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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

We call young people who step outside gender lines “brave.” But if adults truly want to support them, we need to be willing to show some courage and embrace some discomfort, say Michele Yulo and Audrey Mason-Hyde.

“When we find out that someone is having a baby, what is the very first question we ask? ‘Boy or girl?’” says Michele Yulo in a talk given at TEDxUtica. Beginning with the blue or pink wallpaper and continuing to trucks or dolls, this distinction sets children on separate gender paths that can shape much of their lives.

But does it need to? Or, are there ways in which we can offer kids more freedom to discover who they are? Yulo and teenager Audrey Mason-Hyde offer their suggestions.

When Michele Yulo’s daughter Gabby first learned to walk and talk, she didn’t show any interest in so-called “girly” things. “In fact,” says Yulo, the Atlanta-based founder of kids’ clothing brand Princess Free Zone, “she didn’t want to be anything like me; she wanted to be more like my husband.”

Yulo made a conscious decision to support Gabby’s preferences, and, when possible, not restrict her from doing and wearing what she wanted. For Yulo, a turning point came when Gabby was seven.

“She already had short hair. One day she said to me, ‘Mom, if boys can have a buzz cut, why can’t girls?’” recalls Yulo. “And there was nothing I could say to that. She was absolutely right; it was her hair, it was her choice. I did say to her, ‘Gabby, if you buzz your hair, I just want you to know people might look at you funny.’” But Gabby told her mother she was fine with that, so they went out to get her a buzz cut.

The result was worth it, says Yulo. “Gabby could not have been happier, and I knew right at that moment that allowing her to walk out into the world how she wanted to walk out into the world was what mattered.”

“These stereotypes set in and attach themselves like a second skin that will follow a child all the way through adulthood.”

How can we translate this to the kids in our own lives? Adults need to learn to embrace them and their choices, according to Yulo. “Sometimes, kids who step outside gender lines are viewed as courageous, but I don’t believe that kids should have to be brave to be who they are. As parents, we have to be.”

This means standing up for them in public when they go against the stereotypes. For example, when Yulo and her family went to Disney World, a hotel employee asked Yulo: Was Gabby her little prince?

Yulo’s response: “No, and she’s not a princess either.’”

However, this doesn’t mean that children can’t enjoy the things they’re naturally drawn to. But we should think about when, where and how we may be directing them to fit the norms. Yulo recalls feeling her heart sink on seeing parents shoo their girls away from the boys’ clothing aisles where she and Gabby were browsing.

It’s easy to think, “What’s the big deal? Our kids have plenty of time to make their own choices when they’re grownups.” But childhood is when so many of our beliefs and self-conceptions are formed, work that it’s much harder to undo later. As Yulo says, “The reality is that these stereotypes set in and attach themselves like a second skin that will follow a child all the way through adulthood.”

Ultimately, this comes down to the aspirations that we hold for our children. Yulo asks, “We have the capability as parents to open up their worlds so that they truly have endless opportunities from which to choose. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids?”

And if we’re truly interested in expanding the possibilities for all children — not just the ones we know well — we need to look at how we handle our casual interactions. In a 2017 TEDxAdelaide talk, Audrey Mason-Hyde, then 12 years old, speaks openly about how strangers can unwittingly impose on one’s personal freedom. “In my experience, one of the first things people do is assume I’m a boy, or aren’t sure whether I’m a girl or a boy.”

Audrey’s distinctive style includes suits, bow ties, and flamingo socks. Exploring the world through fashion and clothing has been key to Audrey’s relationship with gender. “Until about the age of nine, when someone mistook me for a boy, I would reply comfortably that I’m a girl,” says Audrey. “But eventually, it stopped feeling right; instead of gaining confidence the more it happened, I lost it. ‘Girl’ didn’t feel right, but ‘boy’ didn’t feel correct either.”

“What my gender expression and identity is, is entirely about me and not about how other people perceive me.”

