Success Is More Than Just Winning a Race

John Wooden was the coach of the UCLA Basketball team that won ten national championships in twelve years and seven in a row. His TED talk on true success really defines him as a person, a coach and a teacher.

John Wooden starts his TED talk with a story about his experiences as a high school teacher in 1934; he tells the audience that all the parents wanted their children to get an A or a B in his class to succeed. He followed up by saying that in his book, all the students can’t get an A or a B, but they perform at their best ability to achieve success. He also talks about the topic in a different perspective, as a coach. Relating success to coaching and teaching provided a strong connection to the audience; it allowed them to see his character in the classroom and on the court.  He segways into his definition of success with a pyramid he calls, The Pyramid of Success. It allows people to see the traits that make up successful players; to live up to his definition of success, the players need to have the traits from the pyramid. Wooden was very humorous at times, especially when he called his students and players youngsters. Another amusing comment was his description of the player's attitudes after late practices; he says, “And I tell them, "Don't run practices late. Because you'll go home in a bad mood. And that's not good, for a young married man to go home in a bad mood." When you get older, it doesn't make any difference.” Wooden comes across as a hero on and off the court, but a hero also has his own heroes. Wooden gives inferences of his heroes through quotes and stories about his father and his god. In the seventeen minutes I watched his TED talk I felt the bond of a hero connecting me and his words, but his bond between god and his father lasted a lifetime, which makes him the character he is.

Success in a team sport takes courage and willingness from the whole team, but it is the individual who sacrifices his ego to allow the team to play like a team. In sports this happens all the time and in my experience on the Arapahoe fresh-soph soccer team we carried out that attitude of team. Coming into the last game of the season we were 9-1 and the next game would decide the winners of the league. But it was no easy task; we would be going up against the undefeated Cherry Creek sophomores. From what I had heard they were a cocky group of boys the kind of team that will lose a game in the warm up. From the first five minutes of the game it obvious how cocky they were; they talked trash, mocked the ref and did everything they could just to be a nuisance. With less than two minutes to go, the score was tied 1-1, and we had a free kick near the half-line. Creek was getting sloppy and were committing fouls off their frustration. We took the kick and put the ball in the box; then one of our forwards headed the ball into the bottom corner of the net. Many kids from the other Arapahoe teams were there along with some parents so it was a loud cheer when we scored the winning goal. The final whistle sounded shortly after and the Creek players did not take the loss lightly. They went over to the ref and started complaining to him and even starting pushing us around. Their ego got the better of them.

Success isn’t always winning or getting an A, but it is always doing something to the best of your ability. In 7^th and 8^th I ran the mile in track, I never won a single race, but I gave my best effort and left everything on the track. In the nine meets I participated in, I ran the mile every meet. When I heard my time as I crossed the finish line, it felt like I had won because I knew I had beaten my time from the last meet.  Although in some races I only increased my time by one or two seconds, I had the mentality that I succeeded because I kept to my goal.

Wooden said that all the parents wanted their kids to have an A or a B in his class, but he stated that not everyone can. Although Wooden said that the students could still succeed if they performed to the best of their ability. Many kids in school get bad grades because they don’t try and complete their homework on a daily basis. Last semester one of my friends told me that he hadn’t done his homework in 41 days. I was shocked and didn’t really want to respond to his comment. I just thought where his attitude to succeed went because in the beginning of the semester he was telling me how much of an improvement he had made from middle school. I’m sure he’ll realize his mistake in a year or too. All the kids who don’t put their effort in to school all regret it at the same time, when they have to apply for college.

Today segregation is over, but that doesn’t mean racism is, many people of different ethnicities are constantly stereotyped by the color of their skin. African-Americans have equal rights and freedoms in the United States, but are still targets in the Deep South. People still fly the Confederate Flag, which lost its value (if it had any before) in the Civil War almost 150 years ago; the people of the south say it is part of their culture, but they are expressing their racism toward blacks. Racism isn’t just a national problem in the United States it is a big global issue as well. Religion is also an issue of racism, as there is still Nazism in Europe and Muslims are commonly stereotyped. Racism will never come to a resolution, but many organizations are making an effort to succeed in stopping it. FIFA (soccer) is promoting themselves against Racism in their attempt to stop racism on and off the fields. Soccer is a very ethnic sport, so if fans see all the players unified, then the fans will become unified as well. FIFA may not be winning the world conflict on racism, but they are doing everything they can to succeed.  

