Thoka Maer

I have a question for you. Have you ever seen something and you wish you could have said something — but you didn’t?

And I have a second question. Has something ever happened to you and you never said anything about it — but you should have?

I’m interested in this idea of action — of the difference between seeing, which is the passive act of observing, and the actual act of bearing witness.

Bearing witness means writing down something you have seen, something you have heard, something you have experienced. The most important part of bearing witness is writing it down; it’s recording. Writing it down captures the memory. Writing it down acknowledges its existence.

One of the biggest examples we have in history of someone bearing witness is Anne Frank and her diary. She simply wrote down what was happening to her family and about her confinement and, in doing so, we have a very intimate record of this family during one of the worst periods of our world’s history.

You too can use creative writing to bear witness, and I’m going to walk you through an exercise that I do with a lot of my college students, who are future engineers, technicians, plumbers — basically, they’re not creative writers. We use these exercises to unsilence things we’ve been keeping silent. It’s a way of unburdening ourselves.

It’s 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Brainstorm and write it down

I give my students a prompt. The prompt is “The time when …” and I want them to fill in that prompt with times they might have experienced something, heard something or seen something and they could have said something or intervened but they didn’t. I have them write a list as quickly as possible.

I’ll give you example of some of the things I would write down:

- the time when a few months after 9/11 and two boys dared themselves to touch me and they did
- the time when my sister and I were walking in a city and a guy spat at us and called us terrorists
- the time way back when I went to a very odd middle school and girls a couple of
 years older than me were often married to men nearly double their age
- the time when a friend pulled a gun on me
- the time when I went to a going-away luncheon for a coworker and a big boss
 questioned my lineage for 45 minutes

There are times when I have seen something and I haven’t intervened. For example:

- the time when I was on a train and I witnessed a father beating his toddler son and I didn’t do anything
- the many times when I’ve walked by someone who was homeless and in need and asking me for money and I walked around them and I did not acknowledge their humanity

The list could go on and on. Think of times when something might have happened sexually, times when you’ve been keeping things repressed, and times with our families. Because our families — we love them, but at the same time we don’t talk about things. So we don’t talk about the family member who has been using drugs or abusing alcohol; we don’t talk about the family member who might have severe mental illness. We’ll say something like, “Oh they’ve always been that way,” and we hope that in not talking about it and not acknowledging it, we can act like it doesn’t exist, that it will somehow fix itself.

Your goal is to write down at least 10 things, and once you have those 10 things, you’ve actually done part one, which is to bear witness. You have unsilenced something that you have been keeping silent.

Step 2: Narrow it down and focus

What I suggest is going back to your list of 10 and picking 3 things that are really tugging at you, three things that you feel strongly about. It doesn’t have to be the most traumatic things but it’s things that are like, “Ah, I have to write about this.” I suggest you sit down at a table with a pen and paper — that’s my preferred method for recording but you can also use a tablet, an iPad, a computer, just something that lets you write.

I suggest taking 30 minutes of uninterrupted time, meaning that you turn your phone off, put it on airplane mode, no email. If you have family or if you have children, give yourself 20 minutes or 5 minutes. The goal is just to give yourself time to write.

You’re going to focus on 3 things — you’re going to focus on the details, you’re going to focus on the order of events, you’re going to focus on how it made you feel. That last one is the most important part. I’m going to walk you through how I do it.

The first thing I feel very, very strongly about is that time when a couple of months after 9/11, these two boys dared themselves to touch me. I remember I was in a rural mall in North Carolina and I was just walking, minding my business.

I felt like people walking behind me were very, very close. I was like, “OK, that’s kind of weird, let me walk a little bit faster.” They walked a little bit faster too and I heard them going back and forth —  “No, you do it” “You do it” “No, you do it.” And then one of them pushes me and I almost fall to the ground.

I popped back up, expecting some type of apology and the weirdest thing was they did not run away. They actually stood right next to me and I remember there was a guy with blond hair and he had a bright red polo shirt and he was saying “Give me my money, I did it, man”, and the guy with the brown hair who had a choppy haircut gave him a $5 bill. I remember it was crumpled, and so I’m like, “Am I still standing here? This thing just happened. What just happened?”

And it was so weird to be someone’s dare and then also not exist at all. I remembered when I was younger and someone dared me to touch something nasty or disgusting. I felt like that nasty and disgusting thing.

The second thing I feel very, very strongly about is the time when a friend pulled a gun on me (I should say former friend). I remember there was a group of us outside, he had run up, and he had the stereotypical brown paper bag in his hand. I knew what it was. I’m a very mouthy person and I started going off. I was like, “What are you doing with that gun? You’re not gonna shoot anyone. You’re a coward. You don’t even know how to use it.”

I kept going on and on and on and he got angrier and angrier and angrier and he pulled the gun out and put it in my face. I remember every one of us got very, very quiet. I remember the tightness of his face. I remember the barrel of the gun and I felt like — and I’m pretty sure everyone around me who got quiet did too — felt like this is the moment I die.

The third thing I feel very, very strongly about is this going away luncheon and this big boss. I remember I was running late and I’m always late; it’s just a thing that happens with me. The whole table was filled except for the seat next to him. I didn’t know him well; I had seen him in the office. I didn’t know why the seat was empty; I found out later on why. So I sat down at the table and before he even asked me my name, the first thing he said was “What’s going on with all of this?” and he gestured at my head. I thought, “Do I have something on my face? What’s happening?”

Then he asked me with two hands this time “What’s going on with all of this?” And I realized he’s talking about my hijab. In my head I said, “Oh, not today.” But he’s a big boss — he’s like my boss’s boss’s boss. So for 45 minutes I put up with him asking me where I was from, where were my parents from, my grandparents. He asked me where I went to school, where I did my internships, he asked me who interviewed me for that job. And for 45 minutes, I tried to be very, very, very, very, very polite, trying to answer his questions.

But I remember I was making eyeball “Help!” signs at the people around the table, like “Someone say something, intervene”. It was a rectangular table, so there were people on both sides of us and no one said anything, even people who might be in the position to do so, bosses. No one said anything. I remember I felt so alone. I remember I felt like I didn’t deserve to be in his space. I remember I wanted to quit.

So these are my three things and you’ll have your list of three things. Once you have these three things, you have the details, you have the order of events, you have how it made you feel, you’re ready to actually use creative writing to bear witness.

Step 3: Pick one and tell your story

You don’t have to write a memoir; you don’t have to be a creative writer. I know sometimes storytelling can be daunting for some people but we are human, we are natural storytellers. If someone asks “How is your day going?”, we have a beginning, a middle and an end. That is a narrative.

Our memory exists and subsists through the act of storytelling. You just have to find the form that works for you. You can write a letter to your younger self, you can write a story to your younger self, you can write a story to your five-year-old child, you can write a parody, a song, a song as parody. You can write a play, you can write a nursery rhyme, you can write it in the form of a Wikipedia article.

If it’s one of those situations where you saw something and you didn’t intervene, perhaps write it from that person’s perspective. So if I go back to the boy on the train who I saw being beaten, What was it like to be in his shoes? What was it like to see all these people who watched it happen and did nothing? Or I could put myself in the position of someone who was homeless and just try to figure out how they got there in the first place. Perhaps it would help me change some of my actions, perhaps it will help me be more proactive about certain things.

