Caroline Casey: Looking Past Limits

Caroline Casey is legally blind.  She was diagnosed with ocular albinism as a child, but her parents didn't tell her until she was seventeen and the eye doctor broke the news to her.  She never went to a special school, or took any special classes, or was ever treated differently because her vision wasn't all there. Casey grew up wanting to drive motorcars and believed she could... Even after she was told the news she still kept her dream of wanting to learn how to drive on her seventeenth birthday.  After she learned of her disability, Casey went onto college and got a couple degrees, then became a global management consultant at a pretty large company.  One day, her eyes just gave out. She was forced to ask for help from others, saying she just couldn't see.  The people sent her to an eye doctor, who was actually more of a therapist.  "What do you want to be?" Casey didn't exactly know when she was asked... She went home and went for a run on her regular route, but ran into a rock that she had never hit before. She cried and cried until she ran back home, sat down with her favorite book, and decided she would be an elephant handler.  She didn't know how she would, but she was going to handle elephants in India, and she did, raising enough money for many, many eye surgeries for others.  Casey came back and became an activist for the disabled and has achieved so much just because she believed.  The way Caroline Casey persevered despite her disability proves that if you just believe in yourself, and you are being the real you, you can pretty much achieve anything, despite the roadblocks which might pop up. This philosophy of just being you, and back could improve the lives of many. Like laughter clubs, just accepting yourself and looking at yourself positively could help bring people into their own and reach the levels of high touch and high concept that Dan Pink talks about throughout his A Whole New Mind.  Casey's belief that because she knew she could do something, then she would succeed.  So, that brings me to the question, is success all in the mind? According to Casey, you only need to be yourself, and believe that you can do something to do it... Looking at many cases, I think Casey is pretty much correct, it all goes back to perspective on how one handles a situation.  Casey engaged the audience by speaking in different tones of voice when needed and she used hand gestures well to get her point across. Although she couldn't see the audience, she complimented them, calling the men "George Clooneys" and the women beautiful.  She used a story, which was the majority of the talk.   Her story was primarily positive and inspiring from the beginning, which I think, helped the audience stay engaged a bit.  Caroline Casey gave an interesting and engaging TED Talk despite the hardships she had to overcome to do so.

Dave Eggers' Wish: Once Upon a School

Dave Eggers' TED Talk really summed up many of the concepts in A Whole New Mind.  His idea to begin tutoring kids in the community for free and just to make the community's children more adept at English skills. This idea spread all over the country and now there are multiple "hidden" tutoring centers in areas that need them.  The fact that they are in an outside, somewhat silly, relaxed setting makes the process of homework much easier.  I think that if I had a center like that with great tutors and other kids around in a fun place, I would do my homework so much sooner; Not only because I have the resources right there at my disposal, but because there wouldn't be nearly as many distractions like Facebook, the newest episode of Glee, texting, or taking a nap.  Centers like Eggers' are vital to many kids' learning and progression towards eventual graduation and mastery of the English language. If centers like that popped up in not only cities with many minorities and families with English as a second language, more children would benefit from this one-on-one stimulation.  Relating back to the first sentence, I believe that this approach to learning has many of the same aspects that Pink discusses in AWNM.  It relates to design because of the interesting physical environment in which the children are tutored, but also in the one-on-one setup in which the tutors cater to the kids. This is all a good example of design on Eggers' part.  He told the audience about this idea through a story.  The story of how it all developed and is now helping kids nationally learn to write.  He employs symphony when he brings everything together, the children learning in both the classroom, tutoring center, and in workshops, and the expansion of the entire program.  This shows the big picture, over all the little bits that make it what it is.  Eggers' entire idea was spawned out of empathy.  They felt for the teachers and students who were struggling with writing, and then they decided to lend their creative and experienced hand at writing to help the kids learn.  Play is put into the picture with the entire funny joke-ish store front that each tutoring center is hiding behind. This adds a bit of silliness to the learning environment to make the children more comfortable to engage in writing creatively or not. Meaning is inputted into this idea when the children actually take off with the skills they learn and when other centers begin popping up in other cities, like they did in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. It is rather interesting how applicable to everyday situations, such as this, that the principles Pink discusses are.
The way that Eggers engaged his audience was an interesting and different one to say the least.  Compared to other speakers, Eggers was exceptionally nervous... And he let his audience know that he was.  I think he did this to make the audience feel more comfortable and just to let them know honestly from the beginning that Eggers might slip up a bit from nerves. He also inserted random bit lets of his own humor, which further comforted and engaged the audience.  He used the background to project pictures of his program mostly to give people an idea of what they should be visualizing.  Eggers also used a quote and story example from a child who went through the program and really exemplified the results.  I believe he actively engaged his audience, including me.

Sam Richards: A radical experiment in empathy

With the recent death of Osama Bin Laden, I think this was an interesting TED talk for me to choose.  Although the man was horrible and definitely has a place in Hell because of the horrible acts he committed, I'm sure he had someone who cared at least a measly bit about him.  My church pastor sent out an E-mail this morning concerning that issue exactly, and I don't want to preach, but what he said in the email was essentially one of empathy and how we shouldn't hate our enemies, yada yada.  I think this really relates to what Sam Richards addressed in his talk from October last year.  Richards is a sociologist and professor at Penn State University.  He attempted to put the audience into the shoes of a normal Iraqi citizen in today's times. This seemingly forced empathy put me at least, in a position of guilt... After all, a lot the media and government lead us Americans to believe that invading Iraq for primarily oil is alright, and that killing hundreds of thousands of civilians is okay.  Although the Iraqi citizens are seen as the American enemy, we as fellow humans need to learn to at least empathize with the people not involved with the terror and killings.  Richards proves the point that it is difficult for people to understand and relate to their enemies, although that may be the only way we achieve a peaceful world.  He also says that the only way to understand sociology, the study of society, people, and how they are all interconnected to make the bigger picture, is empathy.  If we can empathize with other people, we can further our understanding of others and their motivations.  For example, a bank robber may steal from other people and potentially hurt those involved, they could be doing it for their family's well-being or just to simply survive.  When one takes the time to listen and empathize with another person, they begin to understand that person, even though they may not agree with them. In his TED Talk, Sam Richards engaged the audience with a lot of pictures which backed up his reasoning, and brought the audience into the world he wanted them to empathize with.  He also pretty much forced the audience to immerse themselves in what the Iraqi person thinks and feels everyday, and that alone caught my attention, and most likely the others in the audience.  He defined important words on the screen behind him, like crusade, and that showed the multiple meanings and most importantly the meaning of the word to the Iraqi people.  He used an analogy at the beginning of the talk to get people into the correct mindset of someone living in an unfairly militarized area.  Richards also used a lot of repetition towards the end to solidify his message to the audience.  He employed quotes to back up his over all idea.  Over all, Sam Richards made a convincing and relevant talk concerning empathy in the world.