Mark Bezos on A Life Lesson From a Voulneer Firefighter (TED blog 8)

Today people care about success and being healthy. They care about wealth and being loved and being happy. But people only think of that for themselves. Mark Bezos the VOULNTEER firefighter only got the opportunity to go and retrieve this woman a pair of shoes while the other firefighters got to save the dog and put out the fire. At the time he didn’t think that what he was doing would ever impact this woman’s life. He realized that his small act of kindness really did make an impact on this woman when the fire department received a letter from the woman thanking them for saving her house and even daring to have the kindness to get her a pair of shoes. Bezos’ lesson to the world was not to wait to make an impact on someone’s life because in the end you will regret it, and even when you don’t think that what you are doing is making a difference in someone’s life, it actually his. Bezos said “Not every day is going to offer us the chance to save someone’s life but, every day offers us the opportunity so affect one” and this is so true. So what have you done today that might have made a positive impact on someone? Make it a goal every day to do one kind thing for someone even if you think that no one is looking because someone always is. Every small act of kindness you do will make a difference not only in someone else’s life but also in yours.

TED blog 7 Ric Elias on Three Things That I Learned While My Plane Crashed

People in this day and age have learned to live in the moment, but sometimes living in the moment doesn’t allow us to see the bigger picture in life. When someone fails to see their own bigger picture they may never know their purpose in life and they may never find out. It took a plane crash for Ric Elias to see his bigger picture. It took that for him to find out that his purpose in life and the only thing that mattered to him was for him to be an amazing parent. It took a plane crash for him to realize that life is too short to waste especially too short waste the time that matters with those who matter to you. The lesson that he wanted to pass on to everyone was that living in the moment can be great but it all comes down to knowing your purpose in life and finding that one goal that will make you happy. Find the joy in life because it is too short to waste.  

David Eggers on Once Upon a School

Students work better when they have one on one attention for their teachers. Now why aren’t there more opportunities for this in every neighborhood? There are tutoring facilities all over the place but no child wants to say that there are being tutored. Every kid wants to say that they go and do their homework in the back of a super hero warehouse or a pirate supply store. How easy would life be if kids got in the habit of doing their homework right after school?  This is such a beneficial skill to all kids. If they can learn to manage their work by getting the one on one attention that they need. Kids have a chance to express their creativity to one person that can help them channel that into their writing and speaking. If tutoring centers can find a way to make tutoring more enjoyable kids will find a way to grasp these skills and use them to become better students. What matters from this video is that this one person had an idea to help kids in their learning and that turned in to this incredible place where kids want to come and do their homework. This turned into a sanctuary for writing. Kids got the opportunity to be published and they learned how to become successful writers who were taught by newspaper journalists and publishers. IF this opportunity could be given to every kid they would know how to write and harness their creativity to become an even more successful writer.

Dan Pink on the Incentives Experiment ( TED blog 3)

In the Incentives challenge that Dan Pink talks about the higher the reward the better the performance for skills that were mechanical. But, if the challenge required cognitive skills the performance was worse. How is this possible? How can solving a challenge that requires mechanical skills (which is harder and uses more brain power) have a greater performance than solving a challenge that requires simple thinking? This makes no sense! Another thing, Pink talks about this company in Australia called Atlassian. They gave their workers the opportunity to work on whatever project they wanted for 24 hours there was no reward but they got to do something thing that they were passionate about. This opportunity led to new software and new computer hacks that might never have existed because the workers would never have gotten the chance to share their ideas. This makes sense but why would the brain preform worse on something that requires very little thinking. Let me know if I misunderstood Pink.  When Pink talked about this idea that he could have prevent to his teacher about all of these sophisticated people doing all of this work for free and then giving away the product of their work for free they were talking about Wikipedia. Pink talks about this same subject in his book Drive. This idea leads to the world’s most view encyclopedia. All of these people did this work knowing that there was no reward for them but they were all making something huge for the world. This makes sense people doing work for a bigger cause than themselves. Now why can’t we all think like this? Why does the work we do have to have a reward? Why do we get so lazy when that reward is put in front of and we don’t take advantage of that because the task requires not thinking? What does this tell the world? The people in this generation don’t care about supporting the cause to make the world a better place. All this generation cares about is making their own life successful. Why do we think like this? Do you think this is why we have wars, because people don’t care about supporting each other to make the world a better place. Please comment on thin I would love to hear what you all think about this. And I need some help understanding why this is the way it is. Thanks!

Caroline Casey on Overcoming Life's Challenges (TED blog 2)

Caroline Casey was the speaker of this TED talk.  She spoke about the challenges that she faced from the moment she turned 17 and discovered that she was legally blind. Her story was a personal story and she used this to capture her audience’s attention. Her story was so inspirational in the sense that she started off as just a normal human being, completely content with her life and the life turned her upside down, but she turned everything around and created an amazing and successful life for herself. Caroline Casey knew her whole life what she wanted to do she wanted to be the adventurous girl. She wanted to be Mogly from The Jungle Book and she was so determined that this was going to be the path of her life. Life gave her challenges but she found a way to accomplish her dreams. Her story and the determination allowed so many other people to be able to see. She explained that on her trip on the back of an elephant across India she raised enough money for 6000 Cataract surgeries.  I took away from this video that you can never let the challenges that life presents you get in your way or effect who you are. This matter because the world is losing its determination to fulfill its dreams. Human beings are just following the tide. They have no goals in life. This video teaches that you must always follow your dreams because it is part of who you are and it shapes who you become later in your life. You must always have goals so that you have vision for yourself.  And you must always be true to who you are and what you are because nothing that you ever do will change that.

Sir Ken Robinson on Educaton Killing Creativity (TED blog 1)

Sir Ken Robinson gave his TED talk in a very light and funny mood. The information that he gave was important and you could tell that he was passionate about what he was saying, but it wasn’t a very serious lecture. He used jokes to lighten the mood of the subject and he had everyone one hooked on what he was saying. He pulled his listeners in with stories of people learning styles and how that led to their successful careers. To Sir Ken Robinson what mattered was that creativity is the most important trait that a child needs to have in this generation, but the education styles of this generation are taking away that creativity. The way that children are educated in this generation, my generation, is so normal and boring. Students are being taught that the teacher’s way is right and so therefore they become used to being wrong.  Robinson stated that by the time a child in this generation becomes an adult they will be used to being wrong.  In this generation there is a big want for creative minds but if education continues the way that it is children will not know how to use that creativity to become successful. The world runs on the creativity of the human mind and without that creativity nothing will ever become better everything will stay the same. Humans will not be able to create technology that will help their population to strive.