Try to imagine a future without kids. It hurts to even think about this, right? It’s a nightmare we better never see! How about kids without a future? Unfortunately, the world in which many kids have no future already exists — we live in it every day.

I am not talking runaway climate change roasting the biosphere here — from poverty, to no access to clean drinking water, to diseases, to no basic human rights — examples of this kind abound. But the kids also face problems like outdated school systems, inefficient healthcare, disconnectedness from nature, society that values conformity over authenticity…

In our world, adults decide for the kids: From serving chocolate milk during school lunch to opting out from vaccines… From cutting school budgets and enforcing standardized testing to choosing energy sources and CO2 limits… From what to learn and whom to learn with to when and how to play!

What right do we have to make these decisions for them? More experience and knowledge? Maybe, but our experience and knowledge is limited to the world of NOW! We and our kids learn the world of tomorrow together — they have to catch up on history but they’re quick learners.

In our world, we like to categorize and label — Black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, gay, breeder, queer… We do this with kids too — infant, toddler, preschooler, grade-/middle-/high- school student, teenager… adult!

What purpose do these labels serve? To justify the right to make decisions if your sticker says “adult”? They only help segregating into groups, leading to groups distancing from each other and starting their own cultures!

I am sorry, but the right to make decisions is earned — and we have done little to earn it so far! It is time we take the stickers off and help the younger among us engage with the older ones in making decisions.

We should get the help of the curios minds of the younger population if we’re to change our perspective on the problems of the future. We should use the creative power that the school system so diligently tries to kill and use it to seek for novel solutions to problems. We should bring walls down and build bridges instead to allow the local group cultures to enmesh into a global vision for the future.

This is what TEDxKids@BC is about. This is why I think others should start similar opportunities for the kids in their communities. Let’s build a platform where all generations partner in change!

Long time ago, I was inspired by Severn Suzuki speaking at the UN Earth Summit in 1992 (at age of 12). Today, I am inspired by Adora Svitak speaking at TED (at age 12 again — there must be something about age 12!) and organizing TEDxRedmond. I am also deeply inspired by all the speaker candidates that have submitted their amazing stories to share at TEDxKids@BC.

But it is easy to be inspired by all those high-achieving kids who have a chance to raise their voice and ignite a spark in the rest of us to go after our dreams. What is amazing to me is how inspiring are those people trying to connect with us at TEDxKids@BC and join us at the event to listen to our speakers.

We have invited our community to tell us a bit about themselves and why they want to join us as part of the registration process. Reading their applications is almost as inspiring as reviewing the speaker candidates:

“The matter of fact that the world strives to disappoint me upsets me every day. Every time I have a new idea or a thought I would like to share, my thoughts cloud me with judgments and reality, telling me that ‘this won’t work’ or that ‘you can’t do this because you don’t try hard enough’. I do not want to stand in a room with air full of clichés that I’ve heard too many times from various youth organizations. I’m not saying that their messages are bad or incorrect, but they just have been said and heard too much. I look forward to hearing stories and ideas that I have never been exposed to and learn from these new thoughts. I’m hoping to up most improve my thoughts there and soon perform inspiring speeches of my own at events like these. I hope to come back to my school with mixed up ideas that I can share and recreate.”

My personal inspiration for trying to make a difference in this world and make the future open to the kids comes from my own family. My two daughters, Anastasia (7) and Lina (2) do not stop to be a source of motivation and keep me amazed by their curiosity and never ending desire to explore and learn.

I am also inspired by all the kids I meet everyday, as they’re engrossed in learning something new and excited about every new day. By every single one of you out there trying to engage with the kids around you and create real relationships with them — where they’re empowered and invited to be partners.

Let’s make a difference and start a truly open platform that lets all generations partner in change — no labels, no limited views!

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
“Pooh,” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw,
“I just wanted to be sure of you.”

NOTE: This was originally posted at the new TEDxKids@BC blog. I invite my readers to check the blog out as we’re trying to bring various authors to share their stories and ideas around empowering kids, nurturing passion, fostering creativity, supporting authentic learning! 