1+1=826 National

Dave Eggers’ TED talk, Once Upon a School, talked about the benefits of one-on-one tutoring and how it affects students. He said that 35-40 hours of one-on-one tutoring a year can raise a student’s grade by one level. Although it may increase student’s grades, it also helps them become motivated toward school and gives them the mentality that they can accomplish anything.

Dave Eggers’ TED talk told a story of how his tutoring program became successful. He talked about moving to San Francisco to create the project 826 Valencia. Eggers shared the conflicts that occurred, such as not having any students show up for months. He wanted to show that his program did not go exactly as planned. Egger’s style really focused on lending his heart to the audience to show how compassionate he was for the students and telling the world that one-on-one tutoring allows the students to succeed in school and in life. Eggers also took a humorous approach to his topic, especially when he described the superhero and pirate supply stores. In order to start project 826 Valencia, the landlord said they had to sell retail along with McSweeney’s (his publishing company), which is where the pirate and superhero supplies came from. He described the superhero store as, “A Costco for superheroes,” and “So then you have the villain containment unit, where kids put their parents.” The audience liked his humor, it added a different mood and showed his sympathy for his job. What made people feel sympathetic to his program, was the photos of the students working. It showed the audience that the students were focused and motivated toward their school work. The ending added something I hadn’t seen a presenter do; he made a wish, “I wish that you -- you personally and every creative individual and organization you know -- will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved, so that within a year we have a thousand examples -- a thousand! -- of transformative partnerships.”  The wish represents Eggers desire to expand his tutoring program; he wants people to know that his objective is changing students that enter the doors of 826 around the country.

Because of the motivation that 826 National gave students, they had the mentality that they can achieve anything they set their mind to. One student in Brooklyn, nine year old Khaled Hamdan, came in because he was addicted to TV and video games and couldn’t focus at home. After he started being tutored, he became addicted to finishing his homework early and writing books. He wrote books about superheroes, Penguin Balboa is about a fighter penguin and Super Has-Beens about failed superheroes. He even read a book aloud at the Symphony Space in front of 500 people, at a benefit for 826 New York. He comes to tutoring everyday and even brings his cousins, adding three more to the family tally. In San Francisco, a high school teacher asked the tutors of 826 Valencia to come in to her high school class and present the topic for a book they will be writing called How to Achieve Peace in a Violent World with publishing by Isabelle Illende. Because of the motivation to get their book published, the students worked harder than they had ever worked in their lives before. With their own motivation and the help of the 170 tutors, their book was huge success, in fact it can be found anywhere. They even wrote a couple more books, the second one was sponsored by Amy Tan.

Eggers’ moral of the story concludes that a different approach can bring different results. Because the tutoring facility was built into the publishing company and the pirate supply store, it gave students a new attitude about learning. Some of the publishing company’s employees did their work shoulder to shoulder with the students to motivate them to act like adults and take an interest in their work.

 In Eighth Grade, I was in National Junior Honors Society and one of my projects was tutoring. In the couple hours I tutored, I felt like I was helping the students and making it worthwhile for them to come. One kid came to me and asked me if I could help organize his papers. It was ironic because I am not the most organized person, but I helped him anyway. After we went through all of his binders he was very happy because we found a few of the assignments he had been missing, I guess it paid off a little. Eggers’ experience with tutoring shows why his program should be installed around the country. Many elementary schools only motivate the smart kids to succeed, but ignore the kids that need it most. All kids are born with potential, but with one-on-one tutoring their unknown ability can be unlocked. Tutoring is important because teachers don’t have time to tutor every student for 35-40 hours a year, there are too many kids and not enough teachers. 826 Valencia excelled with 1400 volunteers because someone is always available to help. The kids worked so well at 826 Valencia because the pirate shop and McSweeney’s added a nice balance for the students to stay motivated with their work. Motivation is key, so schools and households need to come up with a process that enables their students to learn and work more efficiently.  

