TED Community » Edwin Nazarian

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• A reply on Conversation: What's one thing you wish you had learned in school?

  Nov 3 2011: Hi Carima, ... Sorry to say, but I haven't got an website yet. I am looking forward to get one. I use facebook as well, if you want to contact me, please feel free to do so, and don't hesitate.

• A comment on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Nov 2 2011: Hi Anwar Kamal
  
  what I write has nothing to do with the question you have asked. my writings are about "everything" - Living a life of everything, it come because of living in different cultures, such as North European and South Eurpean, (and others in between). I compare the differences between them and me as total stranger for them. I haven't though of a title, maybe one day when I get all of them together, it will possibly be about how to be mentaly flexible to live in defferent culture and be loved by them.

• A reply on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Nov 2 2011: Hi Colleen.
  Let me answer to your last question first. Why do I have two TED accounts? I think when I opened the first one, I thought I did something wrong and I didn’t have time to follow all the way through as I am not good in computing science. And I haven’t finished with filling in the account I use now. I would be glad if someone could help me to know how to delete one.
  
  Your second question was about whether I help people unconditionally as I say and believe in.
  To me the word “help” means giving-a-hand-to-another-person-who-needs-it (this isn’t from any English dictionary). To my understanding people ask for help when they need a help and not when they want. And here it comes, the helping-others-to-meet-their-needs. Even if it is just a simple smile, a nice word, a piece of advice, a meal or even a place to overnight, I giving without asking.
  I might sound a bit strange in this era, but all this comes from my background.
  
  What did Jesus Christ, Buddha, Lao Tze, Henry D Thoreau, Ralth W Emerson, M Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. N. Mandela teach us? HUMANITY! HOSPITALITY! LOVE! PEACE! I believe. How many of us live the way of life they showed us?
  
  I think we went far from asked question. :-)

• A comment on Conversation: What's one thing you wish you had learned in school?

  Nov 2 2011: I wish schools could teach us verbal and non-verbal communication skills which will help us to understand people’s behaviour and deal with all kinds. Once we were taught these skills we could apply them in our daily life in and out of school. It is still not late, because I believe good communication skills are very essential in everyday's personal and professional lives, and this will stop physical fights and bulling between the students. They will start to talk and that will possibly make them to be good negotiators, leaders, communicators.
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  A reply on Conversation: What's one thing you wish you had learned in school?

  Nov 2 2011: I do agree you all say that, and you also know that it isn’t always teachers’ fault. What would you say about a home-work that is copied from a site? It is easy nowadays to do any homework or to write a thesis or an essay, all you do, is going to Google and find what you need and this doesn’t help you to know a thing. I am not against you because it is easy to do and move on because you got a lot of subject to study.
  
  We used to go to library to get a lot of books to read in order to write an essay. who does it nowadays? (maybe only a few) What we have now is, RICH ANSWERS and POOR QUESTIONS. thanks to search machines.
  
  And many teachers aren’t trained the way you expect them to be. They know the subject; this means they can teach that it more than enough for government to hire them. Some of them are simply doing their job to get some salary, and some of them are really into teaching.
  Now, I can recommend you to read some materials of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). It will help you to know how human’s brain functions and once you know it you will know how to use your brain to learn. As you have noticed already the NLP is all about the HOW.
  When I ask a teacher: “Can you teach a student how to learn what you want to teach them?” Unfortunately they don’t have the answer, because they are not trained so. I teach teachers how to teach and students how to learn; introducing them NLP techniques for education.
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  A reply on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Nov 1 2011: Hi Tishe Hires
  
  No, I am not selling any book, but if you mean whether I write a book or not, the answer is: Yes, I do.

• A reply on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Nov 1 2011: Hi Colleen, Thanks for you note. I agree you said that and the only thing I would add is that people are happy when they meet their needs, you do think that too, don't you? When a parent helps her/his child to meet his/her needs, doesn’t that make the child be happy? I do believe that parents are happy seeing their child’s being happy. Is a mother's function conditional? And we are all parents and children, so we can make each other happy in a way we can, can’t we? Sometimes even your presence can make others happy, isn't it unconditional in your heart and mind? you do nothing but just being there with them. you give them what they need without asking anything in return. Thanks

• A comment on Conversation: What is the goal of education?

  Oct 31 2011: Today's education is tomorrow's passport. your future doesn't start from tomorrow, it starts today. only readers can be leaders. Reader - Leader .... So read to lead. you can lead your life in a diraction you think is best for you.
  
  I teacher and I tell to my students to forget about grades and notes and I help them to understand the importance of education and knowledge (which doesn't require space). I help them to be smart beyond measure. (it turns out to be more coaching than teaching) but I think as a teacher we must listen more and talk less, this is one of the key of teaching. in the end they perform better than it is asked ... they get highly motivated by their success which is a bonus for university and society. we NEED well educated people for our future.

• A comment on Conversation: What can we do to get our intelligentsia to focus on the major problems of our time?

  Oct 31 2011: We focus our attention on the problems because it is smaller than the solutions and it is right in front of us and the solutions are far away, so we don’t want to travel to get there because it frightens us. We somehow feel comfortable to sit around and deal with it (until is gone/forgotten) or we point a finger and blame someone and expect them to fix it. It’s our human Nature. I believe that the intelligence has nothing (or maybe little) to do with that. And after all, since our childhood we are being programmed to be so. This kind of attitude comes from exterior information we get every day. If you don’t believe me, do me a favour. Take any random newspaper and TV program and have a good look, does any of these informative media talk about solutions. If not, then how do you expect that our brain process as a solution finder?
  
  It is hard to say how we can re-install our attitude and start to think about solutions. But I think if we start to look at ourselves as a third person we might become aware of what we really want to do for us. And start to change ourselves which possible will change our attitude and beliefs and this might re-install our brain.
  
  Imagine you are God (third person) and you watch us from up there, what we actually do on earth and to earth and to each other, wouldn't that make you laugh at us?
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  A comment on Conversation: If you have discovered something you are passionate about, how did you discover that thing?

  Oct 31 2011: To get passionate at first one has to find out what one loves most. It’s not an easy thing to do. Some people can spend X years, chasing all sorts of things and yet not knowing what exactly they want to do with their lives. Some people go to University and study something because their parents want them to study or they friends study and they want to study the same (this counts for sport as well). in this way they think they can discover what they love, but during that time either they start to love it or they get bored. “Seek and ya shall find” isn’t always working, because one can seek and seek.
  
  To me there were two things to find out: INSPIRATION and DESPERATION (only these two make me to take actions.)
  I simply ask myself:
  for INSPIRATION – How loud a telephone has to be before it let me know that it needs to be answered?
  for DESPERATION – How uncomfortable my chair (situation) has to be to let me know that I have to leave?
  
  Then I start to ACT, and the funniest thing is that I discover something that I am passionate about and get inspired when I do nothing “important”, such as cycling, walking, travelling, etc.
  
  Sometimes we get hold back because of FEAR of UNKNOWN, fear of losing or just because someone tells us we can’t do it. NOTHING VANTURED NOTHING GAINED! No pain no gain.
  
  Let me remind us some power words
  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us”
  By Marianne Williamson