TED Community » Robert Jeep

More About Me

I'm passionate about

I believe the education system in my country needs an absurd amount of work, I feel as though I am one of the many millions of people who have been failed by this system and I intend to fix that.

An idea worth spreading

I get a lot of motivation through the music I listen to and I believe that is where I need to start. I believe the true Hip-Hop culture in this country is the major group with a common thought and goal. These extremely talented artists sing about freedom, equality and peace and they do it so that their listeners both hear and listen to the music.
I would like to try to connect these artists and the educators who really try to reach kids. I believe that with the proper blend of music and information these two powerhouses of our culture could redesign an education system that allows kids to learn the way they want all while allowing them to become physically active. I assure you no child wants to sit in a desk for 8 hours trying to pay attention to lectures that they do not care about. For any one who reads this, I believe a good example of this is categorized with "underground rap" where the message these artists try to spread are Love, family, legacy and self awareness.

Talk to me about

Anything and everything, I love learning and trying new things I am not good at. My major burden is not that I want to be the best at one thing, but to be really good at everything.

People don't know that I'm good at

Writing, listening, arbitration, daydreaming

My TED Story

I saw a documentary on Netflix last week after I wrote a blurb about the current conditions of our, education, religious, economical and social status. I am unhappy about the current situation and I intend to do whatever I can to fix it. I am joining because I would like to share my ideas and to gather other ideas from like minded folks who share the common thought.

Comments

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  A comment on Conversation: Nintendo Wii, Facebook and Tiny Wings: valuable educational tools or addictive, time-wasting activities?

  May 5 2012: This is a great question in today's world. Since video games are really just computers for kids they learn interfacing soooo much faster than adults now. I would agree that a couple of years ago video games taught lots of kids, addiction and hand eye coordination, Violence and heroism, and in reality probably more than their teachers only because they wanted to do this and learn from it.
  Sure video games are a great waste of time but these kids get so wrapped up in the story that maybe this is the best way to teach history and I would say now with Kinect and wii and all the motion gaming, the laziness goes out the window. I believe we need to start interrelating all subjects and avenues because clearly no one learns exactly the same so it seems the burden of learning is solely on the individual and if video games streamline that so be it.
  Now should we plead with the video game developers to produce educational games, or start our own companies to do this?
  I am reminded of the story of a Harlem grade school teacher that could tell her kids were not picking up math so she wrote rap songs about math and the kids not only learned them but wanted to. We have all these great ways of sharing information, it just seems like we don't often "cross pollinate".

• A reply on Conversation: What is more important: Our drugs or our ecosystems?

  May 5 2012: So I guess the question now becomes "What drugs do we need?" I am incredibly uncomfortable answering this because I don't have a need for drugs,...yet. So how do we go about deciding which are good and which are bad. Is there a line in the sand we can draw?

• A reply on Conversation: Do artistic/creative individuals' make better teachers?

  May 4 2012: I think more so the clarity of the presentation is what is successful. I also think creative people have an advantage in that they are not afraid of failure and will try different avenues but some of the best teachers I have had were the boring engineering types. They taught in the textbook type manner but understood the material so well that talking about it was easy. And of course they realized they were talking to kids that were clueless to what they knew. Maybe project management has something to do with it.

• A comment on Conversation: Can we question the great thinkers of the past, will people even allow this? To change someone's mind is ALMOST impossible.

  May 4 2012: I completely agree that people should concentrate learning what fascinates them and I in no way want to push my thoughts onto others who don't care to hear them, I asked this because, I just explained what I thought temperature was to a friend of mine and realized that I totally failed him because he was looking at it in a completely different way and I hadn't started with what he knew.
  He is a really smart guy who doesn't care about physics, so he doesn't study physics, not his fault. He does from time to time ask questions though and we just happened on temp this time. I believe I failed him because I'm the so-called expert on these matters and I was unconvincing. He has failed me numerous times trying to teach me the guitar and I pretty much fail him every time we talk physics so we are even, though I started thinking "I bet a lot of people go through this, and I would like to know what they have a hard time explaining and maybe how they deal with it."
  To me making music is magic, to him graphene is magic where neither of them should be magic. How do we bridge the gap?

• A comment on Conversation: Can we question the great thinkers of the past, will people even allow this? To change someone's mind is ALMOST impossible.

  May 4 2012: I apologize for the vagueness of the idea, I see that now with just two pieces of feedback. I am asking people what they think are some of the theories and ideas that we should try to explain more in depth, if any. Doctors explain things beautifully to other doctors but not always so to the patients. This can be a thread that would allow people to bring up points to them that seem like people should have a better understanding about. My first one was temperature. Sure we all know what 75° is on a scale, but very few people know why it is 75°.

• A comment on Conversation: What are some optimal professions for introverts?

  May 3 2012: I am not sure this is an answerable question. I am by definition an introvert, I love being alone and just thinking, so philosophy is one of my favorite subjects. The thing is that while I was probably born this way, my life has taken me in directions where I just cannot be an introvert all the time. I have many friends and I have had many jobs, for instance in the next few weeks I am going to quit my job as a mechanical engineer and move on. I really enjoy engineering, but I figured it out so now it is time to take what I learned and apply it to something new.
  I think the issue is not to find the job that best suits your personality because not only does everyone have their own personality, everyone has many of their own personalities.
  If a person has a hard time finding a place to fit in, they are probably looking at the big picture wrong, the question should probably be stated as what is the one thing I can do that makes me feel useful and that highlights my personal traits?

• A comment on Conversation: What is more important: Our drugs or our ecosystems?

  May 3 2012: I think the issue has to start with, do we need all the drugs we take? My own opinion is that we don't need most of the stuff we are constantly told we need. So if we don't even need all the drugs being produced for us then we certainly don't need brand names or even options when it comes the drugs we take.
  I would love to say that this question shouldn't even need a second thought, that without our ecosystem we don't exist so that is the answer; however now that we have weakened our immune systems maybe we can't live without drugs either.
  My suggestion would be to eliminate all unnecessary drugs(things like mood enhancers or ADD type stuff) and start teaching about physical fitness and healthy eating because these things naturally do what you are trying to accomplish with a $7-$30 pill.
  The only drawback to the natural method is it requires thought, willpower and time which for some reason people are always running out of.

• A comment on Conversation: How can we achieve social integration in cities?

  May 3 2012: The simplest way to create social integration is to go out and ask society how to create social integration. This act in itself, if done correctly and appropriately, starts a series of events that can then be dubbed "a social integration". The issue then becomes, what do we do now?
  I also think that in order to integrate entire cities, which will never happen instantly, we have to start with groups like TED and just keep asking questions. No One has the answers, they however can be found by asking Everyone.

• A comment on Conversation: Do artistic/creative individuals' make better teachers?

  May 3 2012: I think the only abilities a good teacher needs is to be able to convey information in a way that everyone who is listening will understand...and patience. Just because a person is creative does not mean they can share information in a better way or even at all.

• A comment on Talk: Nancy Lublin: Texting that saves lives

  May 3 2012: I think I understand why this can work but why it doesn't. Texting, along with most other social media outlets, allows you to autonomously send feelings and ideas very rapidly through a culture. Without the word autonomous in that sentence, texting would be a gem. In today's world with the amount of miscommunication and deception we have, texting can only be looked at as a start. Certainly take seriously the texts that convey obvious human suffering and tragedy but it seems to me that people will use this as an attention getter since I would assume all texts are monitored. The foundations of the idea make perfect sense though, to be able to even voice your opinion through a non vocal media, it almost reminds me of VOTING....but using #11 as the phone number...