By telling your story, you’re keeping it alive so you don’t have to do anything; you don’t have to show anyone any of these steps. But even if you’re telling it to yourself, you’re saying this thing happened, this weird thing did happen. It’s not in my head. It actually happened and by doing that maybe you’ll take a little bit of power back that has been taken away.

The last thing I’m going to do is I’m going to tell you my story. The one I’ve picked is about this big boss and I picked that one because I feel like I’m not the only one who has been in a position where someone has been above me and been talked down to. I feel like all of us might have been in positions where we felt like we could not say anything because this person has our livelihood, our paychecks, our jobs in their hands and times we might have seen someone who has power talking down to someone and we should have or could have intervened.

By telling this story, I’m taking back a little bit of power that was taken away from me. I have changed the names, and it happened a decade ago. It doesn’t have any happy ending, because it’s just me writing down what happened that day.

This is how I use creative writing to bear witness.

At Lisa’s Going Away Luncheon

I want to ask my boss’s boss’s boss if he’s stupid

or just plain dumb after he takes one look at my hijab

and asks me where I’m from in Southeast Asia.

I tell him that it’s New Jersey, actually,

and he asks where are my parents from,

and my grandparents and my great-grandparents

and their parents and their parents’ parents

as if searching for some Other blood,

as if searching for some reason why some Black

Muslim girl from Newark wound up seated next to him

at this restaurant of tablecloths

and laminated menus.

I want to say “Slavery, jerk,”

but I’ve got a car note and rent and insurances

and insurances and insurances and credit

cards and credit debt and a loan and a bad tooth

and a penchant for sushi so I drop

the jerk but keep the truth.

Tell me, he says,

“Why don’t Sunnis and Shiites get along?”

“Tell me,” he says, “What’s going on in Iraq?”

“Tell me,” he says, “What’s up with Saudi and Syria

and Iran?” “Tell me,” he says, “Why do Muslims

like bombs?” I want to shove an M1 up his behind

and confetti that pasty flesh and that tailored suit.

Instead I’m sipping my unsweetened iced tea

looking around at the table, at the co-workers

around me; none of whom, not one,

looks back at me. Rather they do the most

American things they can do:

They praise their Lord. They stuff their faces

And pretend they don’t hear him.

And pretend they don’t see me.

This post was adapted from a TEDxUCincinnati Talk. Watch it here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sakinah Hofler is an award-winning writer and a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati in the English Program. Formerly, she worked as a chemical and quality engineer for the United States Department of Defense. She’s an advocate for infusing the arts into our daily lives.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Shutterstock

When educator Kim Preshoff asked the students in her environmental science classes to create blackout poetry for Earth Day, she was expecting some nature-inspired poems and thoughts on the state of our planet. What she got back were profound and beautiful works about what they’re experiencing and living through right now: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are some of the poems from the Williamsville North High School students:

“About COVID” by Liz

“imagination” by Adrianna

“Kinda Depressing” by Catherine

“Pandemic” by Emma

“Quarantine” by Olivia

“About the Virus” by Taylor

“When Quarantine is Over” by Annica

“Overcoming” by Julia

“Stuck in the House” by Brooke

“Quarantine” by Jack

“COVID” by Anna

“Hope” by Alexis

“How People Feel” by Anonymous

VultLab

Today, over 1.5 billion children are unable to go to school. Coronavirus’ impact goes beyond the health and economic crisis; it is also jeopardizing the education of students around the world.

Teachers are scrambling to offer students lessons online and parents are desperate for activities that will keep their kids engaged and connected to the outside world.

In response to this crisis, an unprecedented coalition of over fifty environmental and education experts are collaborating to launch The Earth School: 30 adventures for learners of all ages to discover, celebrate, and connect to nature. This global team came together under the guidance and support of TED-Ed and UNEP to design lessons for students of all levels and host Earth School at a time when it matters the most.

These experts have been supported by over 30 organizations including National Geographic, WWF, and the BBC who have offered top caliber videos, articles, and interactive resources that will be shared around the world. The initiative launches on Earth Day on April 22 and will conclude on World Environment Day on June 5. Earth School is comprised of daily adventures, or Quests, each organized around the theme: “The Nature of…” While the initiative is hosted online, the Quests are very much designed to encourage young people to connect with nature and their environment.

Covering real world concepts like the t-shirts we wear, the water we drink, the trees in our forests or the food on our plates, each Quest will consist of a discovery video and fun quiz combined with a series of interactive resources – including additional content to watch, read, teach, do, and share, with age-adjusted exercises built into each lesson.

The team behind Earth School is thrilled that it can help solve three major problems right now:

First, there are so many great environmental resources online that future environment experts don’t know where to begin. Earth School aggregates a wide span of lessons from trusted sources under a single platform. With these lessons, learners of all ages will be able to explore how to live greener and cleaner lives individually and in their communities.

Secondly, young people (in fact, all people!) are stuck inside, more disconnected from nature than ever before. Earth School encourages young people to understand how nature and our ecosystems provide the foundations for a healthy planet, and healthy people. We aim to inspire the awe and wonder of nature in Earth School students and help them finish the program with a firm grasp of how deeply intertwined we are with the planet.

And finally, the team at Earth School aims to help the parents of students around the world, many of whom are taking on their children’s education for the first time. Locating quality lessons and activities online is no easy task; we hope to support them in this unfamiliar moment of global pause and provide the spark of inspiration that will connect young people to nature.

Stocksy

Within hours, I was getting texts. And FB messages. And then a call from a quasi-terrified sounding former student: “Any articles or books you can suggest about how my spouse and I spend the next many weeks together in our tiny apartment without offing each other?”

Then, as if on cue, my husband of 28 years walks into our kitchen with the mail. Without so much as a wash of the hands or a spray of disinfectant, he casually places the pile — as our pre-pandemic ritual would dictate — on our stainless steel kitchen island.

“WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!” I yelled at him.

A new chapter in my marriage — and in so many other people’s relationships — is suddenly, and without warning, upon us.

Hello, quarantine; goodbye, routine.

Hello, life now filled with work-from-home mandates, surreal new stressors, makeshift computer stations, evaporating personal space, and new negotiations about, well, almost everything.

It’s clear that there is indeed a new reality for all of us. And it’s not an easy one — marriages and partnerships in practically every country around the world are now under stress.

But there is hope. Stress doesn’t have to result in a complete systems failure. As a marriage researcher and social scientist who studies and teaches about the micro-dynamics of thriving marriages, I’m happy to share some evidence-based insights that can help you and your partner navigate the weeks and months ahead as your relationship calibrates to this new normal.

No matter your age, stage of life or length of marriage, we must acknowledge this fact: we’re all experiencing losses at the moment. You are. Your partner is. For some of us, the losses are immediate and frightening, even grave. People are losing their jobs. Their businesses. And some have lost loved ones, friends, neighbors or colleagues.

For many, the losses in our lives may not be as tangible, but they still hurt. All pain is real pain. In fact, take a moment in the next day, if you can, and ask your partner: “What do you miss most from life ‘before’ quarantine?” No matter their response, you have just one job: Listen with an open heart, do not offer a fix-it response, and then reach out and hold them tight in a big, 60-second-plus embrace.

