TED Community » Martin Francis Gilbert Máik

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Learning about foreign countries and learning foreign languages together with travelling, walking and hiking, reading poetry, listening to jazz music, cooking, working, and sustainable lifestyle.

An idea worth spreading

To live in peace with oneself and all the others through mutual, lingual and cultural understanding. To create an environment which is stimulating and promoting cultural awareness and interaction as well as sustainable living and giving values to real VALUES.

Talk to me about

Education, passions, languages, cultures, travel, science, religion, movies, books, poetry, the lost generation, Fitzgerald and Murakami - huge fan of both, patience, and jazz music.

People don't know that I'm good at

Patience. Listening to people. Keeping promises.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +294.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

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

  Nov 2 2011: Goal of education: To make you think by Yourself, to find your passion and become compassionate!
  
  Ken Robinson is great in showing how to reform education, yet he does not say what eduacation is good for. Maybe watch John Wooden's video on sucess (Mr. Wooden was a teacher and a coach for about half a century, and believe me, he has got a lot to say about this topic!)
  http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html
  
  Also, I would advise anybody to read on Kurt Hahn's approach to education, which is that by personal example and experience.
  My favourite Hahn's quote is this one: 'I regard it as the foremost task of education to insure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self denial, and above all, compassion.'
  You can read more on him on website dedicated to him: http://www.kurthahn.org/
• +2

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

  Nov 2 2011: I would start by quoting Mark Twain here: 'I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.' Is it not so true?
  
  The most important things in life one has to learn via experience, personal approach to someone, trial and error, failure and success, by being patient and listening to grandparents,....
  
  I would like to put one more quote here, which may seem to oppose the first one, but not necessarily. John Wooden said in his last speech for TED: 'No written word nor spoken plea, can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves, is what the teachers are themselves.'
  
  But again, we are getting into personal experience rather than learning from the books. It does not need to be a teacher. It can be any 'hero of today,' the only condition is that there is something to learn from the person.
  
  If I had to name one thing I wish I learned at school it would not be how much is 2+2, nor how many verses there are in a sonnet, but it would have been to be myself, to do what I love, to have a passionate life.

• A reply on Conversation: The most efficient education

  May 18 2011: I agree very much with Tao P and Vincine Fallica. Textbooks should by no means be the main part of education. There is so much more to it. I believe in saying that John Wooden from UCLA said in his inspiring talk:
  
  "No written work, no spoken plea
  can teach our youth, what they should be.
  Nor all the books on all the shelves
  is what the teachers are themselves."
  
  I think that a person of teacher should percieve what each student needs, but reflect upon it during group activities. I like the ice-cream way, this is the way we should lead and teach our children. If we demand them to know the whole textbook there would not be enough space in their brains for creative ideas and thinking.
  
  I would add this quote of British historian, who very well described education system employed nowadays:
  "Education … has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. "
  
  What we need now is to give each student possibility to nurture talent they have in themselves, not to make everybody the same. A swiss psychologist suggested:
  "The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done."
  
  But probably the best response was given by Mark Twain, when he was asked about his opinion on schools: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
  
  I think it is worth to have a look through Kurt Martin Hahn's notes on education and Outbound Trust and UWC and perhaps to have a look at some of the Ken Robinson's videos.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What poems are most powerful to you?

  May 13 2011: I will start with a simple phrase: 'I am a very old-fashioned person.' I stil think that 'There's more to travel than the destination. It used to be called a JOURNEY.' I travel a lot, preferably by train and on board I read poems. One of my favourites is by Theodore Roethke and is called THE WAKING. This poem says so much and still is very short, compared to some other works. I believe that the best time for poems to be heard/read is late evening, with fire in the fireplace and some classical music on LPs.
  
  The Waking
  
  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
  I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
  I learn by going where I have to go.
  
  We think by feeling. What is there to know?
  I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
  
  Of those so close beside me, which are you?
  God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
  And learn by going where I have to go.
  
  Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
  The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
  
  Great Nature has another thing to do
  To you and me, so take the lively air,
  And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
  
  This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
  What falls away is always. And is near.
  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
  I learn by going where I have to go.