TED Community » Douglas Wolf

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Generally libertarian in orientation I am very interested in bottom up solutions to social problems through entrepeneurial ventures. I have a global vs national perspective.

An idea worth spreading

Most sources of poverty in the U.S. derive from the lack of a supportive family structure. The fact that in African-American and some other minority populations more than 2/3 of all births are out of wedlock places those children a great disadvantage to the majority population. A single mother (usally poor and with more than one child) is in a very difficult position to raise children who will achieve economic and personal success (particularly true for boys). In other minority communities (like many Asian groups) where the family may be poor and not speak English but there is a family unit committed to the child's educational and economic success, rising out of poverty takes one generation. Every poverty program, crime reduction strategy and all external mentoring and assistance is primarily an inadequate attempt to rectify this lack of a known and involved father.

Talk to me about

The role of mass media in creating financial bubbles and meltdowns and in creating the emotional link between viewers and events around the world that can morally compel one to go to war.

People don't know that I'm good at

Getting people who have strongly differing points of view to see the other side.

My TED Story

Over the last couple of years, I have attended TED Active and TED Global and they were both incredible experience. I got interested through speaking with people who have previously attended and by viewing some of the presentations online. I believe TED is a important and viral phenomenon with great positive implications for the world.

Comments

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  A comment on Conversation: I believe the right to an education is a basic human right..what can we do to make that a reality?

  Oct 18 2011: A great deal of energy and money is being expended trying to address this question. Once you have a child without support at home, options are limited and results very spotty. I am on the board of our local Boys and Girls club which attempts, with some success, to be a surrogate family for kids who lack a real one. Mentoring, tutoring and a wide variety of social services and charitable initiatives make some small dent in the problem. I favor Charter and Voucher schools, merit pay for teachers and a number of other educational reforms. But frankly, the positive effect of these changes benefit mostly kids who already have a cohesive home life and just need a little extra push and structure. While I am very critical of the teacher's unions for opposing some of these reforms, I do think they are getting basically a bad rap for the failure of our educational system when the real problem is at home....or the lack of same. The real question should be "How can we convince people, in a country where both contraception and abortion are legal, not to have children they can't support either with time or money out of wedlock ". I have no proposed answer, only the question.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: I believe the right to an education is a basic human right..what can we do to make that a reality?

  Oct 17 2011: I did not want suggest that the traditional nuclear family is the only and essential format for raising children who can thrive educationally in the current demanding environment. Various extended family and communal family patterns might do equally as well. However, with rare exceptions, an unwed mother, usually poor and uneducated, with multiple children and multiple unknown fathers who are totally absent from their childrens lives is not a family pattern that is likely to lead to the child's educational success. Who is there to support, encourage and demand success in and from the child and the school? Even divorce, while not optimal, still has the advantage of a father who is usually emotionally and financially committed to his children.
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: I believe the right to an education is a basic human right..what can we do to make that a reality?

  Oct 15 2011: My view is that the cost of formal education is much less an issue than the social context which supports or destroys a students will and capacity to learn. There is very little to support the idea that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes. I would submit that the most critical issue facing our educational system today is the large proportion of students who were born out of wedlock, do not know their father's name and have no role model and little encouragement towards educational success in their home. Home schooled children do extremely well on SAT scores with NO formal teachers or school facilities. Asian immigrants without money or language skills but strong supportive families, have children in college in one generation. It is not the school but the parents who make the difference and no community where unwed motherhood is the 70% norm, is likely to thrive educationally (and hence economically)..
  
  What is really desperately needed is bottom up community realization that having children without a partner (anther straight or gay) creates an extremely high (though not insurmountable) barrier to educational and life success. No external, top down governmental program (however costly) is likely to be more than a bandaid on a gaping wound.