The strongest theme emerging among the many couples I’ve talked to the past few weeks is the widespread, unsettling undercurrent of all of these ambiguous losses in our lives. Even the happiest of couples are feeling the weight of financial shifts, dwindling space, and a yearning for the return to old rituals and routines. For many couples, the mundane moments of life “before” have become attractive, almost nostalgic: regular bedtimes, morning commutes, coffee in to-go mugs, end-of-day greetings, day-in-review dinnertime conversations, built-in daily autonomy, and even the predictable irritations of living as a couple. We didn’t know how much we loved how boring it was — and now that we can’t have it, we want it.

The good news: once we acknowledge our losses, there is a lot that a couple can do, proactively, to not only survive quarantine but actually thrive through it.

It starts by shifting your perspective. What if we tried to embrace this new, weird time together as an opportunity or a reset? What if we saw this as a chance to intentionally develop new and improved ways of being with each other?

I’ve studied this kind of co-creating in my own research with couples. One of the findings is that when you and your partner recognize that you are creators of your own relationship mini-culture — your rituals of connection form the pillars of this culture — then you are more likely to choose, build and sustain them.

What is a ritual of connection?

According to researchers like William Doherty, therapist, professor and author of The Intentional Family, a ritual of connection is any way that you and your partner regularly turn toward each other. It could be emotional, physical, spiritual, you name it. They might be so mundane that many couples wouldn’t even call them rituals. It could be the way you greet each other at the end of the day when you reunite after work; the midday text to coordinate kid-pick up; the little prayer you say together before you drift off to sleep; and even the little phrases you use that have private meaning just between you and your spouse. Even a nickname is a tiny verbal ritual; it says to your partner “I know you in a way that no one else does.”

Research reveals that strong and meaningful rituals build strong marriages. They stitch couples together, giving them a sense of “we have each other’s back” and we’re in this together. And because rituals are rooted in a sense of predictability they are quietly comforting, they can reduce fear and counter stress both on the average day and in times of great uncertainty. Which is precisely what we have at the moment.

As a relationship ritual researcher myself, it’s been thrilling to hear the way many couples have been using this time as an opportunity to creatively grow new rituals.

A couple I’ll call Chad and Shawn have established a new rule or “ritual” to help them navigate living and now working in their small apartment. And it’s brilliant. Each spouse has chosen a special sweatshirt — and wearing it comes with a rule. When the other spouse sees you in it, they have to pretend you are invisible. No talking to them, no looking at them, no asking a question. It’s the marriage version of an invisibility cloak, a creative way to build in distance without having to verbally request it.

Another couple, like some others, are mourning the loss of their old morning routine, now that days/nights/work/leisure blur together without clear boundaries. So after a week or so of angst, they began a new practice. They get dressed in their work clothes, pack their lunches, and kiss each other goodbye. Then each of them walks out the front door, around the block (separately), and then back in the door (separately), ready to begin their work days. They do the same later in the day to mark the end of work and the beginning of family time.

Many couples are navigating quarantine with school-age or adult children who’ve come home to shelter. Two families separately shared they have instituted “themed dinners” once a week in their homes, with everyone “required” to dress the part. Hawaiian pizza and mai tai, anyone?

Then there’s this idea, one that I’m strongly suggesting to my own husband we promptly steal. This couple has made two laminated copies of a “one free pass today” card, and it expires at 11:59PM every night. Once a day, you hand it over to your spouse when you’ve done something stupid, said something mean, or forgotten to do something you promised.

“What if we tried to embrace this new, weird time together as an opportunity or a reset?”

One couple shared a beautiful new ritual that’s emerged since entering quarantine; they call it their “reconciliation walk.” After their workday is over and before they sit down for dinner, they take a stroll around the neighborhood, apologize for “any missteps we had with each other, and then hit reset for the evening.” It works. In fact, in the words of one spouse in this marriage: “by the end of the walk, we are no longer maintaining appropriate social distancing.”

Another couple has turned to the past for their ritual. They’ve decided to go back and re-read 15-years’ worth of their annual Christmas letters. They said: “We have gone back to when we first got married, and are reading them out loud to our kids who weren’t even around during that time. We laugh, and they ask questions about what things were like.” This same duo has dug out a box of the husband’s grandfather’s letters: “Bob’s grandfather wrote Bob a letter every week for 10 years. We read those as well. His grandfather was a preacher and an incredible man. His letters are uplifting and so wise.”

Similarly, another couple has pulled out the stash of children’s books — the favorites from when their now-grown children were toddlers. They pick one a night and read it out loud to each other but with a twist. They discuss how the characters in the book are similar to characters in their current, actual lives. What a great, creative conversation-starter — and a great way to learn more about some of the dramas in your spouse’s work life.

If you don’t have a box of letters or a shelf of kids’ books, no worries. You can invent your own ritual that incorporates a sense of humor and playfulness. Take the couple who has picked a random household object (I wish they had told me what it is; I’m picturing a tiny plastic squishy pig?) and invented a new game. They hide it somewhere in the house each day. If your spouse doesn’t find it, they’re on call to make the cocktails that evening.

The last example is one that I’ve told my own spouse we are absolutely adopting. Like so many others, this couple found that conflict in their marriage has increased during quarantine, and their own emotional reserves have decreased. So they’ve created a list — a place to “hold” all of their complaints. Their plan is to review the list each weekend. So far, most things on it are being waitlisted for post-quarantine times, but they predict many of these items will be irrelevant and long-forgotten by then. The list is a powerful bit of problem-solving that also gives them somewhere they can safely place their frustrations.

Couples: what will you do with this weird new time in your life? The research suggests that the tiny things we do can often have a big, positive impact. While you can’t control the world, you can stay home, stay safe and focus on what you can: each other.

Watch her TEDxMinneapolisSalon Talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carol Bruess (rhymes with “peace”) is professor emeritus at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota; resident scholar at St. Norbert College, Wisconsin; and forever passionate about studying and improving relationships. She is fluent in emoji, loves parentheticals (it’s what all the cool kids are doing), and is happy-dancing her way through empty-nesting (although don’t tell her kids; they think she’s all weepy). Check out her five books and sewing/design shenanigans over at www.carolbruess.com

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Monica Garwood

Being a writer is all about expressing your unique perspective with feeling and originality, not about having a huge vocabulary or getting published, says author Jacqueline Woodson.

She shares a little of what she’s learned in the process of writing a lot (30+ books!).

“Write something good, and feel good about writing it.”

That sentence is from award-winning writer Jacqueline Woodson — she just released Red at the Bone, a novel for adults — in response to the question “What’s the goal of writing when you’re 15?” (Side note: I, the interviewer, did not pose that query; she did. Yep, Woodson is the kind of intimidating and articulate person who can come up with thoughtful questions even during an interview.)

That sentence is great advice for writers of any age. And so, just because I can, I will repeat it: “Write something good, and feel good about writing it.”

Woodson and I are talking about writing because I’m a fan of hers and because I’m a mentor in a writing program for high-schoolers in New York City (Girls Write Now). I wanted to hear what insights and inspiration she had to offer those who aspire to do what she does. Once upon a time, she was a girl with a passion for words — “from the gate, I was like, ‘I want to be a writer — I want to write everything: poetry and short stories and fiction and …’” She’s gone on to write more than 30 books — including Miracle’s Boys, Brown Girl Dreaming and After Tupac and D Foster — that span all those categories and then some. Decades later, she still loves to write and re-write (more on the latter below).