There are children in many different countries that don’t have the opportunity to be tutored one-on- one. China, Japan, and the Koreas produce some of the most intelligent people in the world, but are all of the children that come through their education system Harvard quality? Probably not, and I bet there are some students that cannot keep up with the high standards of their countries education system. In China, the education system acts similar to their government, a dictatorship. The parents and teachers FORCE their children to succeed in school. In fact, I heard a story about an Asian mom who wouldn’t let her kids do anything besides work on their studies and practice music all throughout their childhood. It paid off because one of her kids went to Harvard; it seems cruel because the mother threw her children’s childhood away to ensure their admission to a top school.  Some students can’t keep up with the demanding education system of those countries, so with a giving county like the United States, it would be important to establish tutoring programs for students in other countries. Many students will never get any attention, but that can change if we make a difference. On a poster in Ms. Smith’s classroom, Kids from other countries dream of having our job, but with tutoring and attention we can make their dream become a reality.

Youtube Video (826)

Image (SF)

Works Cited

826 Valencia. Prod. 826 National. Youtube. 12 Nov. 2007. Web. 2 May 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-S2ee9fNBk.

 

SF 826 Valencia. Digital image. Nomadig. Web. 2 May 2011. http://www.nomadig.com/stuff/sf_826_valencia.jpg.

 

 

Perspectives: Changing the Way We See

Beau Lotto showed how our brain perceives different perspectives with optical illusions through his TED talk “Optical Illusions Show How We See”. He talked about the sociology of color and objects from different set ups can create the same figure.  

Lotto’s organized presentation started and ended the same, with an experiment followed by a question. It proved to be effective because the audience enjoyed the experiments and his explanations of why it turned out the way it did. With every experiment he gave, he demonstrated the outcome and explained how it related to the question “Why is it context?” The majority of his experiments were dots that were formed with different lights to create the same color. It was funny because after every experiment, a loud “OHHHH” followed. The analysis that he gave was very reflective. With quotes such as “We are defined by ecology”, “Color enables us to see the similarities and differences”, and “The same image can have a number of different realizations”. The quotes he gave allowed me to think deeper about the importance about why it is context. He made some funny statements; one was during the experiment with bees.  He said when the bee would drink the sugar water, it would throw up and there’s the honey. TED talks always need a few humorous comments; it shows the presenter has many different viewpoints within his topic. One technique I had never seen in a TED talk before was end with a cliffhanger; Lotto showed the boards with the colors again and said, “Was that an illusion?” This effective technique leaves the question and experiment in their minds and motivates them to learn more.

Lotto emphasized that we are not the only animals that see the meaning of colors. Bumblebees, with only one million brain cells - 250 times fewer than human retinas - are able to recognize faces, count to five, and use colors to solve patterns.  Lotto showed a video of the experiment with the bees inside of a Plexiglas cage with colored dots representing flowers. The bees were supposed to go to the blue flowers because they had sugar water inside; although the bees wouldn’t always go to the blue flowers, they would go where the other bees went. Their brains could also recognize that green light on a blue flower would still mean the flower was blue.  This is amazing that bees have some of the ability as humans, is remarkable for an animal their size. Color is more than just color, it is also music. Lotto showed two experiments where color was associated with music. In the first experiment, a man had a camera that played different sounds for different colors. The man’s objective was to find a plate in the room with his eyes closed. With the camera he moved it across the floor, listened to the different sounds, recognized a pattern and found the plate. The second experiment involved colorful children’s collages translated into music and played by an orchestra. This opens up many new perspectives to music and color. Every time I will look at an image my brain will think of sounds for the different colors. It makes you think were some of the works of Picasso and Van Gogh representing music or even some architecture in Europe.