There were many times in my life when I would dream, often with my eyes open, but it wasn’t until sometime last year that some of those dreams popped out of my head and started running in front of me. It wasn’t something I did that brought them to life. Nor could I control them once they were on their own either. All I could do was to touch them to be sure of them.

“I am just a parent,” I said recently at an educational un-conference, being one of the few odd ones out among a bunch of teachers. “No one is just a parent here,” said Chris, a principal from Agassiz, as he was explaining that kids should be valued for their passion, motivation, interests, skills, instead of measuring them through grades, scores, tests. “It doesn’t matter if you teach kids as a profession. If you have kids of your own, then you’re a teacher too!”

He was right, we’re all teachers, and we’re trusted with the new generation that will inherit this world to prepare them for the challenges that are awaiting them in their future. The words of Sir Ken Robinson, as voiced from the TED 2010 stage, still ring in my ears: “And every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly.”

At TEDxKids@BC we accept seriously the huge responsibility of being teachers – to our own kids, to the kids helping us in the organization of our event, to the kids that will join us in the audience or watch us online. We take to heart Sir Ken’s warning! The kids coming on stage with us will spread their dreams in front of all of us, and we should all tread softly when that happens!

But we adults have dreams too! We’re nothing but older, more experienced kids, hiding behind that silly label “adult” – as if being a child is shameful or in some way diminutive to how we want to be seen by others. It is the risk of being mislabeled “childish” instead of “childlike” that stops many of us from dreaming. But the truth is we all do, we just don’t let our dreams out. We convince ourselves that as long as they stay in our head, no one can squash them and they will stay safe.

I dream of becoming a writer one day. I wish to be able to write every day about topics that interest me, about questions that I don’t know the answers of, about ideas that I would like to try myself, about worlds that I would like to explore. As I said to a friend recently, writing a book is almost a side effect in my dream — I am more interested in the journey than the destination.

The funny thing is, when you let one of your dreams out — and I did that last year when I started blogging — the others seem to reach for the door without asking for permission first.

Inspired by the announcement of a new conference, TEDWomen, at last year’s TEDGlobal in Oxford, I let a little tweet out into the world saying: “Great idea! I wish to see TEDChildren next year!” I wish I could say that the Earth stopped spinning when this happened and I was congratulated for the idea, but the truth is, many turning points in one’s life go by unnoticed for a long time and become significant only later in hindsight.

The real turning point was when I combined my dream with play! On September 7, 2010, I decided that two months hoping that someone would pick-up and run with my idea of TEDChildren was long enough, so I took it upon myself to rally the community to push for it. In a little social media experiment, I created a @TEDChildren Twitter account and published my Call for action – children’s conference at TED.

The story that followed, as they say, is history — you can read about it in my next post!

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

It felt like a very long day today — a failure on one of the servers at work almost led to loosing all our customer data! The fact it happened on a Saturday made things worse. Luckily, it all ended up well, but the day almost wore out by then. Still I felt uneasy — it didn’t feel right to finish with the bitter taste that panic, worry and grave seriousness through the day left in my mouth.

A glance through the window let me see the sun still shining and the evening inviting for a play outside with my older daughter. We both jumped on our bikes and off we went to visit the many playgrounds in our neighbourhood. This is when I realized I’ve been reaching out to play as a way to deal with stress and make me feel better ever since I’ve got my first daughter.

I haven’t thought about it until tonight, but I can’t remember doing many “playful” things since almost I was a child my self. I always led a fairly serious life, with great responsibility for my actions and thought that hard-working discipline is the only requirement for success. Not that I haven’t done things for fun, on the contrary, but play to me is when you have fun by being immersed with all the senses into something you do out of joy and without worrying if you “behave” for your age.

After a great deal of biking, monkeying around and just enjoying the few remaining hours of sun, I thought to end the day with a book. I have been really busy lately and my reading suffered, so I reached out to one of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, knowing he will push my thoughts and make me see life and some of the stupidity of modern societies in new light. (If you haven’t read one of his classics, Fahrenheit 451, stop reading here — go ahead, get the book, read it and then come back!)