Here’s what she had to say to aspiring writers:

Do you know lots of impressive words? Good — but try to keep them to yourself

“You don’t need to have a great vocabulary. What you need to have is a creative way of using the words you have. I think sometimes it is detrimental to writers to have too much of a vocabulary because they just rely on the word that they know how to define and they end up breaking the first rule of writing: Show, don’t tell.”

No one else sees the world quite the same way you do, so share your unique perspective

“Writing is about narrative language and creative language and being able to get a point across in a way that is not ordinary. More than having a large vocabulary, one needs a large vision and be able to see the world in a different way than other people see it.”

Look at picture books, even if you think you’re too old for them

“Young writers can learn so much from reading picture books and really engaging in the text and how the language is laid on the page. With picture books, [writers] are working with a reader who has a very short attention span and you have to get them from line one and hold them to page 32. That’s a challenge, but it’s also a challenge that’s not going to be intimidating for a young writer. It also allows them to experiment with tone and form, especially poetic form, because picture books are intentional, the line breaks are intentional, and each line is laying down an image.”

Woodson recommends checking out any of the illustrated books that have received the Caldecott Medal or the Coretta Scott King Book Award.

Write with feeling

“Writing is visceral. If you write something down and don’t feel some kind of way, then it’s not working. It’s not doing what you wanted to do.”

If it’s possible, set limits on the initial feedback you receive

“When I first write something, I show it to three people I trust. I tell them: ‘Tell me every single thing you love about it.’ That’s all I want to hear because it’s embryonic. It’s so fragile at that point because it’s so new that I’m not ready for questions, I’m not ready for it to be evaluated in any way. I just want to know what you love, because that’s going to make me excited to go back and write more of it.”

Seek out books that reflect you and your experience

“Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop talks about the importance of kids having both mirrors and windows in their fiction. (editor’s note: Bishop is referring to kids having the chance to read books that reflect them and their lives and books that give them portals onto different kinds of lives.) I think especially in our culture kids get a lot of books by white writers, no matter their color, so they can’t even imagine themselves as an Asian girl, a black girl, someone who is indigenous [and] being able to have a narrative. It’s hard to have a writer believe, ‘Yeah, I have license to tell a story without getting in trouble.’ To see parts of her narrative in cultures as close to hers as possible is helpful.”

If you can’t find writing that mirrors you, take it as your chance to fill in the gap

“As a kid, you have a right to be in the world fully and you have a right to see representations of yourself wherever you go. And if you don’t, write your way out. (editor’s note: like Alexander Hamilton.) Figure out why that is so, and rather than fixating on the dilemma of it, challenge it. Write the challenge, and that’s where your writing’s going to break through and create something new.”

Being a writer means being a re-writer

“Writing is a lot of work. When I look at Brown Girl Dreaming, I rewrote that book 33 times. When I look at Another Brooklyn, I rewrote that about 16 times. I think people like the idea of being writers; I don’t think they like being re-writers.

But what if you don’t like to re-write?

“You’re not going to like everything. There are some things that are going to be painful and you don’t want to do them, but the end result is going to be something that is better. I love re-writing now, but I’m old. I love it because I know when I finish re-writing, it’s going to be better than it was when I first wrote it.”

Get ready for your stories, articles, poems and essays to unravel — all of them

“It happens with every single piece. Your writing gets to this point, and it’s so fabulous and you love it. And then it falls apart. That’s the point where you have to start scaffolding it and building it and trying to figure out what is this piece trying to say and how is it trying to say it. A lot of people stop when the piece falls apart and think they’re going to start another one and they’re all going to fall apart.”

What you need to do at this moment: Don’t stop.

“It’s going to be the difference between finishing something and having a whole bunch of half-finished things in your drawer. For people who are starting out writing, know that your piece of writing is going to fall apart and it’s going to get really hard. But it’s the best place to be, because now your work is ahead of you. And you know what you have to do to make it better.”

Don’t fixate on getting published.

“Whenever kids start asking me about their stuff getting published, I’m like, ‘That’s not what you should worry about. You should worry about writing the best piece that you possibly can.’ Writing is such a process. It’s an ongoing process, and you don’t write something in September and have it published by December. It takes much longer. If you really want to invest in the world of writing, you have to invest time and labor and faith in it.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

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Want to prevent yawns and glazed-over eyes? Before you deliver your next speech, pitch or address, learn how to create exceptional slides by following these rules (with real before-and-afters).

Slides are an expected and crucial part of most speeches, presentations, pitches and addresses. They can simplify complex information or messages, showcase relevant images, and help hold an audience’s attention. But quite often, the best slides aren’t those that make people sit up and comment on how good they are; instead, they’re the ones that people take in without really noticing because the content is effortlessly conveyed and matches the speaker’s words so well.

These days, showing high-quality slides is more important than ever. “We’re living in a visual culture,” says Paul Jurczynski, the cofounder of Improve Presentation and one of the people who works with TED speakers to overhaul their slides. “Everything is visual. Instagram is on fire, and you don’t often see bad images on there. The same trend has come to presentations.”

He says there is no “right” number of slides. However, it’s important that every single one shown — even the blank ones (more on those later) — be, as Jurczynski puts it, “connected with the story you’re telling.” Here, he shares 6 specific tips for creating the most effective slides. (Note: All of the examples below were taken from the actual slides of TED speakers.)

1. Do keep your slides simple and succinct

“The most common mistake I see is slides that are overcrowded. People tend to want to spell everything out and cover too much information,” says Jurczynski. Not only are these everything-but-the-kitchen-sink slides unattractive and amateurish, they also divert your audience’s attention away from what you’re saying. You want them to listen to the words that you slaved over, not get distracted by unscrambling a jam-packed slide.

“The golden rule is to have one claim or idea per slide. If you have more to say, put it on the next slide,” says Jurczynski. Another hallmark of a successful slide: The words and images are placed in a way that begins where the audience’s eyes naturally go and then follows their gaze. Use the position, size, shape and color of your visuals to make it clear what should come first, second and so on. “You don’t just control what the audience sees; you have to control how they see it,” says Jurczynski.

BEFORE: Too crowded

AFTER: Easy to absorb

2. Do choose colors and fonts with care

Colors and fonts are like the herbs and spices of your presentation. When used wisely and with intention, they’ll enhance your slides; but when tossed in haphazardly, they’ll make it an unappealing mess.

Let’s start with color. “Color is a key way to communicate visually and to evoke emotion,” says Jurczynski. “It can be a game changer.” Your impulse might be to pick your favorite hue and start from there, but he advises, “it’s important to use color with a purpose.” For example, if you’re giving a presentation about a positive topic, you’ll want to use bright, playful colors. But if you’re speaking about a serious subject such as gun violence or lung cancer, you’d probably go for darker or neutral colors.

While it’s fine to use a variety of colors in your presentation, overall you should adhere to a consistent color scheme, or palette. “The good news is you don’t need a degree in color theory to build a palette,” says Jurczynski. Check out one of the many free sites — such as Coolors or Color Hunt — that can help you assemble color schemes.

With fonts, settle on just one or two, and make sure they match the tone of your presentation. “You don’t have to stick to the fonts that you have in PowerPoint,” or whatever program you’re using, says Jurczynski. “People are now designing and sharing fonts that are easy to install in different programs. It’s been an amazing breakthrough.” Experiment. Try swapping a commonly used font like Arial for Lato or Bebas, two of many lesser known fonts available online. Most important: “Use a big enough font, which people often forget to do,” advises Jurczynski. Your text has to be both legible and large enough to read from the back of the room, he recommends — about 30 points or so.

