Leymah Gbowee | The Virtual Human's TED Conference Blog

Regina Saphier TED Long Beach 2012 Day 4

Friday, March 2, 2012

8:30 – 10:15

Session 11: The Classroom

Bill Nye, Science guy
Ainissa Ramirez, Science evangelist
John Bohannon + Black Label Movement, Science writer + Dance troupe + Cellists
Al Vernacchio, Sexuality educator, teacher
Kate Messner, Author, educator, speaker
Angie Miller, Language arts teacher
Awele Makeba, Storyteller, teaching artist
Chris Anderson (TED), TED Curator
Aaron Reedy, Teacher
Rafe Esquith, Educator

Bill loves sun dials, and he made sure one goes to Mars. Ainissa says kids have an inner scientist and we should concentrate on that instead of training them for tests. Adult John illustrated his middle class confused human teenager memoir story with dance and music. Al recommended that Americans replace the baseball lingo with pizza symbolism when they talk about sexuality to make it personal, desire based, non competitive, non sexist, non heterosexist and equally pleasurable to both sexes. Kate is a writer, she draws time lines when building new worlds and she asked kids to imagine the worst and best possible worlds. Angie does not want to be remembered as perfect. She asked us to record our real history and leave it behind for future generations, because if you do not do it, someone else might. Awele demonstrated participatory citizenship with a courageous black woman’s story who would not give up her bus seat and who changed history this way. Chris showed us a cute animation about his key question: How is it possible that we have not yet seen any sign of life beyond Earth? He asked us to stay curious and also announced that TED-ED will be open to teachers superb short lectures and will animate the best ones TED style, similar to TheRSA videos. Aaron showed us evidence that yes, evolution is real, like the FOXP2 gene, responsible for learning in birds, mice and humans. You can test natural selection, in a short period of time. Raef introduced his students who entertained us. 🙂

11:00 – 12:45

Session 12: The Moment

Hosted by Chris Anderson

Henrik Schärfe, Roboticist
Sebastian Wernicke, Statistics whiz
Cesar Kuriyama, Video maker
Leymah Gbowee, Peace activist, Nobelist
Brené Brown, Vulnerability researcher

Henrik presented his robotic self. Sebastian tested the idea of interactive TED talks. Cesar showed us his one second a day video narrative of his life. Leymah spoke about her wish for African girls to be able to go to school and not having to suffer. Jacob Soboroff asked: Why are Americans voting on Thursday since 1845? There is NO good reason, and there is now the weekend voter bill, that will hopefully change the day and increase voter turnout. A video followed, a Symphony of Science summary of the latest TED event. Brené spoke about her and our vulnerability.

English: Photo of Brene Brown (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

She asked the audience: Do you believe that your vulnerability is weakness? Most raised their hands. Next she asked: Do you perceive the vulnerability of TED speakers as courage? Most again raised their hands. See? Vulnerability is NO weakness. Vulnerability is the most accurate measure of courage. Shame: I am a mistake (makes people depressed). Guilt: I made a mistake and then I admit it (this is adaptive behavior).