Jennifer 8. Lee: "Chinese" Food. It's What's For Dinner

                First, let me start off by saying that was probably my favorite TED Talk yet. It had an element that I personally enjoy: stories behind food. This is a bit random, but stories are fun and food is good, so why not have both? Anyways, this was a key aspect to her presentation. She gave the story behind fortune cookies, behind chop suey, behind General Tso’s chicken. This enhanced her presentation because people like stories. Do you ever read the little stories on Vitamin Water labels? I do, because they are fun. Stories engage audiences; history engages an audience, especially when it’s a story that they would never thought about researching themselves. These stories also revealed hidden facts about the food. Like that fortune cookies are Japanese. When I was young, I assumed they were Chinese. Later on, my brother told me they were American, but I still never thought about finding out for myself. But Lee presented the story behind them, and the proof to back her up. Now that I look into it I easily could have found this out, since (obviously) there is a Wikipedia article on it. And of course, because the story was about food, I was immediately enthralled. One thing, though, is that I wish she could have talked about what real Chinese food is. I am just left wondering what authentic Chinese food is, but I guess she is encouraging the viewer to find this out themselves.

                But then again, why does what Lee is saying matter to the world? I personally think her findings about Chinese food matters, but what she actually is doing does matters. She is encouraging people to think about the stories behind not just food, but ideas and products; she’s encouraging people to find out the history of ideas, of items, because what you do know might not be the whole truth. How many of you thought that these food items were actually Chinese? I bet many of you. That’s really her point: that people need to find out the history behind what they think is fact.  

                Personally, it’s amazing the variety of “Chinese” dishes there are. Cuban, French, Mexican, Italian, British, etc., its like “Chinese” food is an ingredient. There are so many different takes on it, and all are good and believable (except for the fried gelato (gelato is actually Italian, possibly Egyptian). This also impacts the way I think about Chinese food. Now, I have a new temporary goal: to find a restaurant that serves authentic Chinese food. Not American Chinese food, but Chinese Chinese food. She has inspired me to go on my own hunt for true Chinese Cuisine.

Clay Shirky: Go Cognitive Surplus!

                Clay Shirky’s TED Talk was impressive, and part of this was because of the techniques he used. First, I thought it was so good how he found a perfect example of cognitive surplus in action, which was Ushahidi. I personally think these specific examples enhanced his Talk because it proves that what he’s saying is happening. This is also contrary to Sir Ken Robinson, who gave specific stories, but you couldn’t really prove these stories. But with Ushahidi, you can go on the Ushahidi website, and they also even have a Wikipedia article (also open source) that talks about its history.

                I honestly thought that this was an amazing TED Talk, with a simple message that really relates to the whole world. This message is that people all over the world have over a trillion hours of free time a year, and that this free time should go to volunteering, contributing, and collaborating on large, even global projects (aka. cognitive surplus). If people actually listened to his message, and follow through with it, then the world would be a better place. People could devote an hour, just a small hour every day, or even every week to work on important things. The key to making this work though, would be motivation, not with rewards, but with emotions. This ties along with Wikipedia, which was created by volunteers and, is an important project that benefits the world. People contributed to Wikipedia because THEY WANTED TO. The volunteers wanted to help the world because to them, it is fun. They spent their free time having fun, while working on a large project too. If this could be applied to other programs, where people want to help out to have fun, then his cognitive surplus ideas would be successful. 

For more on Shirky's ideas view this article.