Perspective is everything, it makes you think and come to different conclusions about simple things in the world. In art, it makes you think inside of the artists head, what do they want us to see or think. Since I live in Highlands Ranch, every time we drive I always see the logo of a hawk on signs. When I was little, I thought the hawk was a character from the Dr. Seuss books I had read. Now, I can still see the same image I saw as little kid; since that image has always been embedded in my mind, it will never go away. Education is perspective too, in school students constantly question and see things a different way. Perspective is what makes education interesting; it is what makes learning interactive. Novels we read have many different viewpoints and messages that pertain to different people. For instance, Lord of the Flies can be taken many different ways with different opinions about the message William Golding is providing.  One question that was asked in the first semester of English was, what does it take to challenge the system? For the final, we wrote an essay about characteristics of challenging the system and everyone had something different to say. Yes, many people said similar characteristics, but everybody had different perspectives on the characteristics used to challenge the system. Perspective is also important within the United States government; political parties have different perspectives on the government. None of the perspectives are wrong and one is not better than the other. In history we have benefited from different parties in control at different times, both have played influential roles. We have had some great presidents from both parties, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. They both led us through some of the toughest challenges our country has ever faced. We needed different perspectives to abolish slavery, lead us out of the Great Depression and win World War II. That’s what’s great about the United States, our democratic state enables us to elect the party that we feel will be most beneficial for our government during the crisis or situation we are facing. Perspective will be important in the future, especially since some of the predictions aren’t so positive. Some of the books we read by Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, and the short story “The Pedestrian” - give a prediction of the world in a couple of decades from now. Bradbury predicts that books will be eliminated, that is starting to become a reality as Borders is going through bankruptcy and closing many of their stores. The companies need find a way to showcase and give different perspectives on the benefits of books. I can’t imagine someone reading their child to bed with an iPad, it just isn’t the same. Although many companies such as Nike, Adidas and Apple are succeeding because they are always coming up with new ideas and staying on the cutting edge. They add different perspectives to their products with color and design that make people want to buy their products. We could be headed to the world of Fahrenheit 451, or it could be similar to today; if we don’t want the situation to look like the end of the movie Wall-E, then people with different perspectives will guide us away from the path leading to a black hole.

Youtube video (TED)

Image (Highlands)

Works Cited

Highlands Ranch Welcome Sign. Digital image. Highlands Ranch Houses For Sale. Web. 1 May 2011. <http://www.highlandsranchhousesforsale.com/images/Highlands%20Ranch%20welcome%20sign.JPG>.

TED Talks Director. "YouTube - Beau Lotto: Optical Illusions Show How We See." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 8 Oct. 2009. Web. 02 May 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5otGNbkuc>.

Right-Brained Medicine

Anthony Atala knows a lot about our body and how it works. He also knows how we can regenerate our organs just like a salamander. Atala shows that the technology in medicine has advanced to the level that we are able to regenerate organs in our own body.

Atala’s TED talk on growing new organs exemplified some different styles. He begins by discussing about the first organ transplant (kidney) that was performed in Harvard Medical College. Next, after comparing the transplants from today to 1954 he gives a quote, “Every 30 seconds a patient dies from diseases that could be treated with tissue transplant.” This reinforces that we need more people employed in medicine to treat patients and reduce death. Atala is one of the first TED speakers to present a video which showed how cells expand. Videos and animations enhance his presentation because people can relate to what he is saying. One important visual he presented was a salamander regenerating a limb that had been cutoff; he then explained how the limb regenerated with the scar. This was an important effect because the audience could see the objective of this technology. He also showed an animation of the procedure used to engineer the first organ, the bladder.  It was effective because the animation showed the time process, about 6-8 weeks, which lets people realize that this is slow process and the regeneration won’t happen overnight. To end his TED talk, Atala shows a cartoon called “How to Stop a Runaway Stage,” because he said it represents the time and amount of people it takes develop these technologies in medicine.

