TED Community » Cecile McVittie

More About Me

I'm passionate about

the changing nature of the education systems of North America, the inclusion and rights of citizens with special needs, story-telling as connection and the power of written/spoken words.

An idea worth spreading

Cognitive intelligence is not the only measure of a person's worth. Those with cognitive challenges offer the world lessons in compassion, living in the moment and the true measure of love. Those who love someone with what the world calls a "disability", be it cognitive or physical are not to be pitied or held up as "saints". They need support from the community around them in the form of time, inclusion and recognition of the unique challenges which they face. Education systems and social support systems also need to recognize that inclusion may mean developing specialized, unique (and perhaps expensive) means to ensure that quality of life is present for those who access and live in the world differently than typical citizens. It is a challenge that societies around the world have not embraced yet and at times seem to be moving away from.

Talk to me about

educational technology, educational change, inclusive public policy, micro-loans and economics of balance.

People don't know that I'm good at

singing and playing guitar.

Comments

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• A comment on Conversation: What video will you flip first on the new TED-Ed website?

  Apr 27 2012: I flipped the Leslie Dodson video on Research and Reporting Ethics to support a class I'm teaching called Web 2.0 and Collaborative Research. Our final project is an awareness raising video on a topic related to Africa. The students have chosen Conflict Minerals, but the Dodson video helped us realize that our "ethics of seeing" needed to ensure we weren't promoting stereotypes. The sound on the video was a problem and we had to switch back and forth between Ted Ed and YouTube to be able to hear her presentation. Some students found it very engaging, others were very apathetic. Like all education tools, if they're not interested (and they still take classes they're not really interested in) it can be hard to motivate them to participate.