I picked up a collection of stories named We’ll Always Have Paris and started reading the first story — Massinello Pietro. With my mind still thinking about the value of play, the serendipity was too extraordinary! I’ll let Ray himself speak, without explaining what the story is about:

“Once, thought Pietro, once I had many dimes, many dollars, much land, many houses. And it all went away, and I wept myself into a statue. For a long time I couldn’t move. They killed me dead, taking away and taking away. And I thought, I won’t ever let anyone kill me again. But how? What do I have that I can let people take away without hurting? What can I give that I still keep?

And the answer was, of course, his talent.

My talent! thought Pietro. The more you give away, the better it is, the more you have. Those with talent must mind the world.

He glanced around. The world was full of statues much like he had been once. So many could move no longer, knew no way to even begin to move again in any direction, back, forth, up, down, for life had stung and bit and stunned and beat them to marble silence. So then, if they could not move, someone must move for them. You, Pietro, he thought, must move. And besides, in moving, you don’t look back at what you were or what happened to you or the statue you became. So keep running and keep so busy you can make up for all those with good feet who have forgotten how to run. Run among the self-monuments with bread and flowers. Maybe they will move enough to stoop, touch the flowers, put bread in their dry mouths. And if you shout and sing, they may even talk again someday, and someday fill out the rest of the song with you. Hey! you cry and La! you sing, and dance, and in dancing perhaps their toes may crack and knuckle and bunch and then tap and tremble and someday a long time after, alone in their rooms, because you danced they will dance by themselves in the mirror of their own souls. For remember, once you were chipped out of ice and stone like them, fit for display in a fish-grotto window. But then you shouted and sang at your insides and one of your eyes binked! Then the other! Then you sighed in a breath and exhaled a great cry of Life! and trembled a finger and shuffled a foot and bouned back into the explosion of life!

Since then, have you ever stopped running?

Never.”

You see, Pietro was once a successful businessman who worked hard for his wealth, but he lost all that and after a period of grief at his state, he decided to take his life back.

“Do you know what I did? I invested what little I had left in dogs, geese, mice, parrots, who do not change their minds, who are always friends forever and forever. I bought my phonograph, which never is sad, which never stops singing!”

Together with his pets and his always singing phonograph, he lived in his house — The Manger — and did lot’s of charity work to help poor, neighbours, the community around him. And he did that with a song and a cheerful smile on his face. Unfortunately, his neighbours didn’t appreciate the presence of so many animals in his house, nor the loud singing waking them up at four A.M. They put an end to all of that by putting Pietro in jail.

“On either side of the Manger that night it was quiet at one A.M. and it was quiet at two A.M. and it was quiet at three A.M. and it was such a loud quitness at four A.M. that everyone blinked, sat up in bed, and listened.”

I think it is time we all try to listen more — and we owe listening to ourselves the most! To the once little boys and girls who could play all day long and never get tired! To the children we supressed with all our seriousness and worries as we grew up to be adults and care more if we “behave” for our age then if we have fun — as age is no excuse to stop playing!

Image credit: Speak to Children

Tonight, my (almost) 7 years old daughter asked me: Tato*, what makes you special?

… pause …

As you can assume, I didn’t know what to make of it! When I asked her what she means by that, she told me that she thinks she is good at drawing, so that makes her “special” in her mind and she wants to know what is it that I am good at?!

This made me think — I did wiggle out of a straight answer, btw! — Am I so good at something that I feel special about it? What does being special mean, after all?

I know I am a unique person with own behavior, dreams and wishes for the future. I know that if someone looks hard enough they’ll find few things that make me different from the other 7 billion people on this planet — but that makes me as special as a zebra is special because of its pattern being unique among all other zebras and that is not what my daughter really meant!

No matter how hard I think about it, I don’t think I am able to point at anything and with some confidence or pride say, this is what I am really good at, this is what makes me special! I don’t believe “being good at something” is a state that should be measured, actually. I prefer “being better than last time” as that is what my passions make me strive for.

Thinking about this made me realize why I love learning so much — in fact, the best way to make me feel miserable is to take all learning opportunities away from me! I love learning because that makes me become a better person with each new experience! I should explain the “better person” part.

