Ali Carr-Chellman TED Talk

Ali's TED Talk, I think, has been the best one that I have seen yet. This was mostly because I agreed a lot with what she had to say, but also because what she was saying so SO deep and IMPORTANT, I almost felt like I needed to help the effort myself! Basically, she talked about the disconnection of boys from school. There were a few reasons for this. One, was because of zero tolerance. This means boys not being able to express what they want to in school, because their ideas are so called "not appropriate". Video games, violence, and that type of stuff is definitely not present in girls the way it is in guys. This makes guys feel like they are rejected and that school is a "girls thing" which essentially demotivates guys and makes them do worse in school! I mean, why has no one realized this yet!?!?!?! These things are what a typical boy IS and what they THINK about. Video games seem like a very general part of a boys life, but when introduced to teachers and others, the boys' ideas are REJECTED. Also, she made a point about how more boys today are taking less interest in writing. This is because the things that they want to write about are no longer accepted and the things that the teacher wants them to write are the things that they have to write! The second reason was fewer male teachers. Throughout history, our male teachers are slowly fading away, again making school look like a girls thing to guys. But not only this is happening. Male teachers acting like roll models for young men is a HUGE important thing for the future development of maturity. When a young boy starts to see nice, composed, older men who are smart, and have dedication, the boys look up to them and finally get the click in their heads at a certain age to change. A lot of this change is not happening because of this, causing more behavior problems, and less hope in boys. The third reason that Ali had was that Kindergarten is the new second grade. As you and me may have noticed, all of todays education wants to be at the top, so things that used to be learned in second grade are now standards in kindergarten. This is definitely going to lead to some problems. Not only will students at a young age have more stress, but we will eventually get to a level where it will almost become impossible for the kids to catch up! For me, elementary school was more of a life skills teaching environment, where you learned to work with other kids, and how to manage different things. Now since I have a younger brother, his elementary "life skills" environment is being replaced by much more academics and "you have to learn this and that" stuff. This overall leads to kids not learning the skills that they needed to, when they needed to. The answer to all of these problems, were a few smart ideas made by Ali. Designing better games (that involve education and can be very entertaining), talking to teachers and everyone involved with the problem to get them to come to their senses too, and to find more money for this type of game design. Hopefully, these ideas will get spread around because I COMPLETELY agree with everything that Ali said and I think she has some of the most important ideas that we have seen yet. This TED Talk was AMAZING and I hope to learn even more!