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.

Math tends to inspire groans, moans and a fair amount of anxiety. But is there any way to make math enjoyable? Or, dare we say … fun? First, we have to heal the generational trauma, says educator and puzzle aficionado Dan Finkel.  We sat down with Finkel to talk about how to fix mathematics education and how his organization, Math 4 Love, aims to help.

The problem: a broken system

What problems were you seeing as a math educator? 

Fundamentally, I was seeing a huge disconnect between the sense of the beauty and the excitement and the dynamism of mathematics that I had known in my life, and what other people got. Most people just have such a negative experience with it. I don’t think we’re going to see math education magically get better. It’s a long-term, slow-to-change problem around a system with a lot of inertia.

“Somehow we found a way to use math to make everyone’s life worse. It’s done damage to whole generations.”

Math is this subject that is one of the most beautiful, powerful, empowering things. It’s part of your inheritance as a human being — like art and music. And it should only make your life better. Instead, somehow, we found a way to use it to make everyone’s life worse. It’s done damage to whole generations. So it feels like it’s this quiet tragedy that plays out, and we need to figure out how to just get in there and interrupt the cycle. There’s so much good and so much joy that’s waiting to be unleashed.

“If you can give students a really positive experience as their foundational experience, that actually sustains them as they go into middle and high school and beyond.”

That’s really the challenge — if I go into a group of teachers and I say “I’m going to share what’s beautiful and wonderful about mathematics”– if you’ve never had that experience, you literally just think I’m talking gibberish.  Because to them, that’s not what math is. Math is the thing that’s made them cry when they were a sixth grader. So that fundamentally is, from my point of view, the largest structural impediment. We need as a culture to give people positive experiences with mathematics.

“There’s no teacher who wants their students to not like math; everybody wants their kids to have a positive experience with it. But, again, if you haven’t had that yourself, what does that even mean?” 

It’s almost like a kind of therapy. And people need a human being with them holding their hand, just for the first time through because it’s so traumatic. That is the difficulty. There’s no teacher who wants their students to not like math; everybody wants their kids to have a positive experience with it. I feel like right now the most anyone can reasonably hope for is one really inspired teacher every 3 to 5 years and that’s enough to keep the spark alive. And what’s sad is that often we don’t even get that.

The solution: make math fun again

Math 4 Love: bring play into education

What was your inspiration to start Math 4 Love?

I started blogging under the name Math 4 Love. It felt like this was a problem that I was ready to take on: trying to communicate what mathematics could be, and what the possibilities for teaching and learning it could be. To give teachers and parents and students a positive experience. And also to provide a kind of pathway towards helping teachers transform what they’re actually doing in the classroom.

There’s three main things we do at Math 4 Love. We work with teachers and run workshops, and go to classrooms and run demo lessons. We write curriculum; we’ve written the summer intervention program that Seattle public schools use for their Summer Staircase program. The idea is, it’s a play-based intervention. You get kids playing with math at a young age. It actually allows them to learn more deeply. We have two math games, one is called Prime Climb, the other is called Tiny Polka Dot. If we can get kids and families to see math as something they can play with, it’s a totally different way to interact.

“Get kids playing with math at a young age. It actually allows them to learn more deeply.”

What do you think it is about games and puzzles that make them such effective teaching tools?

One of the reasons that there’s a problem is people basically say, “Ignore your own common sense. Ignore your way of doing things. I’m going to just show you this method. Don’t worry about why it works, just memorize it, and then you’ll get the right answers.” But mathematics is a way of supercharging your common sense. And that means it needs to start with common sense. The way that you create ownership is often through play. It’s counterintuitive in a way because we have this weird cultural bias about how when you’re playing you’re not learning. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Playing is nature’s way of helping you to learn.

“We have this weird cultural bias about how when you’re playing- you’re not learning. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Playing is nature’s way of helping you learn.”

So when we have games and we have puzzles as something we’re doing in the classroom, we’re extending an invitation saying “Hey, play with this, make it yours. Make this subject belong to you. Make it something that you own.” What teachers, both with our games and also the puzzles, tell me over and over again is “I threw this puzzle out to the kids and I was just blown away by all the stuff that they came up with.” It suddenly unleashes that sense of personal relationship, a playful relationship with a problem, and that generates the engagement and sense of ownership, which is what really does transform students’ relationships with the subject.

“It’s like having the experience of “do I get to be the one who shows you the color yellow?” I get to add this whole dimension to your life. There are just not many places where we get to do that. That’s how teaching math can be.”

Watch Dan Finkel’s TEDx talk here:

As a society, we tend to focus on prodigies — the young stars in their fields. But what if we looked at the people at the opposite end of the timeline instead? By studying them, network scientist Albert-László Barabási has come up with lessons that can benefit us all.

