just to start it is so cool to be a part
of the Ted experience I think that it is
deeply inspiring to see people flock to
ideas people to come see new ideas and
fresh ideas and being a part of Ted is
also a really really cool experience and
very inspirational to hear a lot of new
ideas but the last three weeks have been
very very difficult for me because of
this poster at Shanghai American school
this poster has been plastered
everywhere and that’s created some
interesting dilemmas for me because six
to eight times a day I get asked by
students and colleagues hey Seema what’s
your TED talk about and I believe so
passionately in the experience of Ted
that I entertained that idea and I go
well in a nutshell it’s about education
and how we probably need to fix a lot of
things within education and they go wait
you’re a teacher shouldn’t you just be a
constant champion of Education and I say
yeah yeah hold on and then I have to
explain a lot more I have to explain the
idea that we’ve all been students and
raise your hand if you’ve ever been
bored in a classroom raise your hand if
you’ve ever been bored in my classroom
so okay you can do that that’s fine
that’s fine
and so then the person goes why he would
you create this self admittance of this
boredom guilt and I go don’t worry don’t
worry I’m getting similar I’m getting
somewhere we all spend a good chunk of
our life in secondary education and to
be perfectly honest with
you some of it is not applicable in fact
when you ask your friends and you ask
peers how much of their secondary
education applies to their current
career the numbers are pretty staggering
I did this all summer it was really fun
some people say five percent the highest
that I got in my informal survey was
thirty percent yes a human being told me
that 30 percent of their high school and
college career applied to their current
job that’s ridiculous that’s a shame
right so how can we maximize secondary
education and now the person who I’m
explaining this TED talk to they go well
you got to have a hook what’s your hook
nice meaty hook and I go well that’s
easy man Donald Trump Donald Trump’s my
hook because Donald Trump is so relevant
to this conversation currently I don’t
know if you’ve been reading the news
Donald Trump is the chief executive of
the United States he is president and
surprisingly he has this much political
experience that’s deeply fascinating to
me because that also supports this idea
that secondary education needs to be
maximized at a much higher level granted
there’s not at a class called president
101 that he could take right but the
notion here is that how much do we
really need to get into the career that
we want and how many of us are like
Trump where we occupy a position that we
weren’t really trained for and we learn
on the fly we learn as we go because
that’s dynamic and that’s formative and
they go okay that’s pretty good hook
that’s not bad
when you say Trump people are gonna be
like okay
so then I share a little bit of my story
with them I’m a teacher I love teaching
and when I was a kid I just got really
lucky
I liked algebra I liked history I
thought it was just intrinsically
fascinating to learn stuff about stuff
well that’s not the common experience
for most people in fact some people
you’ve all admitted have maybe been
bored in a classroom why it’s obvious
it’s not applicable to you you maybe
haven’t been driven to care or maybe
you’re absolutely right you’re never
gonna use it again all that fancy
algebra all that fancy history that
you’ve been learning guess what you
might never dust it off and it might not
be applicable to any job that you’ll
ever have and you kind of push back a
little bit this is when the person goes
well yeah but you know I was kind of
learning how to read and figuring things
out and that’s not a good enough
argument that’s a byproduct right so how
can we laser focus that idea and then
they go well yeah what’s your idea what
are you going to tell the people what
are you gonna offer well I have a
proposal the proposal is that secondary
education in the United States and
throughout the world pairs down classes
and instead provides students the
opportunity to do small-scale
internships to see the world could you
imagine what that would be like as a
high school kid instead of going through
three years of math maybe two instead of
going through three years of history
maybe one and instead be given the
opportunity to see what actual real
people do in the real world how cool
would it be to spend three days with a
graphic artist two weeks with a criminal
lawyer maybe even three months with the
biologists now make no mistake about it
I’m not trying to tear down education
maybe you actually like biology and
maybe that’s your feel
of choice but there kind of goes history
to the side now right and maybe we
should try to get you in that field
early because this is really important