Now 14, Audrey identifies as non-binary, or just simply Audrey (and uses the pronouns they/their/them). But this comes with some unexpected complications in public spaces. “I remember one of my first days at school, and I was in the girls’ toilet when two girls I knew came near me and said, ‘Look, there’s a boy in here,’” Audrey recalls. “I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one there. So I asked them, ‘Where?’ I realized they meant me. I was really shocked, as I’d only been around people who knew and understood me. I felt upset and alienated.”

Similar incidents happened in restrooms outside school. Audrey says, “Often, I would get things like ‘Why are you in here?’ or ‘Wrong bathroom.’ This eventually led to me being hesitant and tentative about even going to the bathroom in public.”

These experiences made Audrey only more determined to be themselves. Audrey says, “I’ve realized that, for me, gender is a spectrum. What my gender expression and identity is, is entirely about me and not about how other people perceive me.”

For Audrey, having to think hard about which toilets to use and how people may respond is stressful and a bit dehumanizing. Audrey says, “Using the girls’ toilets, I never feel good, and I still have a tendency to go with someone else. Though I’m not labeled as a particular gender when I go to the disabled toilets, I don’t feel great still, because it just reminds me that there are mostly no toilets for people like me, who don’t identify within the gender binary, and that toilets are just another way we categorize people.”

So, what should we do when find ourselves in a bathroom with someone who has a gender identity that we can’t quite place? Audrey’s advice: Accept not knowing.

Audrey says, “Would it hurt you not to know someone’s gender? Despite how uncomfortable it might make you feel, you assuming my gender makes me feel uncomfortable every day. All I’m asking is for you to just sit with that little bit of uncomfortable to make someone else feel better.”

Watch Michele Yulo’s TEDxUtica talk:

Watch Audrey Mason-Hyde’s TEDxAdelaide talk:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

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.

Jenice Kim

Most of us have stumbled when saying an unfamiliar name. That’s natural, but it’s what we do afterwards that really matters, says writer Gerardo Ochoa.

Do you remember being in 5th grade? I’ll never forget it — because that’s when my name was changed.

I was nine years old, and my family had just immigrated from Mexico to a small town east of Portland, Oregon. Making that change was not easy. People ate different foods, they wore different clothes, and they spoke a different language. I quickly realized that when you are different, it can be very easy for everyone around you to tell you who you should be.

That’s when my name was changed, and I remember precisely when it happened. During the first fifth-grade roll call, the teacher started by calling out “John!” John answered in his squeaky voice: “Here.” Then, the teacher went down the list: “Kimberly!” and “Sarah!” They all called out “Here.” When she got to my name, she said, “Her … Jer … Jerry …” She settled on “Jerry!” (For the record, my name is pronounced “Her-are-doe”).

Without realizing it, she not only changed my name but my life. Because I was still learning to speak English and my parents had taught me to respect my teachers and elders, I didn’t question it. What I wanted to do was fit in. But fitting in came with a price.

Before long, few people knew my real name. It was like an out-of-control wildfire that spread too far, too fast for me to stop it. I accepted my new name, but I knew it was not me. I felt ashamed, I felt dirty, and I felt like a fraud. This wrong name was everywhere — in the school yearbook, my school ID, the local newspaper. Don’t get me wrong: I actually like the name Jerry. The only problem I had with it is it was not my name.

By now, I’ve heard thousands of variations of my name from students, teachers, employers, strangers who’ve become friends, and strangers who’ve remained strangers. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, I’ve researched it, and I’ve reflected on it.

Educator and podcaster Jennifer Gonzalez has done a fantastic job on this subject, and she has come up with three different categories of mispronouncers, which I’d like to describe and build upon. Most of us have been one of them, at one time or another:

The Fumble Mumbler

When I meet a fumble mumbler and introduce myself, they typically get nervous. They attempt to say my name, struggle a bit in the process, and may giggle. They usually settle for some close approximation of my name. I really don’t mind the fumble mumblers, because I can see that they’re trying and they know their problem is with their mispronunciation and not with my name.