Daniel Pink Presents: Motivation

 Do people work better when their motivation stems from reward? If you said yes, sorry, but you’re wrong, as Dan Pink proved in his TED Talk. He provides many specific studies about the answer to this question in his talk. The first was the Candle Test. The candle test is a dilemma where the test taker receives a box of matches, a box of thumb tacks, and a candle. The participant is told they have to attach the candle to a wall so the wax doesn’t drip onto the floor. A Princeton scientist though, manipulates this problem into a study of motivation. He tells the participants about the test and what they have to do, and that they will be timed. To one group he says he is timing them to establish norms, to another group he says he will reward them if they are fast enough. So, what happened? It took the second group three and a half minutes longer than the first. Another example, which most everyone reading this can somewhat relate to, involves Wikipedia. Pink describes two online encyclopedias. One was started by Microsoft and was called Encarta. Professionals were paid to write and edit articles, and managers were instated to make sure the project stayed on budget and was on time. The other encyclopedia was made by people who worked for free to create a professional, factual encyclopedia. This one was called Wikipedia, who has become much more successful then Encarta. I honestly think that few people reading this or watching his Talk have ever heard of Encarta. This shows two opposing ideas of motivation. Encarta represented intrinsic (carrot and stick) motivation. That is, if you do well, you get rewarded, yet if you do bad, bad things happen to you. If the workers of Encarta did well, they get paid. If the workers didn’t do their jobs, they will get fired. This is contrary to extrinsic motivation, which preaches, as Pink says, “Autonomy, mastery, and purpose.” Extrinsic motivation is doing what you want to do because you like doing it, not because you are getting rewards. In the case of Wikipedia vs. Encarta, Wikipedia, the representative of extrinsic motivation, wins. This is complete proof of what Pink is saying, and much more relatable than the candle test. Though his ideas were strong, his techniques were just as good.

                Pink was very professional throughout his performance. The first tactic he used was humor, as with all of the other TED Talks I’ve heard. He talked about how he did an awful thing when he was younger; he went to law school. The cool thing was that this humor related to how he said he was giving a case, and that the audience is the jury. So his whole Talk felt much more persuasive, like he was giving the audience the facts to persuade them to his views, just like a trial. This is what made him stand out against the other performences, but the way his ideas relate to many things is also incredible.

                His ideas also relate to business. His thought that extrinsic motivation is dominant over intrinsic motivation first relates to the business world. In business, people traditionally award people for doing what they are supposed to be doing. This contradicts with extrinsic motivation, which Pink proved often produces better results. Pink gives the example of a familiar company, Google, where 20% of the engineers spend time working on whatever they want to work on. What Pink says is that about half of Google’s ideas are developed during that time. Think about this. Many of Google's brilliant ideas are developed by people purposefully being off task. His ideas do relate to business, but there could be a whole education change based on his ideas of motivation.

This idea of extrinsic motivation plays into education, too. Students follow the carrot and stick motivation, where if they do well they get A’s, if they do badly, they get worse grades. If these rewards and failure were lifted, what would happen? You might be thinking that good results would come out of this, but I think differently. Many of these results came from people who enjoyed all that they were doing. As I’ve said in other posts, I want to be a chef, not a mathematician or a scientist. If there weren’t grades, I would choose not to attend math class. On the other hand, if I were in a cooking class, I would work better, and come up with new ideas because I wouldn’t be graded on what I’m doing. It seems like intrinsic motivation puts pressure on people, which makes them perform slightly worse. Now, back to how this relates to education. Education could revolve around these two ideas. For classes where kids enjoy, where kids would do even if they weren’t in school, grades should be lessened. Why? Because kids would enjoy what they are doing and produce better results. On the other hand, in classes where students don’t want to be there, kids should actually get rewarded with more than a letter. I don’t know what this reward could be; it could even be individualized to each student. This system revolves all around motivation and I believe that it would be very successful. I’m done talking, so now you, the reader, should watch this video and decide what you think of it.

Eating insects? It's not such a bad idea!

                Marcel Dicke’s TED talk about eating insects was truly remarkable. His message was clear, that there are numerous benefits to eating insects. From this, he elaborates on what some of these benefits are, mainly four benefits. He says that eating insects is better for human health, that they are more sustainable to eat, they are better for the environment, and that they provide similar nutritional values compared to meat. He elaborates on these ideas more throughout his talk, but I won’t spoil it all.

