Our education system is failing our kids. Music can be a solution | Lemond Brown | TEDxMidAtlantic
[Music] [Applause] imagine waking up 3: in the morning mind you I'm living with my grandpa so imagine my face when I see he can't talk matter of fact only thing he got out was I can't breathe all I'm thinking to myself is you can't leave now imagine a family of a Garner matter fact any father who was lost there in the Heat of the Moment I bet that moment feel real slow and they say that we free here in America the Beautiful yeah yeah truth be told it even all in slow motion I was able to save him yep kept my grandpa from choking still hoping he going to get better we going to do it again we overcoming them odds yeah we so destined to win yep yep 4 days in the hospital came home thank for and my fam came over I was standing right there when he did pass on it's all good though we remain strong matter of fact still feeling that we ain't gone one thing that he did pass on is the heart of a brave man a real bad man and America and used or this real black man would have even survived in the 1930s growing up in South Carolina think about it and the same bloodline that was running inside him now inside me running through me I've been beat down been locked up it ain't mov me and my pops got it too he a true G they show me I win the mission the same is the motivation that passion prel you forward see it all in my face that I go to war for these kids hustling training them daily so NASA once in a while nothing B them them belly go to Pluto and back just to say the life of a child some people love it or hate it look either way I just smile cuz you don't know what I've been through thank you so I dedicated that piece to the late great way Brown that was my grandfather he's actually a chemist and I teach science technology engineering arts and math so what I want to talk to you today about is this problem that we have that affects everyone in this room right here you see math literacy scores around the globe and what do you see what jumps out the US is behind Math and Science actually below the international average now our challenge as Educators is how do we teach the students we have now and prepare them for a future that we don't even know what the jobs are going to look like so if we zoom in on America and we look at graduation rates what striking Washington DC has the lowest graduation rate in the country right here in the nation's capital and it has been that way for consecutive years and that's a problem because our education system is failing our kids right it's outdated we're using an 18th century education system for a time that we've never known we have information infinite knowledge and Technology at the palm of our hands so it's time for us to upgrade our education system so what you see here is uh Dropout rates right so as you can see they're actually going down most people argue lot dropout rate is declining but what isn't declining is that big bar at the bottom that represents lowincome families low-income families still represent the biggest percentage of our dropouts right so enough enough about the problems let's talk about some solutions how can we actually fix this problem how can we fix our education system because we know it's linked to so many other things right so we have studies that show any child that receives some type of musical education or some type of musical training automatically develops better better brain chemistry at a young age than kids who don't the facts are there so you know how powerful music is and learning let's see a b c d e f you heard this before we don't teach it a b c d That's not how we teach right so why are we taking the Arts out of our schools that doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense so we know anytime you're playing music you're you're using your audio your Visual and your motary skills all at once so your brain is firing left and right and that strength that you build up shown in other areas right so you see it in academics I had the benefit of being able to take music lessons when I was younger I took piano when I was 7even and that led me to find my passion which was music right and that carried me throughout my elementary and secondary education because I knew one I had to finish my homework and I had to get good grades because that was the only way I was going to get to play music and do shows on the weekends so propelling me all the way to high school my senior year I'm like all right I'm ready I'm going graduate I'm going to be a rock star and my parents are looking at me like boy you know you're going to college right so I said okay I learned two things when I went to college one I learned how to solve problems like an engineer I learned how to think two I learned that I fell in the vast majority of people who go to college and basically study something that they don't have a passion for and we end up not using what we actually went to school and paid all that money for we spent so much time and money doing it so what I did I founded the SW Liga Foundation which the sole purpose of the SW Liga Foundation is to help people find their passion find what it is they like to do right so when I came back to Washington DC I graduated with a degree in architectural engineering and I knew I had a passion for music so I wanted to get back to the community I went to the Boys and Girls clubs at greater Washington so I walk in I'm all excited I'm brigh eyed I got my swga shirt on like hey I want to do art with kids let's do it let's rock and then they're like like well first of all we're happy to see you cuz most people don't just walk in off the street and volunteer second they showed me around and they told me about this steam initiative that they had and they told me that we got this music equipment donated we have a studio nobody here to run it so my eyes automatically lit up because I saw the potential that was there right so I began volunteering at the Boys and Girls Clubs and for about 4 