Converting kids from sports to smarts
I just watched the most recent TED talk by Sugata Mitra, a very innovative educator. His talk outlines the different ways he has used technology to successfully educated children around the world. The inspirational talk is well worth 17 minutes of your day; however, one sentence during the talk really stood out for me, “These kids wanted to be football players, but after watching eight TED talks they wanted to be Leonardo daVinci”.
The media children consume today is so full of idolatry for music stars (not really artists), television starts and sports players that it is difficult for children to dream of anything but that. It is absolutely essential that they become more exposed to intellectuals, scientists, engineers, doctors and other people who they can aspire to be like. Just as smoking has disappeared from advertisement, we need to deeply think about what children see everyday. Sweeden has.
Published on September 8, 2010