TED Community » Taylor Kendal

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• +1

  A comment on Talk: Ben Goldacre: Battling bad science

  Sep 30 2011: Pretty surprising volume of criticisms. I suppose it can seem offensive when negative assumptions you've held for years are indisputably dispelled :)
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

  Sep 8 2011: Thanks Salman! The innovators of our time are those that allow children to realize their potential.

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Mark,
  I think you have one of the more frightening ieas, but one heavy in potential energy. Could you elaborate a bit? From scratch I get, but what does an organic education system entail? There seems to be an evolutionary component here.

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Kimberly, Your personal situation certainly seems to be strides ahead of what I would consider the national mean. So first, consider yourself (and more importantly, kids) fortunate. So the question then shifts...How do we create a nationwide education system that models the top echelon?

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Andrea,
  I totally agree, but the "to be continued..." is fairly important. I'm not insinuating the comment to be hypocritical, but what's a feasible plan knowing that it can't be utopia out of the gates? Perhaps there's an idea for planting a single slice of pie, perhaps just a few feet off the ground...

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Don...this is the most powerful response I've seen in this entire thread! The brevity and use of contradictory dualism is unmatched. If you're not already, you need to be absorbing the SGU podcast. Here's the website, but I usually just grab it from iTunes - http://www.theskepticsguide.org. In my opinion, skepticism is one of the most powerful tools, and the reform I imagine is only possible when critical thinking and skepticism is embraced by teachers and taught from day one!

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Denny,
  I agree that the foundation and scaffolding is currently misaligned, but I also believe that we have to be very careful with topics such as spirituality. A child who comes from a family where spirituality is less than emphasized, or perhaps even absent (my own in this case) will have a much different approach to creativity and learning. This isn't to say one is favorable, I just think education should be a pursuit of ones innate skills with as little prescription of the unknown as possible.

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Tara, couldn't agree more! Times have changed, and to ignore that fact is simply ignorant. Creativity is king today and kids that aren't free to explore their innate abilities (which typically come off as misbehaving) are simply having their true potential thwarted. I've been working with primary sources from the Library of Congress for a number of years (http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/) and the potential for creativity and inquiry is amazing. Children these days are remarkable, just not in the way we may have defined remarkable in the past.

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Andrea,
  Thanks for posting that follow-up video from Ramona. It's always about making that final jump to action. Anyone can preach and sound like they have the answer, but until it's seen from a ground level, such as the home, then it's hard to believe the change will ever come.

• A reply on Conversation: How do we reform education?

  Sep 8 2011: Li,
  
  There's no doubt given your feedback that you feel strongly in regards to a problem I see in a very similar light. I try to be careful with how negatively I think about the issue, but in the current state, and especially for those on the front line, it's so hard to keep an optimistic spin.
  I've worked for the Library of Congress for a number of years providing professional development that I truly think bridges some of the gaps that exist due to this "weakened system" - http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/
  
  I'm certainly frustrated, but I think there's current initiatives that are working in the right direction.