The Arrogant Mangler

When I meet a mangler, I know right away what kind of relationship we’ll have — and it’s usually not a good one. When I introduce myself, the arrogant mangler will respond with “Geraldo, it’s great to meet you blah blah blah …” They’ll go on talking, completely oblivious to the fact that they mispronounced my name. Often, they will continue with their own version of my name — even after I correct them. I have very little patience for the arrogant mangler, because to me they’re showing great disrespect or they don’t even care to try pronouncing my name.

The Calibrator

These are my favorite group of mispronouncers. The calibrator will listen to my name, they’ll slow down, read my lips, and attempt to say it. They may get it wrong, but they try again and again until they get it. Sometimes, they’ll come back to me the next day or week to ensure they’ve still got it right. If you struggle to pronounce some names, always strive to be a calibrator.

The Evader

I’d like to add a fourth category to Gonzalez’ list: the evader. These are the people who’d rather call me something different than call me by my name or look silly trying to pronounce it. When I introduce myself, they say things like “Do you have a nickname?” or “I’m never going to be able to say that!” or “Can I just call you G or Jerry?” No matter what they say, it ends up making me feel like an other, like I don’t belong.

Pronouncing someone’s name correctly can make people feel valued, honored and respected — and mispronouncing their name creates real problems. Carmen Fariña, former chancellor of the New York City school system, has spoken about how she was marked absent for six weeks in kindergarten because she never heard her name being called. As it turns out, her name was read but it had been anglicized and mispronounced. Mispronouncing someone’s name leads to invisibility, and when students feel invisible in the classroom, she argues, they are less likely to have academic success.

Mispronouncing someone’s name can even have financial costs. In the 2013 offseason, basketball superstar Stephen Curry — pronounced Steff-en — switched sneaker sponsors, going from Nike to Under Armour. Why? According to an ESPN article that quoted Curry’s father, during Nike’s marketing pitch a couple of executives referred to Stephen as “Steph-on” (with an incorrect emphasis on the second syllable). This and a few other blunders cost Nike the support of an iconic player — and is estimated to have driven some $14 billion in sales to Under Armour.

Why is pronouncing someone’s name correctly such a struggle? When I talked to Nancy, my wife, about this, she shared her thoughts in a way that made a lot of sense. She said, “It’s kind of like driving. Some people have been privileged their entire life driving an automatic; when they meet you, you’re asking them to learn how to drive a stick-shift quickly on the spot. Some people can do it, others are willing to try, and some simply refuse.”

Every time I share the story about my name, I’m comforted by the fact that I’m not alone. So many people have had experiences similar to mine. At the same time, I’m disturbed that most people in the US who connect with it are immigrants and people of color. As our communities continue to be more diversified and globalized, the likelihood we’ll meet someone whose name we can’t pronounce keeps increasing.

All of us, myself included, are going to stumble and fumble. But it’s not your mistake that matters most; it’s what you do after the mistake. That’s when you have the chance to make someone feel like they belong — or feel like they’re the other. What will you choose to do?

Here are three simple tips that have helped me navigate this area:

Be humble — admit when you’re having difficulty with a name.
The first step to pronouncing someone’s name correctly is to acknowledge to yourself that you can’t pronounce it. It’s okay if the other person sees you struggling, and it’s okay if you have to ask for help. Usually, they’ll be more than willing to assist. When I see someone struggling to say my name, I help them, so when they finally achieve success, their success is my success, too. We both win.

Be an active bystander.
When you see and hear someone mispronounce another person’s name, take the initiative and correct them. So far, this has just happened once in entire life, and I’ll never forget it. When a friend corrected somebody else’s mispronunciation of my name, it took the burden off me. Deep down, it made my heart smile.

Don’t ever change someone’s name just because you can’t say it.
Try saying someone’s name, even if you get it wrong. Changing someone’s name is a decision that belongs to that individual, not to you.

I work on a college campus, and my favorite time of year is commencement, when we read graduating students’ names out loud. I’m fortunate to work with colleagues who practice and take great care with their pronunciation. It’s not lost on us that many people have spent so much time and given up so much — particularly immigrants who’ve have left their entire lives behind — to witness that moment when their student takes the stage. Those diplomas are more than pieces of paper. They symbolize sacrifice, hard work and sleepless nights, and people should hear their names pronounced correctly.