months and I loved it we were doing doing great work and and then um my parents were looking at me like yeah that's cool we love what you're doing but boy you know you need a job right so I said I know you're right so I'm applying I'm uh going to job interviews the same week the very same week that I get offered an engineering position a grant came through to the Boys and Girls Clubs that would allow me to teach there fulltime so I had to take my own advice and I followed my passion and choice me for me was easy right it wasn't about the money I wanted to build on the work that we were doing so our challenge is how do we get kids that are stuck in this box they're in public school for six hours a day they come to us after school what do you think their reaction is if you just throw a book in front of them like hey today we're going to learn calculus not going to get a great response probably so our challenge is tapping into things that they're interested in so we started doing things like the science of sound right how do we as humans actually hear sound the smallest bone in the human body is in our inner ear right how does sound waves move through the air and then we're making music we're making beats and they go home all excited they're telling their parents they're telling their friends like yeah we were in the studio with Mr L man he was rapping we were doing music and that's all very true but we were also doing physics we're doing mathematics we're doing calculus and we're doing the things that they need to learn in school but they just don't really receive it in that way and that's where you get steam right steam is the the intersection of all of these different things and that program developed into what became known as Steam the block and we did this in war 7 one of the most impoverished communities in Washington DC which as we saw is has some of the lowest performing schools in the country and in the world so we saw success with this particular program because we did one thing we asked them what do you want to learn how do you want to learn and we gave them the tools so we put our teens in the studio in the creative space with other steam professionals so your young Engineers your young doctors and then we even brought in Young Artists as well performing artists visual artists and all of these people are in one room working on science and engineering activities and what does that do that creates this culture right that creates an environment that reminds them that education is supposed to be fun it's supposed to be fun to learn right but our Public School System doesn't teach us that actually stifles our creativity so the kids they automatically go and they bring more kids so we saw the program grow tremendously and we saw amazing stories of success so our challenge was how do we get this opportunity out to more students so that they can feel this this experience and I came up with the true coolor basically what that is I gathered my coolest friends from around the Galaxy and we put on this concert and the first of his kind to ever basically incorporate steam educational activities during the show so you'll be listening to like a band and then next next thing you know we're doing engineering activities right and it's really just to create that culture and to remind our students that learning is supposed to be fun right so after we did a show at McKinley Tech which is a high school in DC we did this same tour in the Boys and Girls Clubs in DC Maryland and Virginia this particular show we did in Ward 8 which is another impoverished Community right here in DC I'll never forget I'm on the Mike and we're doing the show I'm doing my thing and there's this kid in the front row he's glued to the drums he's not even paying me any attention he's glued to the drums just watching them after the show we normally give the kids a chance to you know play with the instruments and the technology meet the artist he automatically runs up to the drums he's like can I play can I play I'm like yeah go ahead he starts rocking the drums like he's across the street at the Verizon Center just at a concert I'm like okay okay his mom walks in and she stops and she's just staring at him she's like oh my God she's like he doesn't play drums I'm like are you kidding do you are you listening to him right now natural ability was there so she goes what I mean is he's never taken any lessons we don't even have a drum set at home I was like wow then she goes last week he was actually diagnosed with ADHD and they prescribed him medication I said ma'am listen I'm not a doctor but what I do know for sure is that before you give him any medication please enroll him in drum lessons or some type of musical training because all he really needs is that creative Outlet right and just to be able to help a family discover that was very rewarding to me so I wanted to see how we can get this opportunity out to even more young people right so they can experience it steam the block is starting up again this school year our goal now is to take 12 of our young leaders to South Africa why why we do that because if we're our job is to train our young leaders we know that they're going to have to cross these cultural boundaries in the future to solve these Global problems we're going to have to work together and one thing that's interesting South Africa Cape Town specifically those stats that we saw earlier mirror images to Washington DC education is linked to what graduation crime unemployment right our economic system education is rooted in all of these things so the interesting thing that we do is we use passion to fuel our education right we tap into a kid's passion and really if we're spending millions of dollars to figure out best practices or what the new standards should be or we should teach this one really I challenge all of you my Educators my parents my community leaders let's start by one thing the first thing we have to do let's ask our young scholars how do you want to learn thank you