you all have a prefrontal cortex it’s a
fantastic invention and it allows you to
predict the future as our good buddy Dan
Gilbert would tell us the example that
he uses is think about this predict what
liver and onions ice cream would taste
like you have a prefrontal cortex and
you can do that but guess what we do to
kids we say what do you want to be when
you grow up well there’s no context we
haven’t exposed them to anything and
maybe if you took enough history courses
you would say I don’t know a historian
as a kid I was exposed to school so when
asked what I wanted to be when I was 18
I said I don’t know more school stuff I
guess I’ll just be a teacher and I again
got super lucky because I love what I do
but there’s a lot of people who didn’t
get lucky and they have to change their
careers in fact the average person in
the United States changes careers four
to five years in 1970 it was 2 to 3 and
current research tells us that 21
percent of US graduates in college feel
unprepared for the workforce so let’s
get kids out into the real world let’s
make that experience better for them and
if they did 10 small-scale internships
imagine if you asked them what they
wanted to be at age 18 I don’t think
it’s crazy to allow kids to make an
informed choice about their life because
the alternative is like the rest of us
in the audience remember what it felt
like when we were kids remember what it
felt like when we were
would it be great to give kids a better
opportunity and now the person’s really
into it they’re like okay cool I’m on
board I want that opportunity that’d be
great and I don’t think it’d be that
hard to do right right so they say how
are you gonna close it what are you
gonna do and I say well I’m gonna I’m
gonna take everybody through this little
exercise and they’re gonna find a
shoulder partner and they’re gonna ask
their shoulder partner what’s worth
learning and they say wow that’s a
really good idea what do you expect to
be the results and I say I expect the
result to be something entirely
different for every single person and
that represents the dilemma that we have
in education right the idea that it
needs to be more individualized and
people need to be able to make informed
decisions about the rest of their lives
because they may not be as lucky as me
and love what they do and then the
person usually says that’s cool that
sounds great I think that’ll be a good
TED talk and I hope it inspires change
thank you [Applause]
of the Ted experience I think that it is
deeply inspiring to see people flock to
ideas people to come see new ideas and
fresh ideas and being a part of Ted is
also a really really cool experience and
very inspirational to hear a lot of new
ideas but the last three weeks have been
very very difficult for me because of
this poster at Shanghai American school
this poster has been plastered
everywhere and that’s created some
interesting dilemmas for me because six
to eight times a day I get asked by
students and colleagues hey Seema what’s
your TED talk about and I believe so
passionately in the experience of Ted
that I entertained that idea and I go
well in a nutshell it’s about education
and how we probably need to fix a lot of
things within education and they go wait
you’re a teacher shouldn’t you just be a
constant champion of Education and I say
yeah yeah hold on and then I have to
explain a lot more I have to explain the
idea that we’ve all been students and
raise your hand if you’ve ever been
bored in a classroom raise your hand if
you’ve ever been bored in my classroom
so okay you can do that that’s fine
that’s fine
and so then the person goes why he would
you create this self admittance of this
boredom guilt and I go don’t worry don’t
worry I’m getting similar I’m getting
somewhere we all spend a good chunk of
our life in secondary education and to
be perfectly honest with
you some of it is not applicable in fact
when you ask your friends and you ask
peers how much of their secondary
education applies to their current
career the numbers are pretty staggering
I did this all summer it was really fun
some people say five percent the highest
that I got in my informal survey was
thirty percent yes a human being told me
that 30 percent of their high school and
college career applied to their current
job that’s ridiculous that’s a shame
right so how can we maximize secondary
education and now the person who I’m
explaining this TED talk to they go well
you got to have a hook what’s your hook
nice meaty hook and I go well that’s
easy man Donald Trump Donald Trump’s my
hook because Donald Trump is so relevant
to this conversation currently I don’t
know if you’ve been reading the news
Donald Trump is the chief executive of
the United States he is president and
surprisingly he has this much political
experience that’s deeply fascinating to
me because that also supports this idea
that secondary education needs to be
maximized at a much higher level granted