Let’s face it: We’re not always going to get people’s names right. But, more than ever, it matters that we try.

This piece has been adapted from his TEDxMcMinnville talk. Watch it here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gerardo Ochoa is a first-generation college graduate and Latinx immigrant, who has dedicated his career to promoting college affordability, access, and graduation. He believes in the power of personal stories to build empathy, create opportunities, and influence change. He is director of community relations at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. You can follow him on twitter: @gerardoochoa

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.

Jenice Kim

Let’s celebrate boys for their abilities, values and passions, and show them that their character matters more than their height, says rapper and poet Meta Sarmiento.

I was born and raised on the island of Guam. An unincorporated territory of the US, Guam is located in Micronesia. One of the first things I learned in kindergarten was that you couldn’t find Guam on a globe without using a magnifying glass. Imagine a half-grown child, standing on shore, staring at the expansive horizon and realizing a single grain of sand is bigger than his home on a map.

Now I’m not that half-grown child anymore. I’m more like a half-grown adult — I’m 5’5” when I got my shoes on.

When you’re a tiny kid who grows up in a tiny house on a very small island, you naturally start to feel how big the rest of the world is. In a society that emphasizes the enormity of things, being little can be a huge hurdle. At school, the bigger kids roughed me up because they could.

It began innocently enough — can’t get on the roller coaster because I’m too short, can’t join my division in football because I’m too light, can’t date girls in heels. But, then, life got more complicated — can’t defend the people I love, can’t speak my mind because I’m too afraid, can’t compete with others in my field of work on a global scale.

Everything I learned taught me that size will always be the final measurement of strength. How could little old me ever be strong? I carried that question with me, and at every turn I heard the same answer — a voice saying, “You’re too weak.” Eventually, that voice started screaming, “You will never be good enough for anyone or anything,” and I believed it.

I felt hopelessly weak for a long time until my sister gave birth to Elijah, her first son and my eldest nephew. Everyone in my family says he reminds them of me. He’s musically inclined, he loves to read, he’s emotionally intelligent — and he’s also really small.

So when I started seeing myself in him, I grew worried. I didn’t want him to harbor the same self-doubts or feel hopelessly weak, but I knew it was inevitable. I wanted to be that super-awesome uncle who could help him through it all, but how could I do that if I was stuck in the same place?

Eli was my motivation to figure things out. One of the most important things I did was ask myself: “In what other ways am I strong?”

I realized that we need to stop portraying boys’ strength in such a limited way. We need to stop focusing on mass alone — the extent of one’s strength should not be determined solely by one’s size. Why? Because we are so much more than a push or a pull or a fist and a body.

If we can teach young boys at an early age to look beyond their physical attributes and to look inward to reflect on their abilities, their values, their passions and their knowledge, we might have a world full of boys and men who are less obsessed with proving strength through how much space they occupy, control or destroy.

I viewed myself as this tiny kid from this tiny island, when I should have been viewing myself as a young man from Micronesia, a region rich with culture, talent and perseverance.

And I should have seen that right next to Guam is the Marianas Trench, the deepest place on this planet. It’s a world so submerged and unexplored that we’re only just beginning to understand what’s inside of it. I think that’s how we should view strength — true strength is defined by the depths of our character and our potential.

This piece was adapted from his TEDxMileHigh talk. Watch it here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Meta Sarmiento is a Filipino rapper and poet from Guam, and he is now based in Denver. Sarmiento was a finalist for the 2019 Sonia Sanchez-Langston Hughes Poetry Contest, Top 12 Finisher at the 2018 WRLD UNDERGROUND MC TOURNAMENT, and a winner of 2015 Spoken Word for the World, where he was flown to Paris to perform during the UN Climate Negotiations. His work often explores themes of cultural identity, masculinity, family and love. Follow Meta on Instagram and Twitter @metasarmiento.