When, at the age of 50, John Fenn joined the faculty at Yale, he was old by academic standards. But then again, he was an inveterate late starter. He published his first research paper at 32, a decade after leaving graduate school. He was 35 when he got his first academic appointment, at Princeton, where he started working with atomic and molecular beams, research that he continued to pursue at Yale. Though Fenn was hard-working and diligent, he was largely a low-impact scientist. His department chair must have felt some relief when Fenn turned 70 and they could force him to take mandatory retirement.

Yet Fenn had no interest in stopping. Three years earlier, at the age of 67, he was already semi-retired at Yale, stripped of lab space and technicians, when he published a paper on a new technique he called “electrospray ionization.” He turned droplets into a high-speed beam, allowing him to measure the masses of large molecules and proteins quickly and accurately. He saw it as a breakthrough and he was right — his technique quickly turned into a must-have tool in labs.

So, after idling at Yale, he relocated to Virginia Commonwealth University. He opened a new lab and what he did in these later years was revolutionary. Improving upon his initial idea, he offered scientists a robust way to measure ribosomes and viruses with previously unbelievable accuracy, transforming our understanding of how cells work. In 2002, by then in his mid-eighties, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Fenn’s story embodies a simple message: Your chance of success has little to do with your age. It’s shaped by your willingness to try repeatedly for a breakthrough. Realizing this was transformative for me — I started seeing Fenns everywhere.

There’s Alan Rickman, whose first movie role came at 46; Ray Kroc, who joined the McDonald’s franchise at 53; Nelson Mandela, who emerged after 27 years in jail and became his country’s president at 76. There’s Julia Child, who was 50 when she hosted her first TV show.

But these late-in-life successes had something else in common besides tenacity. Their pathways to success were guided by a hidden factor that unveiled itself throughout their careers. My team and I named it the Q-factor, and it helped us answer the question: Where do highly successful ideas and products come from?

New projects always start with an idea, no matter what creative field you’re in. Still, the importance or novelty of the idea isn’t something we always know in advance. So let’s call it r for “random idea,” letting r stand for a number that captures its value. Opening another fast-food joint in a strip mall? Give it an rclose to zero. Building a working teleportation machine? That could have a huge r ... if you can pull it off.

But ideas are cheap, a truism often parroted by venture capitalists. Your ability to take the idea and turn it into a useful product determines the size of the check an investor is willing to cut for you. The same is true in any occupation: A terrific idea in clumsy hands rarely leads to an important outcome. Your ability to turn an idea into a discovery is equally important, and that varies dramatically from person to person.

We called this ability a person’s Q-factor, which allowed us to translate the process of innovation into an equation. Each of us takes a random idea, with value r, and using our skill, we turn it into a discovery or “success” S, which captures its impact on the world. If we want to predict this impact, we need to establish how the two factors — the as-yet-unknown merit of the idea, or its r, and one’s Q-factor — work to determine a project’s ultimate success, or S. Multiply your Q-factor by the value of your next idea, r, and you get a formula to predict its success. Written as a formula, it is:

S = Qr

In other words, the success of a product or a deal, or the impact of a discovery, will be the product of a creator’s Q-factor and the value of idea r.

So, if an individual with a low Q-factor comes across a great idea with a huge rvalue, the impact will still be mediocre, as the resulting product — or Qr — is diminished by the small Q-factor. Fantastic idea, poor execution. Think Apple’s first handheld Newton, with its inept handwriting recognition. The reverse also happens: A creative person with a high Q-factor can put out multiple weak or mediocre — or low r — products. Think AppleLisa, NeXT, the G-4 Cube, MobileMe. Never heard of them? They’re in the graveyard of Jobs’s many failures. If an idea has a small r value, no matter how high the Q, the product will be cheapened. Great execution, poor idea.

Then there are those perfect-storm instances where the idea and the creator both shine. When the Q-factor and r are both high, they enhance each other, leading to a career-defining breakthrough. Think of the iPhone — a fantastic idea with brilliant execution, resulting in the product that defined Jobs’s legacy.

Once my team and I figured out how to measure a scientist’s Q-factor, we learned it remained unchanged throughout her career. That’s right. The data was clear: We all start our careers with a given Q, high or low, and that Q-factor stays with us until retirement. Well, I had a hard time believing that I was as good a scientist when I wrote my first research paper at twenty-two, the one with absolutely zero impact, as I am now. And you probably feel you weren’t anywhere near as good a teacher, writer, doctor or salesperson in your twenties as you are now. However, we spent six months rechecking our findings, and we came to the same conclusion.

Does this finding apply to those outside the sciences? We were able to answer that after we figured out how to measure the Q-factor in another domain: communication. Onur Varol, a new lab member, looked at Twitter users, measuring how good they are at putting out tweets that resonate with users.

