Saturday, February 13, 2010
"We kids love challenges. But when expectations are low, trust me – we'll sink to them."
by Larry Geller
I’ve been too busy to follow what’s happening at TED this week, but Maria Popova (@brainpicker) has helpfully been live-Tweeting it. When I tuned in earlier, I found that 12-year-old author/teacher/blogger Adora Svitak presented today. Her blog is good reading. When you click over there, try some of her videos.
Here are the tweets (newest on top, of course, so start at the bottom)
#TED Adora Svitak: "The world needs opportunities for new leaders and new ideas." Standing ovation for this incredible 12-year-old.
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED Adora Svitak: You must lend an ear today because we are the leaders of tomorrow.
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED Adora Svitak: The goal is not to turn kids into your kind of adult but a better adult than you've been. Root of progress
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED One large children's publisher told Adora Svitak they didn't work with children. "You're kinda alienating a large client there..."
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED Adora Svitak: "We kids love challenges. But when expectations are low, trust me – we'll sink to them."
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED Adora Svitak: Learning between adults and kids should be reciprocal. But realty is different. Lack of trust.
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED Adora Svitak: Sometimes, a knowledge of history can be a burden – stops us from dreaming
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
#TED 12-year-old firecracker Adora Svitak: Age has nothing to do with irresponsibility and irrational thinking. Bush.
The technology which Svitak uses routinely hardly exists (doesn’t exist?) in Hawaii schools at all. Not that fancy presentations are the most important thing, just that the lack of 21st century methods might be indicative of something.
Yeah, I agree. I've been watching the kids here on Kauai. They are definitely enjoying slacking an extra day off many weeks. Kids here already have low intellectual expectations on them, now they are just that much lower. It's a bad example what adults are doing to the public schools here, and it just gives the kids an excuse to not take education seriously.
: February 13, 2010 at 10:42:00 PM HST I've never lived on Kauai. I wonder what kids think of education in view of job opportunities. Maybe I can't express this very well, but when I was a kid in New York City, infinite possibilities lay ahead. I could be an engineer (like my uncle) (which is what I did), or go to law school and become a rich attorney (like my a**hole other uncle) (from his example, I ruled that out). I could, in theory, pick a career and study for it with good expectations of getting a job.
The school system was well adapted -- there was Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant HS. There was Art and Design. All specialized schools within the DOE.
So what do kids on Kauai think? Is it the same in a rural area? Do they have examples to aspire to? I wonder if that influences their view of education and their parents' motivation to push them or to advocate for better schools.
I'm not picking on Kauai in particular, it's just the example at hand.
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