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.

Jordan Awan

If we want children to thrive in our complicated world, we need to teach them how to think, says educator Brian Oshiro. And we can do it with 4 simple questions.

We all want the young people in our lives to thrive, but there’s no clear consensus about what will best put them on the path to future success. Should every child be taught to code? Attain fluency in Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi and English?

Those are great, but they’re not enough, says educator and teacher trainer Brian Oshiro. If we want our children to have flexible minds that can readily absorb new information and respond to complex problems, he says, we need to develop their critical thinking skills.

In adult life, “we all have to deal with questions that are a lot more complicated than those found on a multiple-choice test,” he says in a TEDxXiguan talk. “We need to give students an opportunity to grapple with questions that don’t necessarily have one correct answer. This is more realistic of the types of situations that they’re likely to face when they get outside the classroom.”

How can we encourage kids to think critically from an early age? Through an activity that every child is already an expert at — asking questions.

1. Go beyond “what?” — and ask “how?” and “why?”

Let’s say your child is learning about climate change in school. Their teacher may ask them a question like “What are the main causes of climate change?” Oshiro says there are two problems with this question — it can be answered with a quick web search, and being able to answer it gives people a false sense of security; it makes them feel like they know a topic, but their knowledge is superficial.

At home, prompt your kid to answer questions such as “How exactly does X cause climate change?” and “Why should we worry about it?” To answer, they’ll need to go beyond the bare facts and really think about a subject.

Other great questions: “How will climate change affect where we live?” or “Why should our town in particular worry about climate change?” Localizing questions gives kids, says Oshiro, “an opportunity to connect whatever knowledge they have to something personal in their lives.”

2. Follow it up with “How do you know this?”

Oshiro says, “They have to provide some sort of evidence and be able to defend their answer against some logical attack.” Answering this question requires kids to reflect on their previous statements and assess where they’re getting their information from.

3. Prompt them to think about how their perspective may differ from other people’s.

Ask a question like “How will climate change affect people living in X country or X city?” or “Why should people living in X country or X city worry about it?” Kids will be pushed to think about the priorities and concerns of others, says Oshiro, and to try to understand their perspectives — essential elements of creative problem-solving.

4. Finally, ask them how to solve this problem.

But be sure to focus the question. For example, rather than ask “How can we solve climate change?” — which is too big for anyone to wrap their mind around — ask “How could we address and solve cause X of climate change?” Answering this question will require kids to synthesize their knowledge. Nudge them to come up with a variety of approaches: What scientific solution could address cause X? What’s a financial solution? Political solution?

You can start this project any time on any topic; you don’t have to be an expert on what your kids are studying. This is about teaching them to think for themselves. Your role is to direct their questions, listen and respond. Meanwhile, your kids “have to think about how they’re going to put this into digestible pieces for you to understand it,” says Oshiro. “It’s a great way to consolidate learning.”

Critical thinking isn’t just for the young, of course. He says, “If you’re a lifelong learner, ask yourself these types of questions in order to test your assumptions about what you think you already know.” As he adds, “We can all improve and support critical thinking by asking a few extra questions each day.”

Watch his TEDxXiguan talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

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.

Armand Burger, Getty Images | iStock

All children deserve to learn in a safe, supportive educational environment. One education organization working toward this goal is GLSEN, which aims “to create safe and affirming schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” Below, GLSEN ambassador and youth advocate Jeffrey Marsh offers 7 key pieces of advice for teachers in this excerpt from their excellent book, How To Be You:

I work with young people. They write to me all the time. They message me about their experiences. They communicate. They respect me. And there are a few magical things I’ve learned about how to treat them. If you really want to reach young people, if you want to know what helps them feel safe and cared for and ready to learn from you as an educator or school administrator or camp counselor, read on.