When we compared individuals with the same number of followers, we found that some were much more talented at engaging with audiences than others. There seemed to be no systematic growth or decay as Twitter users honed their skills — the high-Q-factor performers stayed that way, and the low ones didn’t budge. The minute anyone joined Twitter, a Q-factor was set and stayed roughly the same for months and years.

But what if our Q-factor is low? Then there’s some hard advice I can offer you: If you are repeatedly failing at breaking through, you may very well be pursuing the wrong vocation. I’ve experienced this myself. In high school, I was preparing to be a sculptor. But I wasn’t good, to be honest. Even back then, I was better at physics. So I followed my Q-factor, abandoning the art studio for the research lab.

Or, maybe you’re stuck in a deeply solitary field. I’ve been there as well, working for years on quantum dots, an obscure discipline where even the biggest discovery gets little traction. I switched to networks, an area where my work could reach a wider audience.

The point is that if our Q-factor isn’t resonating with our job, we should consider if we’ve pinned our hopes on the wrong career path. Once you find that perfect fit, that area or profession where your Q-factor shines, there’s really only one more thing you need to do: not give up.

The key to long-term success from a creator’s perspective is straightforward: let the qualities that give you your Q-factor do their job by giving them a chance to deliver success over and over. In other words, successful people engage in project after project after project. They don’t just count their winnings; they buy more lottery tickets. They keep producing. Take writer J.K. Rowling, who followed Harry Potter by creating a successful mystery series (under the name Robert Galbraith). Each time she publishes a new book, her new fans go back and read the older volumes as well. Each new book, then, breathes life into her career, keeping her whole body of work present and relevant.

A high Q-factor, combined with Fenn-like persistence, is what drives the engine for career-long success. People like Shakespeare, Austen, Edison, Curie and Einstein are not remembered for a single work of theirs that changed everything. They tower over their fields thanks to their exceptional Q-factors — and their willingness to test their luck repeatedly.

And there’s another smart way to exploit your Q: collaboration. Harness your network to help you with your projects. If nothing else, this prompts you to keep trying. Teamwork can motivate us. For me, the students and postdocs — and the many projects we do together — force me to continue to be productive. Since success, too, is a collective phenomenon, our response to high-quality work or talented people can shape our fates.

Stubborn creativity, combined with a John Fenn–like tenacity, not only gives our lives their essential meaning, it also provides the true secret to career-long success. The Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai is one perfect, parting exemplar of that. “All I have produced before the age of 70 is not worth taking into account. At 73 I have learned a little about the real structure of nature,” he wrote at 75. What followed made my day. “When I am 80 I shall have made still more progress. At 90, I shall penetrate the mystery of things. At 100 I shall have reached a marvelous stage, and when I am 110, everything I do, whether it be a dot or a line, will be alive.”

Hokusai lived to be 89, and he created his most memorable works in the final decades of his life, including the iconic woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The image is of an enormous white-capped wave that slowly unfurls over a half-drowned skiff, dwarfing Mount Fuji in the background. It’s an apt depiction of how success ebbs and flows over a lifetime, building sudden momentum and crashing over us, only to start all over again.

Excerpted from the new book The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success by Albert-László Barabási. Reprinted with permission from Little, Brown, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Copyright © 2018 by Albert-László Barabási.

Watch his TEDMED talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Albert-László Barabási is the Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science and a Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research. He holds appointments in the Departments of Physics and College of Computer and Information Science, as well as in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women Hospital in the Channing Division of Network Science, and is a member of the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He is the author of several books including “Network Science,” “Linked: The New Science of Networks” and “Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do.” This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

What inspired you to become an educator?

We asked the third cohort of TED-Ed Innovative Educators. Read their answers below:

Umar Anjum, Lahore, PAKISTAN
“In early 2000 I was part of a club that used to visit a center for runaway children in Lahore, Pakistan. I remember almost 70% of the children at that place had run away because they had teachers who used to treat them badly. This particular incident made me think that a similar attitude from teachers at a large scale can damage the coming generations. This served as the point where I started thinking about becoming a teacher. Then a series of events and incidents made me stick to my decision.”

Marcos Silva, Texas, USA
“My role as a educator dates back to my experience as a migrant. We were a family of 5 traveling to Washington State. I was the youngest, and this experience meant something completely different to me than it did to the adults in my family. This trip was the first recollection I have of being self-conscious, of being lost, but of also being self-empowered. I was lucky enough to have learned a little bit of English before going to Washington schools and because of that, I was the class translator for my other migrant peers. That role came with many confusing moments. Was I making sense in Spanish? Was I making sense in English? Was I actually translating correctly? My parents didn’t know English, my teachers didn’t know Spanish, and my peers trusted I was correct all the time. My inspiration to be a teacher comes from knowing that my community needs advocates just like my family needed advocates when I was young. Today, I serve the community that watched me grow. My story is not that different from several of the students who sit in my class now.”