there’s not at a class called president
101 that he could take right but the
notion here is that how much do we
really need to get into the career that
we want and how many of us are like
Trump where we occupy a position that we
weren’t really trained for and we learn
on the fly we learn as we go because
that’s dynamic and that’s formative and
they go okay that’s pretty good hook
that’s not bad
when you say Trump people are gonna be
like okay
so then I share a little bit of my story
with them I’m a teacher I love teaching
and when I was a kid I just got really
lucky
I liked algebra I liked history I
thought it was just intrinsically
fascinating to learn stuff about stuff
well that’s not the common experience
for most people in fact some people
you’ve all admitted have maybe been
bored in a classroom why it’s obvious
it’s not applicable to you you maybe
haven’t been driven to care or maybe
you’re absolutely right you’re never
gonna use it again all that fancy
algebra all that fancy history that
you’ve been learning guess what you
might never dust it off and it might not
be applicable to any job that you’ll
ever have and you kind of push back a
little bit this is when the person goes
well yeah but you know I was kind of
learning how to read and figuring things
out and that’s not a good enough
argument that’s a byproduct right so how
can we laser focus that idea and then
they go well yeah what’s your idea what
are you going to tell the people what
are you gonna offer well I have a
proposal the proposal is that secondary
education in the United States and
throughout the world pairs down classes
and instead provides students the
opportunity to do small-scale
internships to see the world could you
imagine what that would be like as a
high school kid instead of going through
three years of math maybe two instead of
going through three years of history
maybe one and instead be given the
opportunity to see what actual real
people do in the real world how cool
would it be to spend three days with a
graphic artist two weeks with a criminal
lawyer maybe even three months with the
biologists now make no mistake about it
I’m not trying to tear down education
maybe you actually like biology and
maybe that’s your feel
of choice but there kind of goes history
to the side now right and maybe we
should try to get you in that field
early because this is really important
you all have a prefrontal cortex it’s a
fantastic invention and it allows you to
predict the future as our good buddy Dan
Gilbert would tell us the example that
he uses is think about this predict what
liver and onions ice cream would taste
like you have a prefrontal cortex and
you can do that but guess what we do to
kids we say what do you want to be when
you grow up well there’s no context we
haven’t exposed them to anything and
maybe if you took enough history courses
you would say I don’t know a historian
as a kid I was exposed to school so when
asked what I wanted to be when I was 18
I said I don’t know more school stuff I
guess I’ll just be a teacher and I again
got super lucky because I love what I do
but there’s a lot of people who didn’t
get lucky and they have to change their
careers in fact the average person in
the United States changes careers four
to five years in 1970 it was 2 to 3 and
current research tells us that 21
percent of US graduates in college feel
unprepared for the workforce so let’s
get kids out into the real world let’s
make that experience better for them and
if they did 10 small-scale internships
imagine if you asked them what they
wanted to be at age 18 I don’t think
it’s crazy to allow kids to make an
informed choice about their life because
the alternative is like the rest of us
in the audience remember what it felt
like when we were kids remember what it
felt like when we were
would it be great to give kids a better
opportunity and now the person’s really
into it they’re like okay cool I’m on
board I want that opportunity that’d be
great and I don’t think it’d be that
hard to do right right so they say how
are you gonna close it what are you
gonna do and I say well I’m gonna I’m
gonna take everybody through this little
exercise and they’re gonna find a
shoulder partner and they’re gonna ask
their shoulder partner what’s worth
learning and they say wow that’s a
really good idea what do you expect to
be the results and I say I expect the
result to be something entirely
different for every single person and
that represents the dilemma that we have
in education right the idea that it
needs to be more individualized and
people need to be able to make informed
decisions about the rest of their lives
because they may not be as lucky as me
and love what they do and then the
person usually says that’s cool that
sounds great I think that’ll be a good
TED talk and I hope it inspires change
thank you [Applause]
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