Learning often leads me into new territories where I feel uncomfortable because I know so little about. When that happens it almost feels like I am going back, but then I remind myself that it is only fair to compare my new understanding with my ignorance for the area before I stumbled upon it. And ignorance, contrary to the popular belief, is not a blissful state to be!

With ignorance, we let walls be built to limit our lives. In the short-term, it may feel like ignorance makes us happier, but it goes against our innate drive to be in control of our lives. The self that we’re is a complex package of fluffy stuff like emotions and feelings, hard to control desires and cravings, learned responses to social pressures and acceptable behaviors… When we ignore a part of who we are, I believe we become a lesser self! We’re no longer authentic and we play someone else’s role.

While I don’t know if I am good at it or not, I know I have found my passion in one thing — I want to empower others to be more of their authentic selves in their interactions with me! I would like to push people feel uncomfortable when they meet ignorance as I do, so they can learn and in return push me in a different direction to learn more. I need that feedback loop as my learning will be limited otherwise.

To do this, I see these three principles as important to me:

• Never settle for ignorance,
• Always be part of a change — instead of cheering or booing from the side, and
• Make my learning transparent — and expect others do the same in return!

I don’t know if these principles will make me special — probably not if special means different, since if you agree with me on them that would make two of us — but I know I won’t be bored for sure!

How about you, what makes you special?

* Tato – is how my two daughters call me (it means “dad” in Macedonian), regardless of the language they use with me

“I have never let school interfere with my education.” — Mark Twain

With the above quote from the great American author, Dale J. Stephens, a 19-year old entrepreneur and unschooler, opens the movement to bring unschooling concepts into higher education — UnCollege!

Dale J. Stephens -- 19 years old entrepreneur and unschooler

After initially following the curriculum in a traditional school setting, Dale began unschooling in 6th grade. As an unschooler he lived in France, started a photography business, worked as a campaign photographer, spent a summer at UCLA, and worked at a venture-backed education technology startup, Zinch.

Last fall, after finishing ‘high school’ in his own unschooling way, he followed the societally-accepted path and enrolled in college. After his frustrations with college compounded recently, he realized how little he appreciated the opportunities to learn from life that he had whilst unschooling.  So he decided to revolutionize higher education by bringing some of the ideas of unschooling to college.

Inspired by his bold idea, we decided to ask him few questions that we hope will inspire kids, parents and educators to rethink the value of their way of schooling for them and their kids and consider other options that may be brought over to enhance the opportunities and empower the kids in being the authentic selves they’re born with!

Q: How did you decide to become an unschooler? Who, or what prompted you to leave the traditional school setting?

I was frustrated with my traditional school experience and hadn’t learnt anything in 5th grade. I learned nothing from daily dittos and test focused lessons. I told my parents that another means of education was necessary if I were to continue to learn.

Q: What is your favorite book, or movie? Any favorite character? What do you like about them?

I still adore the Mrs. Frizzle books for she’s a model teacher. When I was in school I always wished my teachers took us on field trips everyday like she did with her class. Her experiential learning projects inspired me to take my education beyond the classroom.

Q: Many people are unsure what unschooling is and they think it is nothing but kids let on the loose. Can you describe a typical day as an unschooler?

For me there was no typical day as an unschooler. On some days I had scheduled classes and activities — saxophone lessons or a college class — but the rest of my time was spent learning in all kinds of ways.

I would generally arise about 7am and learn until about 3pm in the afternoon. Learning consisted of group study, individual study, online learning, mentorship, service learning . . . basically I learned from everything I did.

Q: What help did your parents provide during your unschooling experience?

Guidance, mentorship, financial support, and chauffeur services!

Q: You bring a unique perspective to learning as you’ve tried what may be considered the two ends of the education spectrum — went to a traditional school institution and followed the alternative unschooling form. In your experience, what is the biggest advantage of one over the other? What would you point out as the biggest disadvantage of each?

The biggest advantage of school is also its largest disadvantage: you don’t get to choose who you work with.

The biggest advantage of unschooling is that you are forced to be creative and innovative. The biggest disadvantage is that you don’t have a ready-made academic community.

Q: What kind of support did you get from other people as an unschooler? Who helped you the most?