Mbao Ngula, Mongu, ZAMBIA
“Perhaps the most important is the belief that I bring a different perspective to education in my country, and that by being consistent and making small changes wherever possible, change can happen. I did not set out wanting to be an educator, it is something that I evolved into as part of my work. Somewhere along the way it became clear that the only way to even the arena for the underprivileged in my community was to make education available to everyone. It also became clear that our educational system needed the kind of support that is able to identify the challenges and create local solutions, and so this is what I set out to do. Not to overhaul the system, but to find the cracks and fill them. To find the bends and straighten them out. It wasn’t necessary for me to reinvent the wheel, but to simply build on what others have accomplished to move my community from where it is to where it wants to go. A really good example is the introduction of the first TED-Ed Club in Zambia. The children just participated in their first TED-Ed Connect Week, and quite a number of them came to me afterwards and said “Miss Mbao, that was exciting! I have never spoken to anyone in another country.” Now they want to learn about the countries from which their counterparts come. These are children who are not only learning about how to effectuate change on the policy level, but who are getting actively involved in cleaning up their school and community. These children are not looking for handouts, even though they have so little. They are instead looking to make use of what they have to improve the human condition. This to me is change: enabling others to do things for themselves. I guess among a host of other reasons, I am an educator because I believe in our children and their ability to identify challenges and effectuate change when provided with the guidance and resources needed to do so.”

Khondker Fahmida Ahmed, Dhaka, BANGLADESH
“I love to learn and be creative, and being an educator means that I have to continue learning in order to disseminate worthwhile knowledge.”

Jorge Alvarez, California, USA
“It’s widely known that there is an achievement gap and a re-current poverty cycle among minorities. I know that education is the key to close that gap and end that cycle. As a lifelong learner, I appreciate the value of education, and I encourage others to follow their dreams and continue their education beyond high school — whether that means going to a vocational school, community college, or a 4-year university. In addition, I know that education is the key not only to economic issues, but to many social issues that we are confronting at this time. Like Marie Curie stated, “nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”

Tiffany Badger, California, USA
“At a time when the original Jurassic Park movie had me convinced that I wanted to become a paleontologist, Bob Jarnigan, my sophomore year English teacher, inspired me to become an educator instead. Each day, his class lit my mind on fire with ideas, and for the first time I realized how the analysis of poetry and literature had a much larger implication for critical thinking in the real world. Basically, I wanted to become him — but in a fabulous and coveted position as a beloved scholar at a university. As I grew older and continued my study of the Spanish language, I morphed my dream of becoming an English professor into becoming an educator dedicated to working with immigrants and English learners, thanks to my work as an English tutor in the Adelante program at Santa Monica College, and my volunteer work with the Compensatory Education office in rural Fresno County, California. Before I graduated from college, it was clear to me that working as an educator would be the best way I could give back and serve a community that I strongly believe is underserved. I am committed to social justice and promoting it in my community, and while there are many ways to achieve this goal, teaching, for me, is the best way I can. I have so much fun learning from and working with students. Regardless of which curveballs the system may throw our way as educators, or how stressed out I may get at points during the school year, the students always keep me going. Watching them learn, grow, and become successful and empathetic citizens is my version of divinity on Earth.”

Dani Bostick, Virginia, USA
“I started teaching to honor the legacy of my deceased high school Greek and Latin teacher, Mr. Pitcher. I had a very rough, trauma-filled childhood. The languages, history, and mythology of the ancient world provided me with an escape that developed into a lifelong passion. As a teacher, I love watching students become passionate about Latin and make connections between the ancient world and modern-day society.”

Timothy Couillard, Virgina, USA
“I never meant to become a teacher. Right after college, I decided not to go to graduate school in Physics and I needed something to do. I was hired to teach Physics and Chemistry as an emergency position at James River High School. The challenge of working with young people and helping them learn something hard like physics represents a lifelong challenge for me that I have not yet mastered. I am inspired by sharing the world daily with kind and curious young people. The impact you have on your students’ lives (and their impact on you) is what has inspired and kept me coming back each Fall for the past 20 years.”

Tobye Ertelt, Colorado, USA
“I was born to be an educator. I love watching people find value and inspiration in learning, and I love being a part of that experience. I think it is very satisfying when you are a part of productive struggle to create a new learning, experience or product.”

Alejandra Guzman, Texas, USA
“When I was working on my Master’s degree at Texas A&M University, one of my professors asked me to give his lecture on the evolution of the kidneys since he was going to be out. I was so nervous, as I had never really done any presentations in front of such a huge crowd (about 100 college freshmen). It was such a thrill to teach these eager minds. I never thought learning and teaching about the evolution of kidneys would be such an adrenaline rush! At that moment, I knew that educating future generations was my calling and passion. Every since then I have taught in some way, shape or form. Luckily, it comes naturally to me — it’s in my DNA, really. I learned from the best: my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all rock star educators.”