1. Really listen. Seems obvious, right? This is first because it is the most important. So many ills can be alleviated with concentrated respectful listening. You know deep down that you want to feel accepted and cared for and you want to feel like your opinions and experiences matter. The same is true for any student or young person you work with. Don’t dismiss. Don’t conflate. Don’t belittle and don’t rush any young person you’re talking to. Take the care you would give to a close friend and give that to a student. Sit for awhile. Pause before you respond. Really pay attention. Don’t cut them off. Listen. Also, don’t get all high and mighty. Assuming what someone means without actually asking for clarification is a big fat CDE: communication dead end. If you want a student to show up, then you need to do the work of showing them that it’s safe to do so. Along these lines, please ask follow-up questions. Don’t try to lead the conversation, but lean into it: “What do you mean?” Can you say more about that? Asking shows you care — it shows you’re listening.

2. Get to know the lingo. One of the best ways to show respect to someone from a different background or generation is to understand the terms they use — especially when it comes to how they define themselves. Some of my fans’ Twitter bios read like this: “I’m an a-romantic pansexual trans-fem DMAB.” I realized at a certain point that I needed a vocab lesson if I was going to be of any use at all! In my day (which wasn’t all that long ago) we didn’t use any of these terms. I needed to “meet them where they were” if I was going to connect with and help any young person. So I learned. I asked around. I found out what the terms were, what folks in school were using to define themselves and their experiences of the world. Knowing what the vocabulary was went a long way to helping me show that I meant business and was ready to accept and respect whoever I was talking to.

3. Lobby for safe spaces (or create them). Sometimes a teacher needs to be the one to advocate for the use of school space for clubs and gatherings that the school deems controversial or unimportant. Whether it’s an LGBT or religious or just a hobby club, young people need at least one safe space to make connections with peers and find out they are not alone or freakish or as weird as they may be thinking. A safe space of this kind has several hallmarks. It is clean and respectful. It is private. It is free from other activities and groups. It is free from haters and bullies, whether they are students or teachers who disagree with what the club is offering. If a school refuses to allow a safe space that you know your students need, look for ways to assist with the club outside your school.

4. Take a forthright unequivocal stand against bullying. In big ways and small ways, in your private life and in your public persona as an educator, you must take an anti-bullying stance. If any student senses an attitude of “Boys will be boys” or “Kids need to toughen up” or “It’s not that big of a deal,” you’ve already lost them. If you aren’t willing to take a strong no-tolerance policy against bullying in your own school or classroom, you will never reach your students effectively. I’d recommend zero tolerance. If you witness bullying or you find out it’s going on, you must show all the kids involved that bullying behavior has real (negative) consequences. Many schools have a structure in place for this kind of disciplinary action and my advice is to use that structure without hesitation. If you want to reach young people, you must be willing to respect them by keeping them physically and psychologically safe while they learn. Work to make your school’s anti-bullying policy comprehensive. An appropriate policy should cover gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and all the reasons that kids are bullied.

5. Get help if you need it. Don’t believe the lie that you need to do it all yourself. You are not alone. There are a ton of organizations (GLSEN, for example) that love to help make schools safe for everyone. So Google for help. Reach out. Don’t get caught up in thinking that communicating with and helping students is all up to you.

6. Honor their experience. Just because you’re older and probably wiser doesn’t mean you’re right. If you disagree with a student, try interacting with them as you would with an adult. For whatever reason, many teachers just tend to assume that a student’s views and experiences are a little less valid than an adult’s. Why do we do this? It seems basically arbitrary in most respects. Sure, a young person is less like likely to have the depth and breadth of experiences that an adult has had, but that may not always be true. And if it is true, does it automatically mean that their opinions and experiences are somehow less valuable? Well…no.

7. Give yourself some credit. If only for just a moment, don’t judge your performance as a teacher; don’t get down about how you’re not doing this “right.” See yourself from the outside. Take note of how hard you’re trying. Notice how hard the profession of teaching can be. And notice how deeply impactful you are every day. We all remember the teacher who inspired us, who was nice to us when we needed it, or who we felt really got us. You’re changing lives, and it’s totally okay to acknowledge your good hard work enthusiastically and often.

Author bio: Jeffrey Marsh is a youth advocate and the author of How To Be You.