BEFORE: Weak and hard-to-read font, muddy colors

AFTER: Strong font, color that’s striking but not jarring

3. Don’t settle for visual cliches

When you’re attempting to illustrate concepts, go beyond the first idea that comes to your mind. Why? The reason it appears so readily may be because it’s a cliché. For example, “a light bulb as a symbol for innovation has gotten really tired,” says Jurczynski. Other oft-used metaphors include a bull’s-eye target or shaking hands. After you’ve come up with your symbol or idea, he advises people to resist the lure of Google images (where there are too many low-quality and clichéd choices) and browse other free image sites such as Unsplash to find more unique visuals. One trick: If you do use stock, amp it up with a color overlay (as in the pic at the top of this article) or tweak it in some other way to counteract — or at least muffle — its stock-i-ness.

One potential source of pictures is much closer at hand. “If it fits the storyline, I encourage people to use their own images,” says Jurczynski. “Like one TED Talk where the speaker, a doctor, used photos of his experience treating people in Africa. That was all he needed. They were very powerful.” Major caveat: Any personal photos must support your speech or presentation. Do not squander your audience’s precious time by showing them a gratuitous picture of your children or grandparents — beautiful as they may be.

BEFORE: Fake-looking stock photo to illustrate teamwork

AFTER: Eye-catching photo of nature to illustrate teamwork

4. Don’t get bogged down by charts and graphs

Less is also more when it comes to data visualization. Keep any charts or graphs streamlined. When building them, ask yourself these questions:

What do I want the audience to take away from my infographic?

Why is it important for them to know this?

How does it tie into my overall story or message?

You may need to highlight key numbers or data points by using color, bolding, enlarging or some other visual treatment that makes them pop.

Maps are another commonly used infographic. Again, exercise restraint and use them only if they enhance your talk. “Sometimes, people put a map because they don’t know what else to show,” says Jurczynski. He suggests employing labels, color schemes or highlighting to direct your audience where to look. He adds, if you have the skill or know an artist, “you may even consider a hand-drawn map.”

BEFORE: Yikes! What’s important?!?

AFTER: The takeaway is clear

5.Don’t be scared of blank slides

It may seem counterintuitive, but at certain points in your speech or pitch, the best visual is … no visual at all. “At the beginning, I was not a fan of blank slides,” says Jurczynski. “But the more talks I’ve seen, the more a fan I am of them, because sometimes you want all the attention on yourself and you don’t want people distracted by what they see in the slides. Or, you might use them to give the audience a visual break from a series of slides. Or maybe you want to shift the mood or tempo of the presentation.”

The blank slide is the visual equivalent of a pause, and most stories could use at least one. And with blank slides, Jurczynski has one main “don’t”: “You cannot use white blank slides, because if you do, people will see it and think something is broken.”

6. Do remember to practice

The easiest way to figure out if your slides really work? Recruit a colleague, friend or family member, and run through your entire presentation with them. Sometimes, people can get so carried away with rehearsing their delivery and memorizing their words that they forget to make sure their slides complement and synch up with what they’re saying.

“Even if you have the best visuals in the world, you need to practice in front of someone else. Once you start practicing, you may see, ‘I’m talking about a sad story, but on the slide behind me, I have something funny and that doesn’t make sense,’” says Jurczynski. “Or, ‘Oh, this could be a good place for a blank slide.’”

Justin Tran

Procrastination isn’t shameful or a character flaw. Instead it’s rooted in a very human need: the need to feel competent and worthy, says educator Nic Voge.

“It’s 11 o’clock. You’re in your dorm room, and you have a paper due in a day or so. You sit down at your desk, you open up your laptop to get started, and then you think, ‘I’m gonna check my email just for a minute; get that out of the way.’ Forty-five minutes later, you’ve checked a lot of email,” says Nic Voge, senior associate director of Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning in New Jersey, in a TEDxPrinceton talk. “You’ve done a really good job of that, but now you realize, ‘You know what? I’m pretty tired. I’m kind of exhausted, and that’s not conducive to writing a good paper. What do I need? I need to go to sleep.” And you do — only to wake up and go through the whole cycle of delays-and-excuses the next day.

Is this you? Rather than a college paper, maybe it was a report for work, graduate program application, peer review or some other important thing that you kept kicking down the road until the road ran out and you had to deliver.

You probably scolded yourself for your behavior. And wondered, “Why am I so lazy/ weak-willed/ disorganized/ unmotivated/ hopeless/ [fill in other belittling adjective]?”

Well, Voge has good news for you. “Procrastination isn’t shameful. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s not a flaw,” he says. “It’s actually pretty predictable; it’s something we can really expect if we understand the dynamics of motivation,” At Princeton, Voge develops, designs and directs academic support programs for undergraduates. He’s seen procrastination in all its forms, and he has also, he confesses, “mastered the craft and art of procrastination — the mind games, the rationalizations, the justifications.”

There are many theories about why we procrastinate. Some have said it’s about the inability to cope with difficult emotions; others, that it’s connected to faulty time management or perfectionism. Voge, however, believes it is rooted in our self-worth. He explains, “The paramount psychological need that all of us have is to be seen by ourselves and others as capable and competent and able … and we will actually sacrifice or trade off other needs to meet that need.”

To be clear, the need to be seen as worthy or worthwhile is not the problem.Where things go wrong is that some of us depend heavily on external feedback — in the form of good grades, praise from bosses, parents, in-laws or other authority figures, or the acceptance of prestigious organizations — for those feelings of worthiness. Voge says, “People who procrastinate a lot have a kind of simplistic equation in their mind: their performance is equal or equivalent to their ability, which is equal or equivalent to their self-worth as a person.” Or, as he puts it: performance = ability = self-worth. The reason we’re so terrified about performing poorly on that paper, application, analysis, etc. is because we feel our ability rests on it — and our value as a person.

In the performance = ability = self-worth equation, the only variable we can control is how much effort we put into our performance. When we procrastinate and put in less effort, we’re doing it as a form of self-protection, according to Voge. That way, if we earn a bad result, it doesn’t mean we’re not talented, able or worthy; we were just too busy or distracted to do our best.

Think about the murmurs you inevitably heard before exams in high school or college. Voge asks, “What are people saying? ‘I only studied three hours.’ ‘I only studied two hours; my computer froze.’ Everyone’s explaining how they’re not ready. Why? Because if they don’t achieve, then they have this built-in excuse not only for themselves but for others.”

Anyone who has ever procrastinated has experienced that feeling of stuckness. “Many people describe procrastination as being stuck at or against a wall or an obstacle they can’t get over,” says Voge. “We are often agitated, we can’t sleep — but we [also] can’t work.” At those times, we find ourselves pulled between two equally strong and compelling forces: the drive to achieve and the fear of failure. We come unstuck only when the fear of not getting things done overrides our fear of failure.

How do we break the cycle? Voge highlights three strategies:

1. Be aware of what you’re doing and why.

“We know from the research on procrastination and overcoming it that gaining knowledge and being aware of self-worth theory in these dynamics helps people over these things,” says Voge. “To understand the roots of procrastination helps us weaken it.” Your procrastination is probably not coming from a place of self-loathing or self-sabotage but from a need to protect yourself.