Saad Hamid, Islamabad, PAKISTAN
“It started with the Internet, a decade ago, when I discovered that I could self-learn and taught myself a lot of skills. Since then, I have been on a mission to teach the young people of my country various skills and programs using specialized and accelerated techniques for learning, and so far I have been able to affect the lives of as many as 5,000+ people in my community. My affiliation with TED definitely instigated the passion inside me to become an educator, as I have been working as the curator of TEDxIslamabad, and the Senior Ambassador to TEDx, for over a couple of years now.”

Rahul Jayaprakash, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
“My educational journey starts in Chennai — where my parents had just settled in after their marriage and wanted their children to get the best education possible. I secured admission into what was arguably the best school in Chennai, and my family and I hence assumed that I was getting the best education possible until my 11th standard where I met Mr. Ravishankar — a physics professor who took after school classes. Ravishankar not only showed me how fascinating physics is, he also unintentionally showed me how much the current education system fails to inspire young students to develop a keen interest in the core subjects. My educational journey in college reaffirmed my belief that an excellent teacher will inspire you to be an excellent student, irrespective of what the course/topic/subject is. I had the opportunity to meet some wonderful professors through my college life, and those interactions contributed a lot to who I am today. This awareness of the impact a teacher can have on a student’s life is what drove me to Teach for India. Over the past year, I have enjoyed every minute I have spent in my classroom inspiring and teaching students.”

Anthony Johnson, North Carolina, USA
“My path to the classroom is unique. I was a terrible student and a teacher’s nightmare who stayed in trouble. During my time in school, I failed 4th, 7th, 8th and 9th grades before dropping out of high school at the age of 16. I received my G.E.D. and moved from job to job for nearly a decade. In 1998, I lost both of my parents six months apart. As a result, I spent time reflecting on my life and decided to make a change. A year later, I enrolled at Livingstone College and majored in music. During my first semester, I began visiting the local elementary school in order to complete community service hours and fulfill my college requirements. I noticed that not much had changed since my time in school. Students were given worksheets, the teacher sat at her desk, and students with behavior issues were allow to sleep in class. I was disturbed by what I observed and took a role in the classroom as a volunteer and mentor. The next semester, I changed my major to Elementary Education and sought other classrooms to volunteer my time. I went on to receive a full academic scholarship and graduate in 2003 with a B.A. in Elementary Education.”

Kimberly Lane, Texas, USA
“I always wanted to teach students and adults about the world of technology. Yes, students are digital natives, but I would like to teach adults how and why they should use technology in the classroom. Everything that we do on a daily basis involves some form of computer science and technology, so why not learn how to use it, create it, and program it? I am a firm believer that no matter your environment, you are capable of learning if resources are provided to you. Since undergraduate school, I have been involved in educational technology and computer science. I believe that EVERYONE deserves a chance at learning about technology innovation.”

Todd LaVogue, Florida, USA
“My wife inspired me to be an educator. She is a career educator who has done amazing work teaching English as a second language in an area of the world that receives new students daily from the Caribbean, Central and South America. I wanted to make the difference I saw her making daily. I transitioned to teaching from a career as a corporate trainer. Teaching started as a job and quickly became a career. Today, it is a calling and a passion. I am a lifelong learner who wants to be the best possible teacher for my students. I am also only the second member of my family to graduate from college. I went on to earn a graduate degree as well. Education has always been important to me, and it’s something that I want students to embrace as well.”

Megan Lowe, Ontario, CANADA
“I love seeing all children succeed! I am passionately curious about what helps us all learn best and I work hard to try and implement these ideas into my own classroom. I can’t tamp down my effort and enthusiasm for education…it’s like a fire within me.”

Tim Leistikow, Minnesota, USA
“My 11th grade English teacher made me realize the power of a teacher who asked great questions to make me a better learner. I participated in theater throughout high school and college, and the power of group collaboration through a shared goal is what I aspire to in my classroom. I love helping people learn, and in turn, learning from them.”

Kristin Leong, Washington, USA
“I teach Humanities because I believe in the power of storytelling and that empathy can be learned. I also believe that reading closely, obsessively, slowly, and talking out every conspiracy theory and unexpected analogy, teaches us not about characters and authors, but about ourselves. Although I do not believe that economic or racial diversity can be simply summoned by a book, I have seen that learning to read — really learning how to relate to characters and find themes across texts and experiences — can teach so many different kinds of kids that they are neither the center of the world nor alone in it. And although I am proud to consider teaching a public service, I stay in education not because I am filled by transferring knowledge to others, but selfishly, because seeing how reading, writing, and telling can break even the most moody and unimpressed tween heart right open keeps teaching me how to strive more deliberately towards becoming the person I want to be when I grow up, too.”

