Interesting video. I wonder what effect it would have on students in US schools who are not interested in learning.I also recall some study that found out that computer access at home for lower class students in the US made no difference on their academic achievement, because they used it for videos and the like, not on material which would enhance educational achievement. So much for the digital divide. Which brings forth one of the points of the talk: children will learn what they want to learn.
I have not spent a lot of time on Ted talks. Hans Rosling Shows the Best Stats You've Ever Seen is about the only the Ted talk I know, perhaps because it parallels an interest of mine. Some years back I did a lot of investigation of infant mortality, fertility rate, education enrollment, and such data, at a time when it was found in books, not online.
I found out that Pinochet’s Chile had a superior record to Castro’s Cuba in reducing infant mortality, in spite of having half the physicians per capita that Cuba did. When I pointed that out to a bunch of Sandalistas who had gathered to mourn Ortega’s electoral defeat in Nicaragua back in 1990, one said that I would get beat up if I kept mentioning such information. Considering that person had recited a "revolutionary" poem full of bloody images, that was not so much a surprise.
I think the group interaction was perhaps part of the education. The setting of puzzles and giving encouragement also steers one away from pure entertainment.
Your revolutionary friend sounds like quite the peace-lover. As I often point out in my tribal discussions, people factor in the personal equation when they decide whether someone is dangerous or not. If they are not dangerous to me - if they are likely to hurt other people but leave me alone, then they are seen as less dangerous than someone actually less violent, but a danger to me. Liberals tend to see union thugs, environmentalists, and anti-globalists as not very dangerous, while opponents, who threaten their status, are imagined as violent. See Tea Parties. Abroad, as they are underrepresented in the military, they tend to underestimate the danger of foreign enemies.
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You might like this:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2010/09/08/134-the-ted-conference/
Ouch
Interesting video. I wonder what effect it would have on students in US schools who are not interested in learning.I also recall some study that found out that computer access at home for lower class students in the US made no difference on their academic achievement, because they used it for videos and the like, not on material which would enhance educational achievement. So much for the digital divide. Which brings forth one of the points of the talk: children will learn what they want to learn.
I have not spent a lot of time on Ted talks. Hans Rosling Shows the Best Stats You've Ever Seen is about the only the Ted talk I know, perhaps because it parallels an interest of mine. Some years back I did a lot of investigation of infant mortality, fertility rate, education enrollment, and such data, at a time when it was found in books, not online.
I found out that Pinochet’s Chile had a superior record to Castro’s Cuba in reducing infant mortality, in spite of having half the physicians per capita that Cuba did. When I pointed that out to a bunch of Sandalistas who had gathered to mourn Ortega’s electoral defeat in Nicaragua back in 1990, one said that I would get beat up if I kept mentioning such information. Considering that person had recited a "revolutionary" poem full of bloody images, that was not so much a surprise.
I think the group interaction was perhaps part of the education. The setting of puzzles and giving encouragement also steers one away from pure entertainment.
Your revolutionary friend sounds like quite the peace-lover. As I often point out in my tribal discussions, people factor in the personal equation when they decide whether someone is dangerous or not. If they are not dangerous to me - if they are likely to hurt other people but leave me alone, then they are seen as less dangerous than someone actually less violent, but a danger to me. Liberals tend to see union thugs, environmentalists, and anti-globalists as not very dangerous, while opponents, who threaten their status, are imagined as violent. See Tea Parties. Abroad, as they are underrepresented in the military, they tend to underestimate the danger of foreign enemies.
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