I worked with many friends and mentors. Aside from my parents, the most influential person I worked with was Diane Kallas who worked with me for many years to improve my writing.

Q: Your UnCollege project was borne out of disillusion after attending Hendrix college for several months. What was the key experience that made you think you’re not getting the value you expected from a traditional college setting?

Talking with graduating seniors who haven’t the faintest idea what they are going to do with their lives. They know how to pursue their passions in the classroom, but not in the real world. The pivotal experience was coming to understand through talking with my friend Rebecca that this problem was not isolated to Hendrix but was rather systemic.

Q: What is your advice to homeschoolers or unschoolers interested in attending traditional University rather than an alternative like UnCollege?

If you’ve never learned in a classroom setting, you should try it out. Classroom learning teaches things like how to follow directions, work in groups, and meet deadlines. It’s a useful experience to have. However, I will caution you that you’re likely to be frustrated by the overall lack of interest on the part of most other students.

Q: Starting a project like UnCollege requires lots of time and energy. Do you find time for your friends? What is your favorite activity with them?

Amazing I do find time for friends. My favourite activity is talking. Maybe I like the sound of my own voice too much, but I never tire of intellectual conversations.

Q: What would you like to change in the world and specifically in your local community? How can you contribute to make that happen?

I would like to change the notion that success is defined by a college degree. To accomplish this I’m creating a project-based learning methodology, working to implement UnCollege programs at existing colleges and universities, and defining a new metric based upon competency and reputation, not certification.

(I’m not answering the second part because I’m not sure where to call my local community right now)

Q: Your message for the parents of kids who are concerned if their kids are getting a chance to learn valuable skills at school that will be useful in their future is?

School teaches things like how to follow directions, meet deadlines, and work in assigned groups. If you want to follow a traditional path, those are awesome skills. If you want to rock the world, you need to be creative and innovative: school doesn’t teach that. In fact, average creativity in the US has been declining since 1990 while IQ continues to rise. That’s cause for alarm.

Q: What would you like to say to kids that may be struggling in the current schooling system or feel they can’t start working on their dreams until they finish school and/or graduate from University?

Stop what you’re doing and start doing what you love. Live by the words of Mark Suster, an awesome venture capitalist: JFDI. JFDI = just effin’ do it! There is no time but now, and you should use your age to your advantage. Keep in mind the opportunity cost of going to class– what else could you be doing with your time.

If the answer is ‘more than what I’m currently doing,’ don’t waste your time. Live your life.

Q: We know your life has turned into a roller coaster ride in the past month with interviews, numerous calls, etc. What are your next plans?

I can tell you more specifics in about two weeks. There are a few big things in the works that aren’t public quite yet!

Meeting Dale and learning about UnCollege made us wish to unlearn some of our own inhibitions and go boldly to implement World4Children’s vision!

We wish Dale good luck with UnCollege and any new ideas he may dream about in the future and hope to hear great news all along!

We at World4Children are passionate about helping kids live their dream and apply their own passions to build a better future for themselves. Luckily, we’re not alone and many organizations around the world share similar values. We’re happy to have one of them as one of our greatest supporters and hopefully partners in the future to help more kids follow their dreams!

Amazing Kids! is a children’s non-profit organization offering fun, challenging, and self-motivating educational enrichment for kids and teens worldwide! Their online magazine is created by kids and highly respected by many kids, parents and educators. Their programs are helping kids with opportunities to improve their skills or get resources to help them launch their own dreams.

If you visited this web site in the past few weeks, you must have noticed that World4Children supported the first-ever contest designed to gather the votes of the kids for their favorite Animated Feature Film from the Oscar-nominees, How To Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, and The Illusionist. The Oscars are done and we all know the winner is Disney Pixar’s Toy Story 3, but today 40 other winners have been announced among the many kids who submitted their votes for the Amazing Kids! Perrific Oscar Picks Contest — if you or your child participated in the contest, make sure to check the names at the official list! We’re happy to see that besides US and Canada, there are kids from as far as India, UK and Hong Kong!