Delene McCoy, Arkansas, USA
“My middle son struggled with a learning disability for most of his academic life. In my endeavors to help him, I became inspired to return to school at the age of 45 and complete a degree, which I had convinced myself I could not do. With encouragement from my family and friends, I completed my Bachelors degree, my Masters degree, and just this last year, my Specialist degree in Education. I am now 55 years old, and I know that I am making a difference every day I enter my classroom.”

Francis Mugume, Kigali, RWANDA
“I am passionate about education. Above all I love speaking, and I love to encourage and inspire people to be all that they can be in life. I realized that through education, I can live my dream of inspiring people.”

Magdaline Muuk, Borneo, MALAYSIA
“My parents are illiterate. I said to myself, ‘I need to educate other children, so that no children are illiterate.”

Marcos Navas, New Jersey, USA
“In high school, I had an amazing History teacher who created lessons to make you think outside of the box. He was the reason I fell in love with the art of learning. After a second year of being blessed to have him as my History teacher, I knew that I also wanted to inspire people to think outside of the box.”

Naoimh Riordan, County Cork, IRELAND
“I truly feel it was my calling. I absolutely adore teaching primary children. I strongly believe that they are the future, and that it is extremely important how children are positively educated, motivated, inspired and cared for, so that in time they will determine and shape the future generations on this planet. I believe that sharing our experiences, knowledge, ideas and cultures from around the world can only enhance and greatly improve our understanding of the primary classroom globally.”

David Saunders, Connecticut, USA
“After years of feeling underwhelmed and untethered as a student, I finally experienced what it was like to have a teacher who understood me. And it was an incredibly powerful thing. Mr. Larsen was our brand new History teacher. He was fresh out of college, and what he may have lacked in pedagogical proficiency, he more than made up for in energy, humor and compassion. He was passionate about American history, curious about new ideas, and worked hard in every class to build enthusiasm in his students. Whether we were singing sea shanties, performing spontaneous skits, or creating alternative history documentaries, Mr. Larsen made history fun. He made us feel like we were essential components of the community by empowering us to tackle big projects and relying on us to live up to our responsibilities. Those 42 minutes each day were an oasis for me where my thoughts and opinions were valued, and where it was cool to be outlandish in my enthusiasm for learning. At the end of an amazing year of connection and learning, it made sense that, for the first time in my young life, I envisioned a future for myself that included helping other young students appreciate their value and discover that education could be much more than they’d ever imagined.”

Christie Simpson, Western Australia, AUSTRALIA
“I was inspired to teach by many of the teachers and learning experiences I had as a student. I enjoy spending time with young people and engaging them in critical discussions about our world, and the way our words and actions can influence and change it.”

Rashmi Swarup, Ontario, CANADA
“I was inspired to become an educator by the opportunity to develop and see the spark of discovery in students as they develop confidence in their own ability to change the world.”

Alan Tamayose, Hawaii, USA
“I was first inspired by a student-teacher (university student) when I was an elementary student in his class. He made an impact in my life and I started to like school. Later, as a Summer Fun leader at the YMCA, I discovered my passion for working with children. I continue to be inspired by my fellow educators. It truly is a calling.”

Aletha Williams, Texas, USA
“Growing up, I was exposed to some phenomenal science teachers. Then I went off to college and met many people who didn’t like chemistry. I decided that if I became a teacher, I would come up with innovative ways to teach it and make sure that every student enjoyed chemistry. I have been teaching for 13 years now, and all my students seem to see that it is not the hard science that everyone makes it out to be but is actually really fun. I like to see the joy in the students’ eyes when they figure out the problem on their own.”

Lisa Winer, Florida, USA
“I have wanted to be a math teacher from a young age, as math always excited me. I want to make math fun for students and I want them to enjoy math as I did when I was a child. I try to make math playful for students and encourage all to love it, not just those who are naturally good at it. Often, students tell me that they did not like math nor know it was fun until they had my class. I love to see the light in my students’ eyes when they make a connection and understand how to solve a problem. I have been teaching high school math for 26 years, and each year it gets better and better. I am never tired of it, and I am always looking for new and innovative ways to get my students to love and enjoy math.”

Nora El Zokm, Jerusalem, PALESTINE
“I am a conflict resolution scholar-practitioner by trade. I spent a number of years working with destructive family and youth conflicts. Over time I began to think about the ways in which education could be used as a change agent in violent and unstable contexts. This, and my Arabic background, inspired me to become an educator in the Arab world.”

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Kenya. India. Australia. These are just three of the 12 countries represented by the second cohort of 30 TED-Ed Innovative Educators. [Learn more about the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program here.] As leaders within TED’s global network of over 250,000 teachers, these innovative educators are dedicated to making the world better for learners everywhere by helping people make the most of TED’s free tools for teachers and students — including TED-Ed Lessons, TED-Ed Clubs and the TED-Ed Platform. Throughout the year-long program, this outstanding community will connect regularly across time zones and national borders to explore, create and share idea-based innovations that spark student curiosity. Below, meet the second cohort of TED-Ed Innovative Educators as they embark on this learning voyage.

