The 'F' Word | David Sheppard | TEDxYouth@Jingshan
[Music] you guys we made it we did it we're at the end Wow hi I wasn't odd today and feeling just so inspired and so proud of our student speakers have another round so eloquent and beautiful and now I get to stand up here and use the f-word cover your ears you guys all right now let's get ready to say it with me ready 1 2 3 what did you think I was gonna say my name is David Shepherd I've been a professional educator for 12 years now but if you go back to starting preschool in an elementary school middle school high school college second college because it was kind of a mess in my 20s 3rd college graduate school student teaching internships what it all adds up to is spending the last 34 years in school and one thing that I've learned during all of that time is that this is a dirty word in education and I don't know why now when I say fun is a dirty word in education when I say when I'm talking about fun I'm not saying that we should just allow students to do whatever they want whenever they want that usually doesn't turn out well and I'm not saying that we should just make things easy for students otherwise we would all just stay in kindergarten our entire lives and I'm sorry I'm not saying that we should just play Fortnite all day long either [Laughter] what I'm saying when I'm talking about fun is I'm talking about creating an experience that we want to be in by choice so what makes that happen what is fun for us well usually we can break down fun into one of or a combination of four different elements one of them is chance an element of chance like that's why a lot of us gravitate towards games because no two games ever turn out the same way we like that another thing that a lot of us gravitate towards too a lot of us gravitate towards the arts and that's because it includes an element of creativity or imagination the third element of fun is showing what we know as humans were social right and you like to share what we know you like to be good at things that we're good at and we like to share that with others and finally if you like choices right we like to be in control of our own destiny a lot of times it's my belief that schools should be places that are a little bit unpredictable that allows students to use their creativity and imagination and allow students to share what they know and to give students choices about their own learning I was very lucky I had a great teacher in fourth grade he created experiences that were fun that students wanted to be in and my favorite was something called a few times each semester mr. del Gado would ask all of us students to push the desks to the far edges of the classroom here all of the chairs and what we he would do is bring in a big box fan and set it down right in the middle he'd go into our supply closet and he'd pull out these long strips of heavy-duty industrial-strength plastic and he'd tape it to the fan he turned the fan on the whole thing would fill up with air and then we could go inside it was amazing the only rule of the bubble was that we were only allowed to do one thing inside we now as a teacher I know that the more we read the easier it gets it's just the hardest part for a lot of students is getting started well how many students do you think couldn't wait to get started reading when they were inside the bubble I'm not sure that you could do this today I'm pretty sure that it violates several international safety protocols but this is what innovation looked like in the 80s sure it was a little bit dangerous but it was a lot of fun and it got us invested in our learning and it really started to transform my thinking about learning as well both as a student and then later as an educator when I went on to become a teacher myself I started thinking about teaching as as like an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet where the possibilities were endless and it was fun and exciting and I started to think about traditional teaching with students lined up and perfectly neat rows as something antiquated and old that maybe somebody at some point light but by today's standards just seems a little gross it's not awkward the Frankfurter so always throw throws me off uh so a lot of research has been done about this as it turns out in fact in bread starting in 1970 there is a study called the British cohort study it fall about 17,000 students over the course of their educational career and they found out what I I learned in the first five minutes in the bubble and that's basically if you're having fun while you're doing something you're more likely to do it again specifically in education if you're having fun while you're learning you're more likely to learn it quicker and better and more specifically with reading if you're having fun while you're reading you're not only reading and language skills improve but your math skills improve as well and that wasn't the only study there's been a lot of research out there that can connect the fun fun having fun to brain activity on there scientists have found that having fun releases endorphins it lowers stress and anxiety it improves short-term memory so if if all this research shows that we should be having fun in school then why is it not happening every single day in every single class and the answer I think is a simple one this is the fear of failure or to put it another way it's the what-ifs you see as teachers were kind and gentle people and were generally rule-followers we'd like to do the right thing and that was that's what makes us good role models for our students but it also makes us more beholden to curriculum unit planners and you know what if we don't finish this lesson what if our student doesn't finish their multiplication facts what if what if what if well as teachers what we need to remember is that nothing great ever happened without taking risks and I'm pretty sure nobody ever wound up in jail because they didn't learn their multiplication facts in fact I might argue that if some criminals felt more successful in school then their career path might have ended up differently so how do we have fun at school what are we gonna do well for some of you I'm sad to say it's too late if you've rolled your eyes at the beginning of this presentation you might be too far gone but for the rest of us there's hope there's three simple things that we can do to have more fun in our lives and in fact I'm going to give an assignment to all of you student speakers here today to try these three things out on Monday until all of your friends the first thing that I want you to do is go into school and fail get something wrong this actually isn't for you so much as this is to train your parents parents they're gonna be okay the second thing I want you to do is have a good laugh laugh hard and laugh often and maybe most importantly have a good laugh at yourself and I'll give you a quick example this is me this is me in sixth grade right and it's ridiculous pretty absurd the hair the glasses the shorts I kind of stand by the three stooges t-shirt but this is really important especially for for you kids because parents they're gonna be the ones looking at the pictures that you're taking on your phones today in 20 years and finally do something bold take a chance take a risk do something unpredictable when you get to school on Monday whatever that might look like and I'll leave you with this quick anecdote a few years ago I was working late after school my class had just reading the book The BFG by Roald Dahl and I was busy creating this giant mural to hang up on the door and I really wanted the students to walk in the next day with the feeling of wonder of like what the heck is going on I wanted them to be dwarfed by this giant as they walked into the classroom and one of my colleagues was leaving as I was painting a leg here and she said he doing that for and I looked at her and I said four fine it's I just want watching to think I want you to think back to your own education to your own primary classroom maybe fourth grade and I want you to think walking into school which door would you rather walk thank you [Applause]