If you haven’t got a chance to win one of the DVD prizes, we are hoping you will have fun watching Perry Chen, the young film critic that provided the main motivation for this fun contest (and who just turned 11 last week!), interviewing the directors of How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3:

We’re looking forward to partner with Amazing Kids! and similar organizations and work with many other inspiring kids like Perry!

You are also invited to join us on the amazing journey as we’re preparing the first TEDx event for kids in BC — TEDxKids@BC. Note that we have no age restrictions for our conference as we’re interested in kids outside boxes, who are following their passion and hearts, whether they’re 7 or 77! Heck, we have no restrictions of any kind, you can join us from every corner of the world as we’ll offer an opportunity to watch the event online — just bring your passion on your sleeve and dream of the time you were a child, full of wonder about the world, curious to understand it and brave to change it!

Thank you!

As the Oscars are unfolding tonight, we’d like to take the time and thank everyone for their participation in the Amazing Kids! Perrific Oscar Picks Contest! World4Children was very happy to join Perry Chen, the 10 years old film critic we interviewed recently and Amazing Kids!, the host of this fun contest.

As you know, the contest invited kids, between the age 6-17, worldwide to predict the Oscar winner for “Best Animated Feature of 2010” for the tonight’s 83rd Academy Awards®. The kids were choosing their own favorite film from the top 3 Oscar®-nominated feature animation films, How To Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, and The Illusionist.

We`re excited to see which film did the kids choose as their favorite — and if their choice will agree with the Academy, which voted for Toy Story 3!

Stay tuned for more information about the prizes and the kids choice! The winners will be announced March 1!

Thank you!!

Image credit: University of Gloucestershire

This post has been originally posted at the Cooperative Catalyst. I am reposting here — with minor edits — to broaden the audience and hopefully get additional feedback.

After reading Gatto, I make a distinction between education and schooling. Schooling is, at least in its current form, a way to govern education, but more often than not, education can happen without it — as millions of home-schoolers in US and many other countries and numerous important people through history that didn’t go to school can attest to!

What I came to realize lately is that despite the fact that we mostly think of education and learning to be similar, they’re different in two important aspects. Education and learning are usually described as the acts of acquiring knowledge, behaviors or skills — when defining education, Wikipedia refers to these as formative effects on the mind, character and physical abilities, but those are just different technical definitions of the same things.

Though learning and education sound like synonyms, learning goes beyond and includes the act of acquiring (or changing) values and preferences. On top of that, learning may involve synthesizing different types of information. I think these two aspects of learning are greatly important to anyone looking at reforming the current schooling system. Moreover, they should be considered by all parents and teachers when thinking about education choices and methods.

I’ll try to explain this with three stories, but before that, let me give you some thoughts to keep in mind when reading the stories.

The power of learning to modify ones values and preferences is (probably forever) outside the reach of schooling. While schooling can force students to comply to certain behaviors, it can’t quite change their personal values. Of course, attempts to do so abound through history, often with the help of chemicals and psychological conditioning or even torture. Social engineering is a term that was fashionable in the last century and was used to describe some of those attempts. Unfortunately, remnants of it still exist today when we see people as mere Human Resources that should somehow be categorized, trained, controlled. (I recently watched an important film on this topic — Human Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century — I highly recommend it, but be warned, it is not for the faint of heart!)

Yet, learning can easily transform those values! I think the reason for this is that learning enables new insights to form by synthesizing new information with existing knowledge. This gives the individual power to reflect on their personal views over the issues upon which those insights shed new light. Learning is empowering the individual to take those insights and apply them to new situations!

Diversity of context breeds new opportunities for learning

The first story about the transformational power of learning is a lesson I learned from my six year old daughter!

She was only 2 when we brought her to Canada, from our home country, Macedonia. If you’re an immigrant with young kids, you can appreciate the struggle to maintain a decent level of knowledge of the mother tongue in an environment in which almost no one outside the family speaks that language. I would say we’re lucky that our daughter is still willing to make an effort from time to time to improve her command of the language.

One big problem in the Macedonian language is the command of the hard “R” — to imagine the sound, try to say BRRRR or VRRRROOOM. This sound sends many kids back in Macedonia to see a speech specialist by the age of 7 or 8, so you can imagine how hard it is for a 6 year old in Canada to master it. My daughter was trying on many occasions to practice by saying words like RIBA (fish), RABOTA (work), ZDRAVO (hello), PRST (finger). With many failed attempts, this has been going almost all of the time we’re in Canada. To say she was becoming frustrated doesn’t do justice to how she felt few months ago!