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Ask a kid how their day went at school and you may get a one-word answer: “Fine.” What’s a parent to do? For her TED-Ed Innovation Project, administrator Nola-Rae Cronan created a school newsletter template that’s designed to start more textured conversations at home.

Below are her notes on the project:

The goal of my project is to make parent communication easy for schools and families in three distinct areas: general school/grade topics, class/course specific material, and parent-focused advice.

The newsletters

I designed three newsletters — one in March for 8th grade, and two in May for 6th grade and 8th grade. I struggled to find a format that would be free and easy to work with, both of which I felt were needed to insure accessibility for any school.

The first newsletter was completed on Google Docs, which is a free and somewhat easy to format option. Unfortunately, the videos cannot play within the newsletter and the formatting becomes wonky on various devices/screens.

I continued looking for an alternative format and was introduced to Sway by Office while at EdCamp Detroit. Sway is easier to use than Google Docs and has unique features such as video playback, animation and easy updating. The May newsletters were both developed using Sway. Here’s the 8th grade newsletter and the 6th grade newsletter.

Let’s take a closer look at the 8th grade newsletter.

In the first section, I decided to address general grade specific concerns. I used this TED-Ed Lesson about sleep to drive home the importance of balance during the end of the year finals. This section can be used to communicate general parenting advice (sleep, eating, study strategies, etc.), general school updates (vacations, holidays, programs, etc.), and special concerns (social media issues, bullying, behavior).

In the second section, I focused on the course material covered. I asked teachers to suggest 3-5 topics that had been covered in class with in the last month. I then researched TED-Ed Lessons that would be a good fit (in the March newsletter I also included foreign language, and created the complete lesson in the target language). I decided to have the teachers give me topics vs having them look up TED-Ed Lessons, to reduce their workload in this project. In the future, it might be easier to have the faculty offer the newsletter author actual lesson titles to use, and/or create lessons for material not available. In this section, I encouraged parents to take a peek at what their kids were working on and to have conversations with their children about their understanding of the material. Within this section, each subject area was highlighted with a short description/explanation of the material and a TED-Ed Lesson.

The third and final section was designed just for parents. For this section, I chose a fun TED Talk about children lying to address the stereotype of “normal” adolescent behavior. This section can be related to parenting, or just a wonderful way to introduce parents to TED. It can also be a great way to encourage parents to have meaningful dialogue with one another in the discussion part of the TED-Ed Lesson or at a parent event at school.

Parent Feedback

I received 9 responses for the 8th grade newsletter with the following responses:
8/9 found the newsletter “helpful in understanding what your daughter is covering in class”
8/9 found the newsletter “easy to navigate”
8/9 responded ‘absolutely’ to “would you recommend this newsletter?”

When asked if there is “anything you would like to add?” I received the following:
“The videos provide variety and a different approach to conversation with our daughters. I see this as an excellent communication tool that can be used in multiple ways.”
“I would want to see more videos and get this newsletter on a regular basis as the girls are learning new concepts.”
“Great way to send information. Very easy to use and a fun experience!”

When asked how the newsletters could be improved, I received the following:
“These newsletters might be helpful if they were shorter and given more frequently during the school year.”
“Feature a teacher, so parents can become more acquainted.”
“I suggest you walk through an example of this at parent visiting day so that we have a greater awareness that this is available.”

Closing thoughts:

I really enjoyed making the project and the newsletters. I felt that the feedback, although a small sampling, was very positive. Additionally, working at a private school I am very conscious of the challenges some of our families might encounter. For some families, sending their student to our school might be a hardship financially, and the commitments we ask them to make to their students’ schooling can also be difficult. Asking parents to actively engage with topics and material they may have forgotten or may never have experienced could inadvertently widen the divide they feel to the school. This can also be true for public school families, or for any family. My hope is that schools will use my newsletter template to strengthen connections between parents, teachers, and students — and that families will find it to be a meaningful way to deepen dinner time conversations about school.

This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+ TED-Ed Innovation Projects designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under this Creative Commons license to meet the needs of students and teachers.

