Five Huntington Middle School students took the stage of the Kenneth F. White Auditorium on the Friday before spring break to share months of research and thoughtful preparation with a select group of 100 parents, friends and school officials in attendance.
The students—members of the Huntington Middle School speech class taught by Rob Miller—chose the popular TEDx format to share their “Ideas Worth Spreading,” as the TED motto goes.
On stage, standing beside a two-foot tall, three-dimensional, red and seemingly handmade TEDx logo, HMS student Luke Jain, the afternoon’s emcee, opened the event.
“I’m in the zero period speech class, and after using TED talks in class, we decided we should host a TEDx talk. So here we are,” Luke said, later introducing the first speaker, Esther Liam.
Esther Liam on Nightmares
“Nightmare’s. What are they? Has your imagination gone wrong? Are they telling your future? Is your brain punishing you?” posited Esther after a vivid description a nightmare she recently experienced.
“In my case, I had and still have no idea where that dream came from. I also did not realize that what I had experienced was not uncommon. Everyone experiences nightmares similar to mine,” she continued.
Research, Esther noted, has identified the top fears of people by age group. For children, fears include snakes and spiders, storms and natural disasters, scary television shows, illnesses, death and being home alone, she said.
“In fact, our nightmares are often made up of the very things we fear the most,” Esther explained.
“But are nightmares really that bad? What if I told you they were good?”
“For one, they help us not take our safety for granted,” she noted, contending that danger in nightmares could be a sign that there is a real-world situation that needs to be resolved.
Violent dreams could also be an early sign of brain disorders, according to one study cited by Esther.
“So, believe it or not, nightmares can literally save your life,” she stated.
Another study, she said, found that failure, confusion, worry, sadness and guilt are common themes of dreams. Esther explained that nightmares could be indicative of too much anxiety, “a sign that you should reevaluate your life or simply take a break.”
On the other hand, nightmares may help reduce tension and help the dreamer cope with life’s emotions.
She continued, “Being able to scream or cry aloud may actually make us feel better when we awaken from nightmares.”
“So nightmares can be a gift, not a curse,” she said.
“Those who have frequent nightmares are more imaginative and creative than those who do not have regular nightmares. Maybe we should all start wishing for more nightmares,” Esther added.
Nightmares are a natural part of development and dwelling on them only increases anxiety, Esther said before wrapping up her TED talk.
She concluded, “So next time you wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, don’t worry, none of it was real. You simply had another nightmare. And that might not be a bad thing.”
Cindy Ji on Language
“Oh sorry, were you expecting subtitles?” said Cindy Ji, following a few opening lines spoken in Mandarin.
Cindy moved to the United States from China one year ago. She knew but a few words of English before she came to the states.
Yes. No. School. Burger. Peace out. Thank you. Please.
Nonetheless, she said, “I was so scared to go to school.”
“Unfortunately, my first day of school in America was horrible,” Cindy said. “On my first day of school, I brought my backpack to my homeroom because that is what we do in China. One teacher came to me and obviously I didn’t understand. However, I understood two words. ‘No backpack.’ I said ‘yes’ to him, but I still didn’t know where to put my backpack,” she recalled.
On her first day, Cindy remembered that she was required to login to a Chromebook with her school email.
“At that time, I didn’t even know I had a school email,” she said.
She continued, “When the teacher asked if anyone had a problem, I was embarrassed that I was the only one raising my hand. I felt like I was going to cry, because this never happened to me in China.”
“You can’t make friends when you hardly speak the language,” she said speaking from experience.
She didn’t let language stop her, however.
“After the first day of school, I realized I had to learn English since it was so important if I want to live in America,” said Cindy, sharing some factors that helped her learn English. “One word: fear. It is a powerful motivator, provided it doesn’t cripple you. As long as the fear of not being able to speak a new language is greater than the fear of trying to speak the new language, you will succeed,” she said. “Practice makes perfect.”