If Atala said that every 30 seconds a patient dies, then the rate of people dying is too high. But with the technology to regenerate organs, less people will die. That means more people will be treated in the hospitals, which will increase the need for medical employment.  Additionally in 2011, the first people of the baby boom, those born in 1946, will be 65 and probably require medical treatment. The country will need an increase for the next 18+ years as the youngest baby boomers are still only 47. Many will have kidney failures so this technology will be beneficial in the near future. Atala also described other unusual methods for organ regeneration; the doctors used a normal desktop printer to help regenerate a heart. They printed it out normally, but obviously took a bit longer than a piece of paper (40 minutes). Technology is very advanced in medicine; we can get cells from almost every organ in our body except the liver, heart, pancreas, and nerves, which can only be regenerated with stem cells. Even though the technology is strong the process still takes a very long time. Atala said that to regenerate some of these organs it took 700 researchers and 20 years to be able to get where we are today.

What matters…medicine requires more right-brained thinking then we realize. The 700 researchers had to be creative and use out of the box thinking in order to solve the equations for regenerating organs. The researchers used some of the methods that Daniel Pink described in A Whole New Mind, such as symphony, by using two disparate objects (heart and printer) to find a way to regenerate cells in a heart. As the baby boomers slowly find themselves in a hospital, more people from my generation will need to be employed in the medical field, why which will enable me to become a physician. However, to excel in right-brained medicine, education systems should incorporate right-brained thinking. So far at Arapahoe, I haven’t crossed that path. Some of the labs involve a little bit and creativity and perspective, but I don’t have lab every day. In our lecture class for the past couple of weeks we have followed the same basic, left-brained process in learning about the body systems. We follow the same process, take notes, read an article and take a quiz. The knowledge of science is very left-brained; applying it requires the other side of the brain. Many countries in the world are using right-brained thinking to develop new kinds of medicine. In the past year the Swine Flu virus broke out, so many countries have been developing vaccines. China has developed one, as well as pharmacists in Switzerland, while Germans produce the vaccine. These countries had to use right-brained thinking to develop the vaccine which contains squalene or other oil in water adjuvants. The United States is competing with many other countries in medicine, which will lead to a rapid increase in medical technology throughout the world, which will benefit everyone.

Ushahidi: The Collaborative Program Changing Society

Cognitive surplus is the free time that people have on their hands to engage in collaborative activities. In his TED talk, Clay Shirky tells his audience that there are two types of cognitive surplus, communal and civic. While communal benefits the viewer and gives them information, civic cognitive surplus brings ideas together that benefits a large group of people…and that is changing society.

Shirky showcased some effective ways to broadcast his information. He started his TED talk by talking about the election crisis of Kenya in December of 2007. He told a story about the lawyer Ory Okolloh and how she had to find a way to keep her blog updated after the media blackout. This sets the tone, because people now want to listen in are thinking about how this relates to the topic. He talks about Ushahidi, the site that two programmers helped Okolloh create, and talked about its use in the world. Shirky said that it’s a crisis map and described how it’s used in Mexico, Washington D.C. and Haiti after the Earthquake. After his story he used his sly humor to show the other side of cognitive surplus; big cute cats with captions, known as lolcats. This part of his presentation was effective because he uses diversity by describing a serious site like Ushahidi, which helps society, and then shows a site with humorous cats. It also produced some laughs, which a speaker needs to keep the audience interested in his topic. Next he displayed a graph that showed data from a daycare centers in Israel and explained how it showed the deterrence theory, which states that if you want somebody to less of something, add a punishment and they’ll do less of it. It was interesting how the daycare center added a fine for the parents picking up their kids late; however, after the fines were removed, the parents still picked their children up late the same amount of time they did when the fees were installed. It really showed how human behavior works. He ended the presentation by nicely summarizing the two types of cognitive surplus; that lolcats are communal, by giving pleasure to the viewer, and Ushahidi is civic, because it improves society by bringing ideas together. He ended with a quote from Dean Keman, “Free cultures get what they celebrate." We've got a choice before us. We've got this trillion hours a year. We can use it to crack each other up, and we're going to do that. That, we get for free. But we can also celebrate and support and reward the people trying to use cognitive surplus to create civic value. And to the degree we're going to do that, to the degree we're able to do that, we'll be able to change society.”

