Transcript

TEDxCreativeCoast - McGrath Davies - The Future Will Not Be Multiple Choice

[Music] [Applause] All right. So, I'm going to give you a series of pop quizzes. First one is coming up right now. So, which one of these things was designed by a kid? this school desk, this drawing of a website, or this patent approved medical device. It's kind of obvious, right? The answer is all of the above. Now, if you are at all surprised by that, then you're thinking the way I was 5 months ago before I visited this guy's class and witnessed the future. You see, when you teach young children, you have the opportunity every day to draw back the curtain and reveal to them the workings of the world, those gears turning beneath the surface. You see, children are often well-versed in the surfaces of things, but they're unaware of their creative origins. And I want to move my students from being passive users of things to becoming active creators. So my classes of third and fourth graders embarked on a unit of study on design and we started by deconstructing a tissue box. So we took it apart and we looked at the diecut cardboard, the printer's registration marks. We felt the tensile strength of that plastic slit and the interfolded tissues. And these kids were astounded. They were fascinated. They're like pesture discovering microbes or even Moses on Mount Si. and they're looking at the design of a tissue box. So, I was brought in to talk a little bit about web design and uh as a class activity, we asked the kids to come up with ideas for their own websites. To start off with, we asked them, okay, well, what's going to be the main goal of your site? And we got the typical responses, you know, to play video games, to watch cartoons, to sell men's cologne, you know, the us. And then we asked them,"Well, how are you going to accomplish that goal?" And that's where the real fun came in. So Shayla, for example, came up with a a way to tackle the problem that all women have when they're shopping for clothes online. You can't tell what the clothes will look like on you. So her idea was to give every user of her site their own personal avatar that's customized to your body type. So as you're building your outfit, you can see what the clothes will look like on a virtual representation of you. sort of like a virtual fitting room. Now, a couple days later, before we could get our trademark attorney on the phone, we found this video of Microsoft unveiling their Connect shopping experience. This was taken at this year's CES, and it does the exact same thing. Coincidence? I'll let you decide. But at the very least, it shows that there's no age restriction on good ideas, and there's no age restriction on wanting to smell good either. So, we discovered So, you know how it is, right? You have a hot date coming up and you want to smell your best, but you just don't know what cologne to wear. So Chris came up with an idea to differentiate all of the best colog in the world, not just by designer, which was what we're used to, but also by fragrance, by occasion, and my personal favorite, age specific, because you never know when the moment's going to call for that distinct third grader musk, you know. So now I I thought it was a good idea, but even the best ideas hit up against a roadblock sometime as it did with Kyler, who also wanted to give his users a customized personalized experience where they could build their own products. The only problem was is his products were endangered animals. So that posed a little bit of a logistical challenge, but once we explained that to him, he was not put off. He went back to the drawing paper and came up with an even better idea. So, as you're researching animals on his site, there's a little module down to the left that automatically senses your IP address and then finds the nearest zoo around you that has that particular animal. And once it finds it, then you can choose to watch a live video feed of the animal in its habitat or participate in an adoption program or just buy tickets to go visit the animal in the zoo. Now, with all this creative genius floating around in the room, I realized something that these ideas that the kids were coming up with were really quite feasible. I mean, genetic experimentation aside, most of the ideas that the kids were coming up with were really quite practical, very doable, and I would love to take credit for it, but all we did was give them the challenge, point them in the right direction, and then give them the space to be creative. So, it made me wonder, are they getting that kind of creative space in their other classes? So when you think of a classroom you probably picture something like this and that's the classroom I grew up with at least the straight rows and columns regimentation and it reflected the needs of the industrial economy which spawned modern education and that classroom with its its rote learning and multiplechoice standardized testing. It served the needs of factories and bureaucracies where where bosses need workers who will show up on time and do what they're told and not cause trouble and keep quiet, sit still, don't ask too many questions. And this system is effective and efficient at producing workers, but workers who suit a bygone reality. And the reality that we're moving into is a lot messier than that. Uh the MacArthur Foundation recently came out with an estimate that 65% of the jobs of the future likely haven't been invented yet. So the future is demanding from us a different kind of teaching philosophy. If for no other reason than we don't know what the right answers will be. So we don't need students who are highly skilled at picking A, B, C or D. See we've moved from that industrial age through the information age and now into the imagination age. That's my daughter demonstrating what kids do with their free time when they're not sedated by television. So, what could this classroom of the imagination age look like? Well, ironically, it starts with looking to the past to this guy. So, Lev Vagotssky, when you study to become a teacher, you hear his name