“I had to go out of my comfort zone and try not to be scared of making mistakes because accepting mistakes is part of learning,” Cindy explained, noting that she made every effort to speak and read English whenever she could do so. “I knew I was smart enough and shouldn’t let language slow me down. However, when I tried I made mistakes. But I always felt my English was getting better day-by-day,” she added.
“Eventually I started enjoying learning English. Because when you start to communicate and have meaningful conversations with people, you find out how many phrases we have in common. There are similarities and you can make connections in all language and cultures,” she stated. “The people of the world are not so different in how we express ourselves.”
Before parting with the audience with a Mark Twain quote, she concluded, “It is not only about language. It is about culture and exploring a new world. Instead of building a wall, I challenge you to build your vocabulary. Try learning a new language and then visit that country.”
Teddy Tan on Parenting
“What type of parenting does an adolescent need?” Teddy Tan asked. According to Teddy, who cited a Cornell University researcher, there are four types of parenting—authoritative, authoritarian, uninvolved and permissive.
Teddy said permissive parents are the type to never say no to their kids. The child of permissive parents believes that he can do whatever he wants. The Harry Potter character Dudley, Teddy said, is a good example.
Uninvolved parenting is similar to permissive parenting, he noted.
“When a child of an uninvolved parent grows up, they also believe they can do whatever they want,” explained Teddy. “But not because they believe everyone loves them, but because they believe that everyone is like their own parents: Ignoring them and just giving up on them.”
Teddy noted that a style that might appear to be one the above styles of parenting could actually be free-range parenting.
He gave the example of a father who threw her three-year-old child into a lake to teach her how to swim.
Another example, Teddy shared, was of parents who allowed their six-year-old and 10-year-old children to walk to a neighborhood park without them after they found them a safe route.
“They just wanted to let their children be independent by giving them some independence. I wonder if any parents in this room would allow their six-year-old to walk to Lacy Park alone,” he stated.
Next, he described authoritarian parenting. “These parents are very hard on their children,” he said, noting that children of these parents become dependent on their parents for every decision.
“The worst side effect is the children rebel against their parents,” he said of authoritarian parenting.
Teddy spoke against the concepts of ‘Tiger Mom’ parenting, as well as helicopter parenting, which he described as a hybrid between authoritarian and permissive parenting.
“Nobody needs helicopter parenting,” he said, stating that it may work in the moment but it does not allow children to learn responsibility.
“Adolescents make mistakes all the time. It’s like our job to make mistakes so let us. The only way we ever learn is from failure,” said Teddy.
Then there’s authorative parenting, Teddy described. “Authoratative parents are described as warm but firm. They are willing to negotiate the rules and change their minds.”
He explained that from this style of parenting, children learn that “not everything is set in stone.” They also learn to improve their reasoning skills.
“Let your child be independent from time-to-time. And know that we need you; need your guidance. Even if we say we don’t. We all learn by doing,” he concluded.
Srini Arumugham on Homework
“Homework does not make us better. We don’t have the best schools in the world. That title is held by a different country: Finland. And do you know what is special about Finland’s schools? They don’t have homework,” said seventh grade student Srini Arumugham.
Srini made his case for the elimination of homework in school.
“It does teach you something sometimes. But for little academic improvement we’re sacrificing much, much more,” he said, explaining that several hours of homework costs students precious hours of needed sleep.
“By installing homework in our school system, we’re actually affecting a student’s health,” Srini said. “Homework interrupts a friendly relationship between parent and child,” he listed as another detrimental effect of homework.
Ultimately, the cost of homework is too high.
“None of you here would trade a $10 bill for a penny but that is exactly what we are doing with homework,” he described, calling for a change in the way teacher teach. “If we can have personalized medicine, all the way to personalized ‘recommended for you’ bars on YouTube, why don’t we have personalized education?” he asked the audience.
He then returned to the Finnish example.
“The absence of homework can be clearly seen in Finland’s schools. A shorter school day lets students pursue their dreams; lets students make good friends and have good family interactions; a 15-minute break between every class lets students interpret and understand what they’ve just learned,” he added.