In the world today we need more civic ideas that reflect and elaborate upon the idea of Ushahidi. One example of civic cognitive surplus is Wikipedia, an open data-warehouse that allows people to distribute their knowledge around the world. People use Wikipedia for free and can get the information they are looking for all on one site. Globally, technology has shifted how information is presented, to sites like Wikipedia that eliminate numerous sets of encyclopedias. Even though many people may argue about the accuracy of Wikipedia, it is continuously updated to remain current. If an encyclopedia is being produced, the minute it is published, it is behind the information that Wikipedia share. In another example of civic surplus, Ushahidi provides a strong connection to the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow; when Marcus becomes involved in exposing the DHS, he uses the Xnet to share his ideas. In this example of civic cognitive surplus, he can set up riots and protests, so everyone will know. When he started his Vampire mob, he set it up through the Xnet; and then, when he showed up the next morning to start it, thousands of people were by his side. The Xnet can be set up in a way that is similar to Ushahidi, when Marcus uses it to call to the people of San Francisco to help him take down the DHS.

Both types of cognitive thinking are important, but Shirky said that civic cognitive thinking is changing society. With our trillion hours a year, we can use them by watching videos and looking at pictures, or we can use them to create information for websites like Ushahidi, that will make a difference. For example, after I graduate from college, I hope to become a physician and specialize in medical research; I want to help people fight conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. My dad has rheumatoid arthritis and it has prevented him from doing a lot of things he loves; he used to be a big runner in his twenties, but because of his arthritis, it now hurts him to run. To help my dad, and the rest of the 40 million people with arthritis in the United States, Ushahidi or a similar program would be very beneficial. With Ushahidi I could publish all the research to a crisis map and show which city has the most people with arthritis, and which city has the most consistent weather, because arthritis pain increases when the weather changes more. Down the road, I could be diagnosed with arthritis - as it is in my genes - so the research would help in treating it. Another example is in states like Colorado - or anywhere in the Midwest - where school is at risk of closure in the winter, Ushahidi would help sort all the information. By showing which districts are closed, lengthy lists would be eliminated in searching for one district closure. It could also help buses find a better route if their usual route consists of more traffic or snow, once on the main roads. That way, kids will have a better chance of getting to school on time and it will eliminate snow day commotion. Currently, Ushahidi could be helping the world keep up with the tsunami/earthquake in Japan instead of hunting for information on Yahoo. By clicking on the map of Japan, you can get all the feeds and updates. Since the only way we can see the whole world is on a map, then crisis mapping is a great way to find information based on location. Because access to this information is free, this allows us to collaborate more easily, which is changing the way we get our information now, and in the future, and ultimately this is changing the world for the better.    

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Motivation, the act of going in a certain direction to achieve something; it occurs everywhere, in school, in the work world and even at home. Rewards keep us motivated, such as mowing the lawn means more allowance at home and doing an extra 15 question on the math homework results in ten extra credit points. Dan Pink’s TED talk defines the science of motivation and how we respond to different levels of rewards. You are probably thinking, the higher the reward the more it motivates people. It seems logical, but the world is just too complicated to confirm that logic.