                His presentation was very strong, and the main thing that made his presentation unique was that he had a video in his presentation of people actually demonstrating his words. This video showed a pastry chef making chocolates with insects. The idea of using a video seemed great, as the people watching this actually get a sense of the reality of his ideas. Another thing that aided his presentation was that he admitted that this wasn’t some radical new idea. He said, “eighty percent of the world already eats insects.” This admits that he’s may be preaching the idea of eating insects, but he didn’t come up with it. Also, he provides comic relief in his presentation. One instance of this is towards the end. He says, “If the insects die out, we will soon die out as well. If we die out, the insects will continue very happily.” This is funny, yet true, and I think it is very meaningful. Comedy is an effective thing to use when giving a long presentation because it makes you think about the joke and why it’s funny, which draws focus to the actual presentation. Though his presentation was very well, the ideas he preached were incredible.

                His ideas to me, were extremely eye opening, especially when he says all around the world, over one thousand different species of insects are being consumed. The variety that exists if we began to eat insects would be extraordinary. People would be able to last at least 2 years never eating the same insect twice.  But with livestock, all we can eat is chicken, cows, and pigs. Sure there is some species diversity in these categories, but not as much. As an aspiring chef, this is important. There are about 15 different spices in my cupboard which can be made into over one hundred flavor combinations. But if chefs were to use insects, they would have an extreme variety of texture and taste, which could make the culinary world explode.

                These ideas also relate to the world, more so, developed societies. In these societies, because the citizens are wealthier, they consume more animal proteins (mainly livestock, fish and game), around 55 more kilograms per person per year then developing societies. If these societies were to introduce more insects into their diets, then many of the animal proteins we already eat can be replaced by insects. As Dicke says, “Of all animal species 80% walk on 6 legs.” Eighty percent of the animals on our world are insects, so there is clearly an abundance of them that we could eat. This also relates to population increase. Dicke says that in 2050, the population will increase to around 9 million people. And with this, the demand for meat will increase too, as developing countries increase their demands for meat. With this increase in demand, people will have to cut down meat consumption, and to replace some of this there is the option of eating insects, which are widely available around the world. To end, Dicke says, “We have to get used to the idea of eating insects.”

Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk

Sir Ken Robinson, a school system revolutionist, gave a very impressive TED talk, with an overlying message that school systems need to change. Robinson says that children are all born with creativity, but as they mature through the school system, they lose their creativity. This is his main problem with schools. Another problem that falls under this category is that public school systems neglect the arts. Robinson states, “Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts.” These ideas end up being the main focus of Robinson’s TED talk. 

                Robinson got his ideas across pretty effectively through his ability to transition between humor and meaningful ideas. For instance he shares his story about a performance of the nativity by 4 year olds, and how one of them says franksenthis instead of frankincense. He relates this to another philosophical idea, “That if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” Another strategy Robinson used is story telling. He talks about a little girl who was believed to have ADHD. When she was taken to a specialist, the specialist left the little girl in a room with the radio on. She got up, and started moving to the music. The specialist concluded that she wasn’t sick, but instead was a dancer. This story added to the effect of his message that school systems focus more on other subjects besides the arts. These stories also help because they are real examples, instead of just broad statistics.

I personally felt that Robinson gave a very good talk. When he talked about how if an alien came to our world and asked what public education is for, what kind succeeds in all of this, the answer would be a university professor, this really hit me. It showed that school is not preparing me to succeed in what I want to succeed in. It made me question why I am in school, why I’m learning science and geometry, when I plan on being a chef. He completely convinced me that the education system really does need to change.

                Robinson’s ideas are also very meaningful to the whole world. Constantly people are saying that education needs to be changed, but it’s just not happening, and people don’t seem to have the ideas, or motivation to change it. If more people listened to Robinson, they would be inspired, and they would find the ideas and motivation to change education. In my school, we follow the standard math, science, and English are the most important subjects, while other classes are less important. There isn’t much room for creativity in these fields besides English. Yet it doesn’t seem like there is much change, or questioning of problems. Robinson’s ideas apply to this, because this is just one example of the problems he illustrates throughout his speech. Teachers and administrators need to open their eyes and try to change what’s going on.                

What do you think?