Know when you’re procrastinating. Sometimes it’s obvious; there is absolutely no reason for us to do the laundry before we write that grant application. At other times, it’s more subtle, so you may need to check in with yourself: “Yes, removing old files from my computer desktop will give me a less distracting workspace, but is it essential that I do it right now? Or am I just postponing writing the application?” Pro-tip: If you have to ask yourself whether you’re procrastinating or not, chances are you are.

Get familiar with your “greatest hits” of wasting time. Most of us have specific fall-back activities that we do when we’re playing the delaying game. What’s yours — house-cleaning, napping, shopping, reading email, catching up on Netflix? Learn to recognize it so you can nip it in the bud; it’s much easier to prevent falling down the cleaning /napping /shopping rabbit hole rather than pulling yourself out. Voge says, “The greater awareness we have of our tendencies and our motivations, we’re more likely to overcome them.”

2. Tip the balance.

Our progress towards completing any activity is affected by “approach” motives (reasons why we want to do this thing) and “avoid” motives (reasons we don’t want to do this thing). With activities that we have no hesitations doing — let’s say, eating something that’s delicious and healthy — it’s because we have many “approach” motives and very few “avoid” motives.

Many procrastinators have the mistaken belief that the reason they’re putting off a task is because there’s an underlying reason they don’t want to do it. “Often, that’s not the case. It’s simply that their fears dominate or overwhelm their ‘approach’ motives,” says Voge. When you’re playing solitaire instead of performing a competitive market analysis for your boss, it could be because your “avoid” motives — in particular, you’re avoiding the project because you’re terrified you’ll fail — outweigh your “approach” motives.

When this happens, think of all the reasons why you want to do this activity. It might help to remind yourself of how completing it fits into your larger goals, objectives or mission. Then, if it seems especially big or intimidating, break it down into manageable pieces. When Voge found himself procrastinating writing his TEDx talk because it seemed so daunting, he decided to create an outline so he could write his script section by section. Warning: Just resist turning that outline or to-do list into an invitation to procrastinate further.

3. Challenge your beliefs.

We need to undermine the ideas that brought us to procrastinate in the first place, says Voge. “The equation that we carry around in our head is flawed … your ability is not equivalent to your worth.” He adds, “Our worth derives from our human qualities of kindness and thoughtfulness and our vulnerabilities.”

Watch his TEDxPrincetonU talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Justin Tran

You don’t need to go to a national park to help your kids fall in love with nature; a walk around the block can be enough.

Technology also doesn’t have to be the enemy. Instead, use it as a tool to enhance their awe, says science communicator Scott Sampson. Growing up, Sampson— paleontologist and CEO of Science World in Vancouver, Canada— went on annual camping trips to the Rocky Mountains with his family.

However, “this was not where I fell in love with nature,” he recalls in a TEDxLangleyED talk. “That happened close to home — looking for rocks in the backyard, playing kick-the-can in the neighborhood, bushwhacking in the local forest. I still remember my mother kicking me outside on a Saturday and telling me to come back in when the street lights came on. I’m pretty sure I remember hearing the door lock behind me as I walked away.”

Even though he knows it’s not possible for today’s children to have that freedom, he encourages parents to help kids fall in love with nature just like he did: through direct experience. He recommends three steps that we — along with the children in our lives — can take to connect with nature.

Step #1: Notice

We don’t need to invest in outdoor equipment or an expensive vacation to get started, says Sampson, author of How to Raise A Wild Child. We just need to notice what’s around us, even if we live in a city. “Too often these days, we walk right past amazing natural events,” he says. “It could be a butterfly on a branch, a hawk hunting silently overhead, it could be a beautiful evening sky. Whatever the clouds are doing at any given moment, you can rest assured that they will never be exactly the same ever again. It turns out just taking a kid for a walk around the block… can be a powerful experience.”

E.O. Wilson first stumbled upon the complex society of ants as a child when he saw them emerging near a sidewalk in Pensacola, Florida, and he went on to become the world’s foremost expert in that insect and an eminent Harvard University biologist. When Sampson himself was a kid, his mother brought him to a nearby pond because she’d heard it had tadpoles. When they got there, he saw nothing. Then, he says, “I stepped into the water and I could see these little things move away, and I realized there was thousands of tadpoles in the water.” His mother urged him to stand in the pond up to his chest.

“Kids value what we value. And if you don’t value the natural world, it’s highly unlikely the kids will.”

Sampson says, “Now I promise you this is not something that most mothers would condone today. But it was a life-changing experience for me. In that pond surrounded by thousands of tadpoles, I had this experience of oneness with the pond, like there was no difference between the pond and me, and that experience has stuck with me my whole life.”

We can start by developing our own simple habit — and one that could open up our perspectives. Sampson suggests, “When you step outside the door in the morning, pause for 10 seconds.” Ask yourself questions like, “What does the air feel like? How many different kinds of birds can I hear? What are the clouds doing?” Most important, he says, “Do these with kids, because here’s the deal: Kids value what we value. And if you don’t value the natural world and show that you care about it, it’s highly unlikely the kids will.”

Step #2: Engage

We need to allow kids to interact with the natural world so they can learn from it. For little kids, a stick and a puddle — or their feet and a puddle — are enough. As they get older, “it’s great to find activities that allow them to demonstrate increasing competence — things like fishing or skiing or hiking,” Sampson says. “Too often these days, when it comes to engaging in nature, we hear the word ‘no’ from parents. ‘No, don’t throw that rock,’ ‘No, put down that stick,’ ‘No, get out of that tree.’ By preventing them from engaging in risky play, we are preventing them from learning how to navigate risk, a skill they will desperately need as teenagers and the rest of their lives. The bigger risk is not letting them engage in this kind of play.”

So rather than being a helicopter parent, “think about being a hummingbird parent,” suggests Sampson. “Sit on the periphery. Zoom in only when necessary, which isn’t very often, and zoom back out again. And as kids get older, increase the distance between you and them to give them greater independence.”

Another way to stoke kids’ interest in the outdoors: tell them about your own encounters — the time you saw an eclipse, went apple-picking, clamming or crabbing, collected daddy long-legs spiders, or grew an avocado tree after making guacamole. Then, provide them with opportunities to start collecting their own stories. Sampson says, “Parents are often nervous about taking kids in nature because they know that those kids are going to ask questions and they’re afraid they’re not gonna know the answers. But here’s the secret: you do not need to know any answers. Questions are far more powerful.”

“If people don’t spend any time outside, why are they going to care about these places let alone live sustainably?”

For example, Sampson and his daughter Jade, then 7, went on a hike one day. (He cautions: “Never go on a ‘hike’ with kids; it doesn’t end well.” Instead, he advises, call it an “adventure”.) He recalls, “We were a few minutes in, and we saw one of my favorite birds, a great blue heron. Jade saw it, turned to me and said, “Daddy, what’s that bird?” And it took every ounce of my biologist training not to give her not only the common name of the bird but the scientific name, its diet, and the habitat that it lives in. But on this particular day … I said, ‘I don’t know. What do you think it is?’ And she said, ‘I think it’s a heron.’ And I said, ‘Well, what do you think it’s doing?’ She said, ‘I think it’s hunting.’ I said, ‘What do you think it’s hunting for?’ She looks up at me and said ‘Rodents.’”