At the start of Autism Acceptance Month, author Steve Silberman spoke to the United Nations about the need for school and workplace environments that embrace all kinds of minds. As a parent of an autistic child, I agree. Fortunately, my son’s current classroom is a place of joy and learning. Here are 10 things his teachers do — and you can, too — that make a big difference in the lives of autistic kids:

1. Be patient. Autistic children are just as sensitive to frustration and disappointment in those around them as non-autistic children, and just like other children, if that frustration and disappointment is coming from caregivers, it’s soul-crushing.

2. Presume competence. Begin any new learning adventure from a point of aspiration rather than deficit. Children know when you don’t believe in them and it affects their progress. Instead, assume they’re capable; they’ll usually surprise you. If you’re concerned, start small and build toward a goal.

3. Meet them at their level. Try to adapt to the issues they’re struggling with, as well as their strengths and special interests. When possible, avoid a one-size-fits all approach to curriculum and activities.

4. Treat challenges as opportunities. Each issue — whether it’s related to impulse control, a learning challenge, or a problem behavior — represents an opportunity for growth and accomplishment. Moreover, when you overcome one issue, you’re building infrastructure to overcome others.

5. Communicate, communicate, communicate. For many parents, school can be a black box. Send home quick notes about the day’s events. Ask to hear what’s happening at home. Establish communication with people outside the classroom, including at-home therapists, grandparents, babysitters, etc. Encourage parents to come in to observe the classroom. In short, create a continuous feedback loop so all members of the caregiver team are sharing ideas and insights, and reinforcing tactics and strategies.

6. Seek inclusion. This one’s a two-way street: not only do autistic children benefit from exposure to their non-autistic peers, those peers will get an invaluable life lesson in acceptance and neurodiversity. My son’s school, for example, partners with other nearby non-autism schools for regular events like Lunch Bunch and classroom drop-ins. They do outings in the neighborhood to get groceries for cooking class and supplies for projects. The point is to expose our kids to the world, and to expose the world to our kids.

7. Embrace the obsession. Look for ways to turn an otherwise obsessive interest into a bridge mechanism, a way to connect with your students. My son, for example, is fascinated by numbers and subway systems, often to the exclusion of everything else. Rather than constantly trying to redirect him, his teachers often find ways to incorporate and generalize those interests into classroom activities and lessons.

8. Create a calm oasis. Anxiety, sensory overload and focus issues affect many kids (and adults!), but are particularly pronounced in autistic children. By looking for ways to reduce noise, visual clutter and other distracting stimuli, your kids will be less anxious and better able to focus.

9. Let them stim! Some parents want help extinguishing their child’s self-stimulatory behaviors, whether it’s hand-flapping, toe-walking, or any number of other “stimmy” things autistic kids do. Most of this concern comes from a fear of social stigma. Self-stimulatory behaviors, however, are soothing, relaxing, and even joy-inducing. They help kids cope during times of stress or uncertainty. You can help your kids by encouraging parents to understand what these behaviors are and how they help.

10. Encourage play and creativity. Autistic children benefit from imaginative play and creative exercises just like their non-autistic peers, misconceptions aside. I shudder when I think about the schools who focus only on deficits and trying to “fix” our kids without letting them have the fun they so richly deserve. My son’s school, for example, has dress-up days, talent shows, cooking classes, painting and drawing lessons, etc. Imaginative play is a social skill, and the kids love it.

To learn more about autism, watch these TED Talks:

• Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

• Steve Silberman: The forgotten history of autism

• Rosie King: How autism freed me to be myself

• Faith Jegede: What I’ve learned from my autistic brothers

• Wendy Chung: Autism—what we know (and what we don’t know yet)

• Brian Kinghorn: Educating a neurodiverse world

Recommended reading on autism:

• Steve Silberman: NeuroTribes

• Barry M. Prizant: Uniquely Human

• Naoki Higashida: The Reason I Jump

• Paul Collins: Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism

Michael McWatters is a designer and writer. To read more of his work, click here to follow him on Medium.

Image credit: iStock