He continued, “The result of a homework-free environment can be more evident in the future of these students’ lives.”
He stated that the development of better habits, reductions in poverty and happier students would be some of the long-term benefits of a no-homework policy.
“What if I told you homework is the root cause of big issues in our country, such as drug use and high school dropouts?” Srini also noted. “All these problems are caused by a failure in school.”
He asked the audience to consider the thoughts of a struggling middle school student. When he hasn’t completed his homework, that student may think he is stupid, a failure and that he can’t do anything.
On the other hand, he explained, in a world without homework, everyday would be “a new opportunity to restart” for a struggling student.
“But this change will not happen over night,” he cautioned. “This change will take a radical movement,” he said, calling for a change in mindset.
“Many people think our country is already perfect and we need no reform. Many people think that we’re the best country in the world and our schools are already amazing. But this just reinforces the fact that we’re not willing to understand other people’s ideas,” he concluded before assigning a homework assignment.
He encouraged audience members to research the debate about homework. “Read and maybe you will form a new opinion,” he said.
Dexter Winn on Motivation
“What makes you wake up and get out of bed every morning?” Dexter Winn began. Could it be the alarm clock, the sunshine, birds chirping, he asked.
“There are some days in which I don’t want to wake up, he said. “But then there are other days when I’m right on my feet instantly, ready to go for the day.”
He said that it seemed like “the only difference was one day I wanted to and one day I didn’t.”
His research brought him to the notions of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic actions, he explained, spring from a place of passion, while extrinsic actions are done in the name of a reward.
He gave an example from the American Revolutionary War as an example. “The English Army was fighting for money, but for the colonists, they couldn’t afford to pay the people, so instead all their army comprised of was people doing it because they wanted to,” he described. “They were fighting for something bigger than them, and that was freedom.”
Dexter said the first step to harness intrinsic motivation would be to not introduce extrinsic motivation from the beginning.
“If you see [children] doing something and they start to fade away from it, don’t get too disappointed and don’t force it onto them because then it becomes a chore,” he advised parents. “Don’t introduce a system of reward, let them love it.”
With his numerous examples, he painted extrinsic motivation as the enemy of curiosity.
As a solution, he recommended that parents give their children a choice of extracurricular activates.
“Expose them to all of these options, but do not force them into it because you don’t want them to hate what they could possibly love,” he said.
Dexter continued, “You want to get them exposed to as many options as possible, but if they don’t choose to continue, don’t be disappointed because that natural. So long as they have the experience in their head, that is all that matters.”
He added that discipline would be an important element to cultivate intrinsic motivation, and appeared to have drawn this conclusion from a survey of some HMS teachers.
Dexter shared that teachers do rely on some extrinsic motivators, like gold stars and jolly ranchers, but all interviewed teachers said that those don’t always work.
“The student had to be self-motivated to do [homework],” Dexter said was the unanimous answer.
Teachers should make lessons fun and students should keep an open mind when teachers attempt to present fun lessons, he suggested.
To conclude, Dexter said the joy of intrinsic motivation is derived from the sense of dignity and pride that comes from hard work.
He noted that in his research he found the feeling appropriately described as “more than ordinary moments of existence.”
Last but not least…
…the audience heard from Jia Jiang, an entrepreneur, via TED.com. As part of TEDx rules, the organizers of TEDxHMS projected a taped TED talk.
“So the speech class screened over 100 talks. We discussed, we debated, and ultimately decided on Jia Jiang’s “What I learned from 100 Days of Rejection,” said emcee Luke. Jiang’s talk is available at TED.com.
The audience also heard Jake Heilbrunn discuss his challenges with anxiety. Luke introduced Heilbrunn, noting that Heilbrunn does not attend and has not attended Huntington Middle School.
“In fact, he has been through high school and college,” Luke said. “But connecting the dots between these pillars of education is not always a straight line.” To learn more about TED and TEDx or to watch a TED talk, visit ted.com.