Sampson told Jade they should wait and see what happened. He says, “It was almost as if it was on cue. Within two minutes, this amazing, large bird did that slow-motion, Zen-like bow until it got close to the ground” — and it emerged with a mole in its beak. After they got home, Jade looked in a nature guide and found out the bird’s exact name. Sampson says, “She still remembers it to this day, and she’s 16 years old. Let’s rewind the tape. What if when she had said, ‘Daddy, what’s that bird?’, I said, ‘Hey, that’s a great blue heron,’ and we kept right on walking? [It would have been a] missed opportunity.”

But no uncommon or photogenic animals are necessary to launch an exploration. You can do the same with the pigeons, starlings or squirrels you see on the sidewalk; the flies, bees and mosquitoes that infiltrate your home; or the crickets, cicadas and fireflies that you hear chirping, buzzing and blinking. Ask kids: What do they eat? Where do they sleep? What are their most important abilities? Which animals are their enemies?

Step #3: Wonder

When it comes to the natural world, love and wonder should go hand in hand — if we want our children to connect with it, they need to have the chance to be captivated by it. He says, “You can give them amazing experiences like harvesting and eating plants that they themselves planted and nurtured.” Growing plants that are native to your area can insects and birds to your yard, windowsill or balcony, giving children a lesson in some of the different creatures that make up an ecosystem.

And, adds Sampson, “I am not arguing that we have a back-to-nature movement where we abandon technology. I am not saying we need to take our smartphones and toss them off the nearest bridge, although I admit I am tempted to do that on a weekly basis.”

“Get outside, take your kids there, and let them connect deeply.”

Instead, you can use technology — in the form of science apps and nature apps and science websites and nature websites — as a tool to inform children’s awe. The iNaturalist app allows you to, he says, “take a picture of any plant or any animal, upload it, get some suggestions as to what it might be, and get experts to help you identify it. That data is then used by scientists to monitor changing environmental conditions, so a screen can literally turn a child into a scientist.” There are also a huge amount of cams set up in the world’s wild places that can give kids a real-time look at a variety of habitats and the creatures that live in them.

What’s more, cultivating a relationship with the natural world goes beyond enhancing your child’s immediate wellbeing. It’s crucial for their future — and our planet’s. As Sampson points out: “If people don’t spend any time outside, why are they going to care about these places let alone live sustainably and take care of them?” He says, “Get outside, take your kids there, and let them connect deeply. It is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give them, and I promise you will have a lot of fun along the way.”

Watch his TEDxLangleyED talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Project FUEL founder Deepak Ramola.

By training kids to interview their teachers, film them, and elicit their wisdom, Deepak Ramola is helping them gain valuable new skills and new appreciation for their elders.

At a primary school in northern India, the tables have been turned on the typical teacher-student dynamic. As a student sits across from her instructor, she gently asks, “Are you comfortable? It’s okay to be nervous.” She is conducting an interview for the Out of the Syllabus Project, an uplifting initiative that trains students to capture the wisdom of teachers and share it with everyone in their school.

Out of the Syllabus was launched in July 2018 by Deepak Ramola (watch his TED Talk: Everyone has a life lesson to share), an educator and founder of Project FUEL (Forwardly Understanding Every Life Lesson). He wants to deepen connections by using teachers and their personal stories as tools for students to learn. “In schools and colleges, teachers have been reduced to a source of passing inspiration or as a vehicle rather than as the inspiration. I want to change that,” says Ramola. “I had some phenomenal teachers who helped me grow and learn.”

A life lesson shared by teacher Reshu Dora, collected as part of the Out of the Syllabus Project.

Collecting and sharing people’s life lessons is a passion of Ramola’s. His mother was a major source of inspiration. He explains, “She didn’t go to school, yet she knew so much. I remember questioning her, and her reply was ‘I have learned from life.’ And I thought if she’s learning from living, then that means everyone who is living is learning something.”

He began documenting people’s wisdom in 2009 as a hobby while he was a college student in Mumbai, and he expanded the idea into Project FUEL, an educational organization based in Dehradun, four years later. Its mission is to create a tangible, memorable experience from life lessons so other people can be inspired by them. For example, the population of Saur, a once-thriving village in northern India, had dwindled after many inhabitants migrated to live in cities. Ramola collected life lessons and folktales from the remaining villagers, and in 2017 he and his organization covered some of Saur’s abandoned buildings with words and pictures, sharing knowledge and lifting spirits.

Through the project, students get to learn many skills — they become interviewers, directors, cinematographers and designers.

The Out of the Syllabus project is Ramola’s way of transmitting his enthusiasm to schools. Here’s how it works: In a school, teachers select 10 to 20 students to participate in a Wisdom Club. These club members are trained by the Project FUEL team and by volunteer professionals in filmmaking, data documentation, interviewing, recording and design (the professionals also share the necessary equipment). Then, the students ask teachers about their life lessons while filming and photographing them. The process, according to Ramola, “provides the children with amazing new skills in film, research and the art of conversation. It also allows the teachers to be more honest and authentic with their students.”

Afterwards, the students design posters that capture the life lessons. The posters are framed and hung in school hallways in what Ramola calls “wisdom corridors” so that the lessons can be accessible to everyone. (Schools that have resources pay minimal fees to Project FUEL to cover the costs of filming, design, printing and framing; with under-resourced schools, Ramola’s team raises funds to help them.) “For me, the project celebrates the wisdom of teachers outside their curriculum, “ says Ramola. Instead of spotlighting educators for their abilities to explain chemistry or literature, they have a chance to be recognized for their humanity and their qualities and skills outside the classroom.

Students look at teachers’ life lessons displayed in a “wisdom corridor” in their school.

For the inaugural Out of the Syllabus Project, Ramola’s team collaborated with the Purkal Youth Development Society in Dehradun, a fee-free school that assists children from impoverished families. Watching the students — who weren’t accustomed to being in charge — film their teachers and work together was “phenomenal,” recalls Ramola. “Seeing that beautiful choreography of conversation and that dance of emotions happen between these two generations was moving and empowering for me.”

When the wisdom corridor is complete, the project enters its second phase. As Ramola explains, “The Wisdom Club students coach their classmates to do the same, to document life lessons from staff members, parents and visitors, and to share them using creative tools.” He and his team provide the students with monthly check-ins. “We support and guide them until they can take it up on their own,” Ramola says. “I’ve gotten messages from one of the teachers on Instagram explaining that students now come to them saying, ‘I read on the poster that you suffered from a drug problem, and I’m going through that. Can I speak to you?’”

A life lesson from teacher Shalini Gupta.

So far, Out of the Syllabus has been brought to five schools in India, each with a distinctly different student body. “We’ve worked in all-girls government schools where the girls work and help support their parents. Then, we’ve been at a school with girls who come from economically sound backgrounds. Their passion to learn was the same, although their resources were different,” says Ramola. “The last school we did was a community nonprofit that serves children from slums. Imagine them getting to interview their teachers — and to be directors, cinematographers and designers all in one project and to be taken seriously in those roles.”