What does innovation in education look like to you?

We asked the second cohort of TED-Ed Innovative Educators. Read their inspiring answers below:

Sarah Harkin, Darwin, AUSTRALIA
“Innovation in education means thinking about the hard questions while looking at the larger picture. What isn’t working? Who is being left out? What could be better? Designing solutions to address areas of real need in the classroom can be tricky, as different groups of people must work together to implement new initiatives. However, bettering a student’s future is more than a worthy cause.”

David Aderhold, New Jersey, USA
“Innovation in education means the evolution of thinking over time. It means applying one’s learning to problems in order to create varied and nuanced solutions.”

Mark Ayres, Lancashire, UK
“Innovation in education means changing mindsets. It means using real life situations — and positive role models in the media — to teach difficult concepts.”

John Branya, Nairobi, KENYA
“Innovation in education means helping the students to learn actively and at their own pace, with frequent feedback and encouragement.”

David Burt, California, USA
“Innovation comes from a constant desire to improve the way you teach. Teachers must be willing to evaluate the needs of their students and the effectiveness of their teaching methods. Once a need is identified, educators need to be willing to change lessons, to use different methods — and to adapt new technologies to the needs of their students.”

Wiputra Cendana, West Java, INDONESIA
“Innovation in education means that a new, fresh idea bursts from the mind to bring benefit to the education community. It means integrating visual or auditory media in the classroom so that students can better absorb the content of learning and be more equipped as 21st century learners. It means shifting our paradigm from traditional learning methods to new learning methods that implement more innovation in education. It means that the curriculum itself is very dynamic, like a living organism.”

Sandy Chambers, North Carolina, USA
“Innovation is required! Innovation is creating, collaborating and thinking critically. Innovation in education will prepare our students for the future world.”

Pen-Pen Chen, New York, USA
“To me, innovation in education means not being confounded by limitations, financial or otherwise. It means to create new and effective methods for having students learn. I am a firm believer in Coach John Wooden’s quote, ‘You haven’t taught until they have learned.’ I am also a proponent of Bruce Lee’s approach to martial arts, which is to not subscribe to one particular school of thought, but rather to take learnings and effective methods from wherever you may find them, and incorporate them to achieve the desired results.”

Sunkyong Choi, Daegu, SOUTH KOREA
“To me, innovation in education means to go back to the essence of education. Education is raising a person, I think. It is encouraging students to try something new, instead of defining their abilities by scores.”

Natalie Coleman, Illinois, USA
“It means allowing students to try and fail and try again. It means allowing students to be creative thinkers, free to try what they think will work to solve a problem. Innovation is not pre-packaged. Nor is it determined by demographics. We are currently using our 3D printers to allow students to create their own prototype of an innovative product that will help society on a global level. Allowing them to address a problem — one that they believe they have the solution for — creates a sense of accomplishment and importance in their work and contribution to society.”

Rafranz Davis, Texas, USA
“Innovation in education is about kids learning from what motivates them and designing their own pathways with support. It’s not wrapped in a single device or app, but in the access that the devices and apps provide. Too often, the adults decide what students should be, and we don’t include them in their own learning enough. What if we gave students to room to explore, think, create and build? That’s what innovation is about. True innovation is when we create the space that all students can achieve this regardless of zip code, IQ, economic background, race or gender. It is where we no longer use the phrase, “yes…but” and instead scream, “yes…and.”

Jacqueline Fernandez, Maryland, USA
“Innovation in education is to be comfortable questioning what we do in our schools and why we do it. It’s to make positive changes that will impact student learning outcomes. As a STEM educator, it is my duty to make sure that students are engaged in my classes through my curriculum, lessons and use of technology.”

Bojana Golubovic, Nis, SERBIA
“It can be described in few words: being – doing – knowing. I find the “Nosce te ipsum” learning strategy and Socratic dialogue the best approaches in education today. Yes, I can not imagine education of the 21st century without application of IT in the classrooms, but without reflection on the question: “What is education for?” and “Who am I?” education loses its essence.”

Kathryn Hammond, Florida, USA
“To me, innovation in education is finding ways to make what and how students learn engaging, relevant and meaningful. It means embracing technology and change, and helping students to do the same. It means introducing students to a broad range of resources, information, and perspectives, and giving them the tools, the freedom, and the confidence to move beyond what you have to teach them. It means constantly seeking out new tools, methods, resources, and ideas, or using and combining existing ones in new ways, while systematically evaluating everything we do to make sure that whatever we do is in the best interest of students.”