In Dan Pink’s TED talk he follows the incentive, “There’s a mismatch in what science knows and business does.” To determine how we respond to the amount of reward, he used a series of experiments.  The first one he described was the candle problem; the objective is to find a way to get the candle on the wall without leaking wax on the table below by using thumbtacks and matches. Pink acknowledged the results in how the experiment was set up; if the thumb tacks were in the box, people trying to fix the problem would use critical thinking, that didn’t work. Many people tried to thumbtack the candles to the wall or use a match to melt some of the wax off, which would allow the candle to stick to the wall…both didn’t work. But when the setup of the experiment was modified, with the thumbtacks moved outside the box, the problem solvers immediately thumb-tacked the box to the wall and set the lit candle inside. It is interesting how the solution of this problem sounds so simple, but the power of the right side of our brain tends to glance over that solution. The experiment was setup left-brained because it shows only one solution. The second part of this experiment is when rewards come in to play; Pink said that when a reward coincides with the candle problem, people solved it three and half minutes slower. This didn’t quite make sense, but when I thought about it a little more and came up with a solution. If someone was writing a blog post for fun or for a contest (with a reward) which blog post would be better? The blog post done for fun is better because we have several perspectives and more motivation. Writing for fun also feels more relaxing, especially when you enjoy it. Writing for a contest keeps your mind glued to the thought of the reward, the piece might still be good, but it won’t be better because the brain still has one motivation, to win.

Dan Pink’s TED talk was very entertaining and included some strong, valid points. He started off his presentation with a joke that produced some laughs. He talked about how his biggest mistake was going to law school; he also made a comment that 90% were better at law than him. It got the crowd settled in and interested in what was coming up. Another comedic remark was, “I’m an American, I don’t believe in philosophy!” He then described the candle problem and the results behind it to show the positives and negatives of motivation and problem solving. This showed how different setups of the experiment produced different final products. The next experiment he presented consisted of students from MIT facing different challenges; it was effective because the results were very unpredictable. Pink said, “In eight of the nine tasks that we examined across the three experiments, higher incentives led to worse performances.” His voice was very strong throughout his TED talk, especially when he thought some information was very important or something he disagreed with. Pink’s visual background was useful because he presented the facts on the screen and wanted that information to stick in peoples’ mind. The end of his speech was the most effective part because he started his last three to four minutes explaining the three words autonomy, mastery and purpose. He showed how the words apply in the work world and gave examples of companies that apply them. He also said that incentive thinking and using the three words leads to better results among employees. He ended with the powerful words, “...we can change the world.”

Motivation is important, but in the way it is performed is what matters. With autonomy, mastery and purpose companies such as Google, Atlasian are starting to use the process of ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment). ROWE is more flexible and follows the status quo, “It doesn’t matter where, when or how long you work, as long as you get the work done.” This has been a big success; a software company called Atlasian in Australia has a 24-hour period where the employees are allowed to work on whatever they want. This may seem like a goof off time, but this is where the great ideas are created. Google also uses a similar process called 20 percent time; products like Gmail and Google News were developed in 20 percent time.

 When I think of this process in a school environment for myself, it sounds like homeschooling. Homeschooling is basically doing your work whenever, wherever and however as long as you meet the deadline. For me this does applies with my homework because I can do it whenever, wherever, but it doesn’t apply to however because I have to follow the left-brained system. Although the HOWE does apply to my dad. My dad works in IT and his office in Colorado Springs, but he can work at home because all of the people he works with live in Phoenix or San Francisco. His schedule is very flexible as long as he gets his work done. If this was installed in education then it would eliminate the state of public schooling. It wouldn’t work in school because you need lecture classes to teach and guide you in the subject. Also, a big part of public school is the social aspect; being with your friends, learning with your friends. If someone was home schooled, then they miss out socially unless they were involved in a lot of activities. In the world for businesses this is important to follow ROWE; it will raise the motivation of employees, it increases job loyalty and gets the work done. Pink says businesses need to do this, if every company has a 20 percent time, then the world would be filled with Gmail size ideas every day, the economy would be better and it would change the world.

There's More Than Duck and Cover

Nuclear bombs are demons of demolition and many countries around the world have followed the path of the United States in developing them. Only two have been dropped, but at this point in history the bombs have more detonation, so there is no chance of survival. Or is there? Are Bert the Turtle’s actions of duck and cover enough, or will we have to go further to protect ourselves from the deadly blast and the radiation that follows? A TED talk by Irwin Redlener, explains the status of nuclear bombs throughout history and today, and what can be done to survive one today.