Ramola is full of anecdotes about the impact of their work. He says, “In one school, we had a girl who was very shy and would hardly talk. Interviewing a teacher was beyond her imagination.” Over the course of the project, he watched her gain confidence. He continues, “One day, she had to interview a teacher whom everyone dreaded. With shivering hands and voice, she faced her fears and managed to do it. After listening to her teacher’s story, she was so moved and said she understood why her teacher behaves the way she does. Seeing this girl find her voice and embrace empathy was one of the most meaningful outcomes of the project.”

Project FUEL founder Deepak Ramola works with students in a classroom.

Ramola shares an experience from another school. For her life lesson, “a teacher talked about a homeless person from her college days. She said that everyone, including the teacher, called him ‘crazy.’ One day she saw him with pieces from a broken glass bottle. She was afraid he might hurt himself, but she didn’t have the courage to stop him.” He ended up with cuts, and she went to him with cotton, bandages and antiseptic lotion. Ramola says, “She was very scared, but she felt it was her responsibility to help. He let her wash his wounds, and he was very quiet. When she told him he shouldn’t play with glass, he told her that he had been removing it because he knew dogs came to play in the corner and the glass could hurt them. The lesson that the teacher shared was you shouldn’t label people unless you know their side of the story.”

One student was immediately touched by the account; he told her he also labelled people as “crazy” or “mad.” He pledged from then on to listen and to help, and the other boys there did, too. Ramola finishes, “Witnessing that label get shattered in this powerful sharing was another fulfilling experience.”

Many schools have written to Project FUEL to get involved. There are nascent plans to bring Out of the Syllabus to other schools in India and beyond. He says, “We’re collaborating with a school in Antwerp, Belgium.” While he acknowledges the many difficulties posed by expanding, he strongly feels the benefits of sharing stories and creating strong teacher-student bonds will be more than worth the effort. Ramola says, “I believe that when you learn, you become a star, but when you teach, you become a constellation — not shining on your own but finding other stars, connecting with them and their stories, and becoming something much bigger and more meaningful.”

All images courtesy of Project FUEL. 

Watch Deepak Ramola’s TED Talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carly Alaimo is a writer and content specialist living in Atlanta, Georgia.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas.

TED-Ed Innovative Educators, cohort four

What could education look like if every innovative voice from the classroom to the superintendent boardroom was shared and amplified globally?

The fourth cohort of TED-ED Innovative Educators and the TED-Ed Team are embarking on a mission to find out. We are extremely excited to introduce cohort four of the TED-Ed Innovative Educators program– sixteen amazing and influential leaders in education who together are setting out on a journey to improve education by elevating the most important ideas in education worldwide.

Using TED Masterclass, each TED-Ed Innovative Educator will hone in on their most important idea in education and develop it into a TED-style talk. Not only that, but they will play a vital role in catalyzing a movement to empower educators everywhere to develop, refine, and share their best ideas in education, with the ultimate goal of improving education everywhere, for every student.

Curious to see how TED Masterclass will help these inspired leaders in education amplify their ideas? So are we! We’ll be back later this year to share the evolution of their ideas as you watch them deliver their TED-style talk. Start by reading below – and stay tuned for more to come!

We asked each educator one question: if you could share one idea with every educator in the world, what would it be?

Jerry Almendarez, Superintendent, Colton Joint Unified School District, Colton, CA, USA:

“Educational inequities – identifying inequities within your own district and determining how to address them.”

Mathew Burt, Principal, Broome Senior High School, Kimberely, Cable Beach, WA, Australia:

“Celebrating and engaging Indigenous students in positive education experiences.”

Jeewan Chanicka, Superintendent of Schools, Superintendent Equity, Anti-Racism & Anti-Oppression, Toronto District School Board, Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

“The significance of understanding our personal identity as a way to improve practice and close achievement and well-being gaps in education. Who we are matters: it influences what and how we teach and which students are successful in our classrooms and schools.”

Carol Cleveland, Principal, iGrad Academy, Kent School District, Bremerton, WA, USA:

“The idea of allowing students to own their educational journey. This involves allowing students who demonstrate mastery of standards to progress through grade levels at their own pace, to select teachers whose personality and instructional style best matches their learning style and personality… to allow students to intern on jobs and move into pre-apprenticeship programs… to get a better post-secondary understanding of what career journey they want and can afford to pursue.”

Brenda Erickson, Montessori teacher and Founder & CEO of Counterpane, Counterpane Montessori School, Fayetteville, GA, USA:

“Trust the minds inside those little (and big) people!”

Greg Farrell, Principal on Special Assignment, Principal Leadership Development, York Region DSB, York, Ontario, Canada:

“He who wants for nothing has the world as their oyster…”

Jesse Jackson, Superintendent, Lake Wales Charter Schools, Lake Wales, FL, USA:

“I would share the ‘power of potential.’ The power of potential is a strategy that I have explored working with seemingly difficult or wayward teenagers. This idea requires you to relinquish preconceived notions and understandings and work with what could be ‘potential.’”

Russell Lazovick, Superintendent, Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District, New Jersey, USA:

“Connection. Of ideas, of systems, and most importantly of people, [connection] is the most often overlooked and yet the most critical piece in determining the success of our schools.”

Shawn Loescher, Chief Executive Officer, Urban Discovery Schools, San Diego, CA, USA:

“How design thinking supports reimagining the educational experience for students, teachers, staff, schools and our communities.”

Sarah Mansfield, Assistant Head of School, St. Christopher’s School, Richmond, VA, USA:

“To cultivate a generation of 21st century learners and leaders, a culture of collaboration is essential.”

Shemeka Millner-Williams, Assistant Superintendent, Lancaster ISD, Duncanville, TX, USA:

“As the world continues to grow, change and diversify, so must the methods we utilize, the spaces we build, the resources and tools we use… We must endeavor to create critical thinkers, self-starters and problem-solvers with the ability to empathize with others in a way that forces them to work toward the common good of all humanity.”

Chris Muller, Former Superintendent, current University Lecturer and Consultant, Senior Lecturer at Education University of Hong Kong, Cape Town, South Africa:

“International schools represent a world-wide, grass roots endeavor to educate, under one roof, children of many lands and cultures by means of a curriculum that is challenging, internationally recognized, and that taps into the resources of a diverse community. [...] Such a vision requires an education that is academically rigorous while promoting values in the principles of compassion for others, virtuous behavior and the pursuit of justice and peace.”

Becky Navarre, Assistant Superintendent of STEM, Fort Worth Independent School District, Fort Worth, TX, USA:

“Build relationships first, value the individual and support others to succeed.”

Gonzalo Salazar, Superintendent, Los Fresnos CISD, Los Fresnos, Texas, USA:

“Our students come to us with funds of knowledge and a set of core values that are passed on through parents and grandparents through the “pedagogies of the home” (Dolores Delgado Bernal). [...] Storytelling can serve as a vehicle that helps students arrive at a better understanding of the self.  A better understanding of the self will empower students with the self-assurance that reveals their full potential.”

Peter Ulrich, Assistant Superintendent, Savannah-Chatham County Public School System, Savannah, GA, USA:

“I’d really like to revisit my TEDx Talk from 2016, Simple Solution of Love, about showing love for the teachers in your life.  I’d like to refine the message about the importance of recognition of our teachers in hopes of gaining a larger audience to elevate educators.”

Jill Vinson, Superintendent, Cardiff School District, San Diego, CA, USA:

“Education is a team sport.”

We look forward to seeing these ideas develop and shine through TED Masterclass, and we will share their final talks with you later this year!