Susan Herder, Minnesota, USA
“Innovation in education means that we are not treating school and students as part of a factory model, but instead finding ways for students to guide us in their own learning. Innovation is letting go of teaching the way we learned, because ‘that worked then.’ It is about embracing new ideas, providing places to learn iteratively, and recognizing that failure is an important part of working and that most people do not work in isolation. It is about providing ways for students to collaborate with others beyond the classroom walls and to think on a global scale.”

Corey Holmer, Illinois, USA
“An idea becomes an innovation when it is put into action, and innovation exists in education when that idea takes action, through a team effort, and then results in student growth. Innovation also means that an idea is growing, impacting others, and promoting positive change. Educational innovation may include new tools, methods, workspaces, or initiatives, but only if they are the result of a collaborative effort to genuinely enhance student learning. I see innovation in schools whenever teachers, students, parents, or administrators find a new, creative way to address a need. Innovation gains momentum when educators team up, combine their expertise, ask questions, and learn from each other as they work to solve problems or make improvements to existing systems. Innovation doesn’t need to be fancy or result in accolades — but in a school setting, it does need to lead to authentic student growth. True innovation thrives when educators infuse their own passion into learning.”

Ashley Huffmon, Abu Dhabi, UAE
“Innovation in education means that a student has control of their own learning. It is creativity at its best without limitations. It is cooperative learning in such a way that each student learns from one another, and the lessons can be connected to day-to-day life.”

Gwangho Kim, Cheonan, SOUTH KOREA
“Innovation in education is necessary for survival in the future. The world is changing rapidly, and students must learn new skills in school to live in the real world.”

Yau-Jau Ku, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
“Innovation takes creativity, and creativity takes risks. In order to take risks, it must feel safe, where failure is redefined and seen as a stepping stone in the learner’s journey. Innovation in education is about problem solving, resiliency, and grit. We aren’t providing lesson plans, but creating learning experiences that our students will never forget.”

Alicia Lane, Washington, DC, USA
“Innovation in education means that teaching and learning at all levels is relevant and aligned to ensure that the most critical challenges we face today (engineering better medicines, securing cyberspace, increasing access to clean water and many other needs) will be solved by our current learners when they enter the workforce in the future.”

Jennifer Lehotsky, Illinois, USA
“Innovation in education is about empowering students with the skills to engage in their own learning paths. In the end, it is about teaching them how to use the learning tools available to them, so that they have the grit to solve problems with authentic solutions that were once inconceivable.”

Liz Loether, California, USA
“Innovation means to look at education from different perspectives, and to try something new in an effort to help students become better than they were yesterday. Those that limit innovation see the classroom, the students, and the teaching role as the same day-to-day. Innovation is evolving with the ever-changing world.”

Wendy Morales, New Jersey, USA
“Innovation means taking risks and learning from both successes and failures. Innovation does not always have to include technology, but it has to result in an increase in student motivation and success. An innovative learning environment is one in which teachers and students are learning together, and students are driving instruction. Students have choice and voice in an innovative classroom, and are becoming prepared for a future that will look very different than our present. Innovation requires problem-solving, communication, collaboration and creativity; skills that all of our students will need as we get further into the 21st century.”

Vipul S Redey, Bangalore, INDIA
“Innovation in education means 3 things: Individual attention, immersive learning for things like languages, and a curriculum that honors Constructivism.”

Fred Sagwe, Kisii, KENYA
“Innovation in education will improve what exists, building on existing resources and materials from co-educators, writers and educational technology experts. Innovation acts as a catalyst and a spice to earlier creations.”

Lamar Schrader, Texas, USA
“Innovation in education means sharing ideas on how to activate and cultivate students’ learning. It means helping students make their own lives better and richer, and showing them ways that they can make their world a better place to live in by using their intelligence and talents to serve those around them. Innovation does not mean throwing out good ideas that have worked, just for the sake of the new — but it can mean sacrificing good ideas to get to great ideas.”

Georgios Villias, Athens, GREECE
“Innovation in education means to start using all of our senses and abilities in education, and not only our reading skills. Seeing, hearing, experiencing, doing, talking, cooperating, watching, feeling, creating, constructing, playing, imagining, dreaming — these are some of the verbs that should be used more often in a learning experience, because education should be fun. Innovation means using these verbs in productive and meaningful ways.”

Jennifer Ward, Michigan, USA
“Innovation requires first understanding the root of a problem in order to better grasp where, how, and what kind of change is needed. Innovation involves mistakes, missteps and failures, and it also involves resilience, passion and grit.”

Shameka Williams, Georgia, USA
“Innovation in education means using creative ways to pique student curiosity and interest, while also helping students develop 21st century skills. This can happen through technology, in-field experts, or relating content and approaches to real-world events. I believe that innovation is exciting and that students should feel excited to come into innovative environments.”

Pablo Yafe, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
“Innovation in education means reevaluating the needs and potential of students in interaction with the world they will be living in. It means training students in the art of producing new content meant to improve their surroundings. It means redefining the teaching role.”

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