This video makes you worried about the capabilities of an atomic bomb, but I am more worried that the wacko communists and terrorist might detonate a bomb that could end the human race. There have always been speculations of a World War III, but we can’t have it happen. Redlener says, “These weapons can destroy the Earth over and over again.” Even though our role in the Middle East has gotten old, we need to keep an eye on them so their blueprints don’t have the two words “nuclear” and “bomb” on them.  It is scary enough that our enemies have thousands of atomic bombs, but the fact that ANYONE with access to a computer can find directions to create an atomic bomb. Although a true American citizen hopefully wouldn’t build an atomic bomb and detonate it, there might be someone in another country that will.  Although the tension of nuclear war has decreased, there is still a slight worry in peoples’ minds of the possibility of a fatal nuclear war. As Redlener says, “We survived an apocalypse during the Cold War,” but I don’t think we can survive another one. The tension might not seem as great as it did during the fourteen days of October in the Sixties, but one blast is all it takes to set the world on fire.
Irwin Redlener had an effective style, it wasn’t as humorous as Sir Ken Robinson’s, but he kept it clean and stayed to the facts. Redlener used a PowerPoint to deliver his presentation because he probably wanted people to see and read the important information. The visual concepts were useful because more right-brained people tend to comprehend this type of information more effectively. He also showed “Duck and Cover” which was a video produced in the fifties, showing children how to protect themselves from a nuclear explosion. Since I watched the video in history class, I predicted that Redlener would have included it in his presentation because you just can’t have a topic about atomic bombs and not include it. “Duck and Cover” couldn’t elude a few laughs from the crowd because of how ridiculous it sounds when explaining how a student’s desk will protect them from a nuclear blast. To demonstrate the sizes and differences between the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Redlener used a cabbage and a pack of Coke. This was a very important because many people have only seen pictures of the bomb. He also showed a simulation and process of how New York could be attacked by a ten kiloton nuclear bomb (slightly smaller than the one dropped on Hiroshima). Someone could build a bomb using the internet or even a book, and rent a truck and easily drive it to the city. If they detonated the bomb it would destroy almost all of New York and the rest that wasn’t affected, could be at risk of radiation. This was important because we need to be aware of threat and power nuclear bombs pose.

Redlener describes how powerful these bombs are but there are ways to survive the blast. The temperature inside the center of the blast is tens of millions of degrees and people right near the bomb would be instantly vaporized. Also if a person looks at the blast when they are within a close distance they will be blinded temporarily or permanently. From one-half to eight miles from the blast there is a chance of dying. If you are far enough away from the bomb you only need to evacuate one mile away. The best way to survive is to evacuate to a shelter, it is suggested that you need to stay for 48-72 hours minimum or wait until you are called to exit. After reading Hiroshima, I have an idea of the pain and horror a nuclear bomb brings. I don’t want to go through the pain that the people of Japan did. I don’t think they would want anyone to go through the pain they did. Even if I survived a nuclear bomb the trauma behind it all would never leave me. My friends and family could have turned the wrong corner and I would never see them again. In a time during the Cold War when a detonation seemed likely, it was best that they told children to duck and cover because it made them feel safe, it took some of the thought of nuclear bombs off their minds. Today I think it is best that adults and teenager know the truth about bombs and the ways we can protect ourselves. Children should be isolated from the horrifying descriptions, but educated through games or activities how to protect themselves. Then, once they are old enough to deal with the scare, they should be told the truth. In today’s world, nuclear bombs are a threat; even in 1985 there were 65,000 nuclear warheads. That might not seem like a lot, but when that’s compared to the number of nuclear bombs dropped, it is astronomical. Today the number of bombs is 70,000, but it could only take one to end the world. The biggest fears are North Korea and the terrorists, since the terrorist’s have attacked our country, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they did it at another time with an even bigger impact. North Korea has threatened us with a nuclear bomb, even though they are significantly smaller, they are very dogmatic and they might be serious. In case war does break out, always remember…duck and cover!