over and again. Vagotsky was a pioneering Russian psychologist who formulated the first scientifically based theory of how children learn. So what did Uncle Lev say? Well, he said that a true understanding of reality is not possible without a certain element of imagination without departure from reality from those immediate concrete holistic impressions which by which reality is represented in the elementary acts of our consciousness which is a big Russian psychological mouthful way of saying that we learn through acts of the imagination. And this starts from early. So here's your second pop quiz. What is the best way to teach your toddler foundational math skills? Is it little Einstein DVDs, flashcards, or baby Mozart CDs? The answer is none of the above. It's playing with blocks. So it's building, designing, creating. That the idea that learning is playing and to create something is to learn something. And that's why we think that the classroom of the future isn't going to teach our kids how to memorize. It's going to teach them how to think creatively, critically, and playfully. And not just think that way about the important things like websites, but think that way about everything. But is this concept of using design and education just some hairbrain scheme that we've cooked up and it'll never work and it'll cost too much? Well, yeah. No, no, no, no, it isn't. Um, design in education complements all the best practices in education today. Design projects accommodate all learning styles. By definition, they integrate subjects across the curriculum, and they're inherently differentiated for individual student needs, abilities, and interests. So problems like the pressure sores that plague bedridden patients becomes more than just a medical problem becomes a design challenge that these high school students in New Jersey uh can sink their teeth into. And on the way to getting a patent for their design, they're learning about biology. They're learning about research methodology. They're learning about inpatient outpatient care. They're learning about the legal mess that our patent system is in. I mean, could you imagine coming up with a lesson plan that covers all of that? Or what about a problem that's plaguing all our schools right now? CSFD or what we call crappy school furniture disorder. I mean, why is that a problem just for school principles? Why couldn't that be a design project that you assign eighth graders like these kids in a Manhattan K through8 school? I mean, do you think that they can't handle it? I mean, who better to come up with a better school desk design than the person who has to use it day in and day out? I mean, it took a kid to realize that if we want them to keep their lockers organized, we're going to need to give them a little bit more than just a shelf and a couple of hooks. And so design projects can happen every day in every subject. Right here, right now. Now, let's say you want to teach third graders something that's actually difficult like linear measurement, measuring with rulers. And And now you're thinking that's not hard, right? Okay. Let's count by those lines on the ruler. Let's start with 1/16th. Do it with me. 1/8 316. I can't hear you. 1/4 516 38 716 1/2 96. Why aren't you with me? So it's easy, right? And so how about then to teach them that linear measurement, you have them build a greenhouse out of PVC pipe and they So my students had to measure and cut 112 pieces of pipe and they cut every single piece correctly the first time and then uh going into slow food. How about then you use those green houses because they have to learn interspecies synergy to start a garden from seed and then when the uh the aphids come and infest our cucumbers and then you see the ladybugs just come in on their own they see it happening. It's real life hands-on learning and you should see cat these kids when they pick a cucumber and they hold it like it's the holy grail. It's like wow I planted this seed and here it is. Um, and then let's say you want to teach fourth graders about mathematical scale. So have them draw a picture, pretty picture, and then snap some chalk lines and turn it into a gigantic mural. And how about we teach them the connection between poetry and visual art by having that mural illustrate haiku. And then, oh wait, there's more. How about we teach them web design? And so we bring in a professional designer and the kids can learn how easy it is to impress some people. Now, will all this crazy talk act will be will it? I know what you're thinking. This will all be very very messy. Uh, well, before we get into that, what will this look like for the teachers that's not as, you know, evolved as you, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Jones in the elementary school? What would it look like for those teachers? Well, you start to taking those worksheets and flipping them over and you look at the backside. It's blank. It's a clean slate. So maybe instead of doing that vocabulary matching worksheet on paleontology, Nathan can design his own dinosaur website. And maybe instead of just reading mythology in her anthology, Tony can write, shoot, and edit the stories of Athena, retelling them Georgia girl style. And maybe instead of just doing those uh review questions at the end of the chapter on ecology, a team of students can collaborate and build an interactive show on preventing wetland pollution. Now, I know what you're asking. Will all of this stuff, this fun stuff be messy? Yes, I can almost guarantee it. Will it be risky? Absolutely. But before you throw out the idea, ask yourself this last question. What kind of reality are we preparing our kids for? The same old industrial landscape, a wide open frontier filled with unlimited possibilities, or one with silver uniards and Google glasses? The truth is there is no one right answer because the future is not a multiple choice test. It's a design challenge. So let's teach our children to think like designers and then prepare them to meet the challenges of designing the future. Thank you very much. [Music] [Applause] [Music]