the time because we were having awesome discussions about literature and life and if it's okay for an eleven year old to cry over a sweater. Now we have scheduled discussions about books and these discussions are one of the best ways we learn because everyone is involved. Overall, this was an interesting and educational perspective that I didn't totally agree with.
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My project is about food in different countries. Something I haven't really focused on is the water around the world. Here in the USA, we get our water from our kitchen sinks or refrigerator. Most people have a shower and toilet in their house. In other countries the water situation is different. From my personal experience, I know that in some Asian countries like Indonesia the tap water is not safe to drink. When we did get water, it wasn't always cold (which took some getting used to). Some of the bathrooms consist of holes in the ground and no toilet paper. When I went to Brazil, it was in the "dry season" and the water supply was very low but most of the time it was cold.
Joe Madiath's TED talk "Better toilets, better life" is about santitation problems in India. His organization, MANTRA, helps rural Indian commutities build a public toilet and shower room, supply clean water to houses, and provides jobs as masons and plumbers. By drinking clean water and having good hygeine, poorer people in the area avoid getting diseases. These facilities also keep women and children in school because they don't have to go so far to get water. A group of people from the area is put in charge of the project to make it a full community effort. I really enjoyed this talk. I listened to it with my mom in the car one night, and I'm only just now writing this. Madiath has an Indian accent that was hard to understand at some time, so I watcched it with subtitles. He starts the talk with a joke about poop: "It is very fashionable and proper to speak about food in all its forms, all its colors, aromas and tastes.But after the food goes through the digestive system, when it is thrown out as crap, it is no longer fashionable to speak about it. It is rather revolting." He sets the rest of the talk up in a way that was really easy to understand. He first tells about all of the financial, hygiene, and disease problems in India. Then he tells about how his organization has fixed these problems. There is also a lot of before and after data to back up his statements. He also brings up that this is a problem with society, that "cheaper is better" and "poor people get poor solutions" are no longer okay. I was really inspired by Joe. He saw a problem in his home, and he fixed it. It reminded me that even though there are a whole bunch of problems in this world, there are also solutions. Have you eaten bread today?
Bread is a food staple in the US as well as all around the globe. It has been part of many cultures for at least four thousand years. Peter Reinhart's TEDTalk "The art and craft of bread" tells of the wonders of this truly international food. The talk starts with Reinhart holding a loaf of whole grain bread of his own recipe. He explains the process of bread-making, which has 12 steps. He goes into the science of the bread; he talks about enzymes that help chemical reactions occur more quickly during the baking, and also gives details of what happens during fermentation. Reinhart presents this idea that bread is a transformational food, and how it is a symbol for life and death -- the living wheat is killed when picked, we destroy the seed which is its only way to reproduce, the yeast comes alive from its dormant stage, but only to be killed again by the heat. He closes the talk by sharing his bread with the audience. It has grains but also has a spent-grain, which is used when making beer (which goes through a similar process of fermentation), that adds fiber to the already fiber-filled whole grain bread. His end goal is that the bread is healthy, but doesn't loose its flavor and taste. We recently learned about fermentation in my biology class, so it was easy for me to understand the science of this talk. From the title it seems kind of boring, but in reality I was really intrigued to learn more about the history and science of our food. I would recommend this to anyone who likes science, history, philosophy, or food. Reinhart's talk included a lot of science-related explaining, which can seem boring to some people. One way he made it interesting was using analogies that were funny and relatable. One example was describing the CO2 and alcohol produced by the yeast as the "sweat and burps of yeast". He also seemed to be very passionate about bread making and also the philosophy behind it, and he expressed this in his enthusiasm and body language during the talk. In order to write this, I did have to watch is a few times because it is a lot of information to take in at once. Reinhart also does a great job of breaking down the process of bread making and explaining the different philosophies about bread and what it symbolizes. I honestly think TedTalks in general are great, because they prepare students like me for college lecture-style learning, although the content area and the delivery may be different. They are also fast ways to get a lot of information about a topic that you don't know a lot about (like bread). Now, as Reinhart did at the end of his talk, I present to you the baker's blessing: May your crust be crisp, and your bread always rise. |
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