And then she nailed it in less than a week — using English! She came up with an ingenious idea by watching a children’s television series — on Youtube. ;-) In the show, one of the actors speaks with a tick Eastern European accent and my daughter found that amusing enough to want to try it herself. She intentionally converted words like teacher into teachRR, are into aRR, computer into computRR, etc. and asked me and my wife to talk the same way too. In no time, she visibly started improving her ability to say the hard “R” sound and after 5-6 days she totally had it under her belt  – or rather tongue.

Watching others learning is a powerful form of learning too

I heard the next story recently from one of my dear friends and I’ll try to use his words as far as my memory serves me:

“I grew up in a small village near Danube. There were only about 200 people in the village, with us kids numbering 30 something. As you can imagine, we did lots of things together. I can still remember some of the days up on the river or the woods, with endless games, fights, friendship…”

“I remember the day when one of the kids brought a skateboard — first in the village! None of us have seen one before, nor did anyone in the village knew how to ride it, including the owner, but we were all eager to try and learn. For some reason, the owner was willing to share it with all of us, so we took turns and had lots of fun, as well as bruises.”

“I remember vividly how quickly we separated into two groups. There were the risk takers, those eager to jump on the skateboard with no second thought about the chance to hurt themselves. And there were the rest of us, the watchers, who eagerly followed every action by the other group and only later shyly tried to do it themselves.”

“At the end, we all learned! We were so engrossed in the skateboarding that we got so far as finding someone with a motorcycle willing to let us hold on the side as he was revving his little engine through the streets.”

Learning liberates and empowers

The third story is about my father and his approach in teaching me how to drive a car!

I was only 14 when my dad let me drive his car for the first time. It was one of the most terrifying and at the same time most exciting experiences in my life until then. I’ve spend countless hours before that, sitting in the car as it was parked in our front yard and pretending to drive my little brother to distant places — shifting gears like a pro.

The first lesson that my dad gave me was how to change tires. I haven’t yet moved the car by an inch, but I was able to change a tire no matter if the car was at home, on a dirt or rocky road, on a slope… As I started driving, all through the driving lessons, he kept adding lessons how to check the oil level and add more if needed, how to add water for the windshield vipers, how to change a burnt fuse, even how to change a faulty spark plug.

When I was little over 15, I had my first “going out to town” trip with my friends, without my dad sitting on the seat next to me! I was mortified — I was driving probably no more than 30km/h down the road from our village to enter the town. Not because what I was doing was illegal — there were perks a son of a policeman in a small town could enjoy back then — but because I had no one next to me to help me if I messed things up. None of my friends in the car with me have come even close to driving yet.

Since I was too scared to park in any of the parking lots, I parked in some dirt off of the road where almost no other cars could be seen. Can you guess what happened on my second or third outing with the car? Correct, a flat tire! At least that was something that couldn’t scare me.

By now you’ll probably guess what was my first lesson when the winter and the snow came? Right, I learned how to put chains on the tires so I can drive up the hill to reach our home if stuck in the middle of the road!

The transformational power of learning

The first story with my daughter and the hard “R” sound teaches that learning increases its power when taken across contexts. She was able to switch the language she used to practice the sound for the benefit of the original language in which that sound is used. It is as if she decided she needed a new screwdriver to tighten the screw as the one she used initially didn’t do the job!

This makes me worried about environments in which virtual limits are imposed on the kids, because of the fear of disruption. Her classroom has a “no other language but French allowed in class” policy (she attends French Immersion), which is really a misguided attempt to create an immersive environment where everyone has to speak French so they can learn it faster.

The trouble is, this deprives the kids from efficiently communicating their needs, ideas, stories with the teacher and one another. Just imagine a joyful kid who just got a baby brother the night before entering the classroom in the morning and not being able to tell the news to her teacher — it would be an opportunity lost to make a connection between the student and the teacher!

The second story with my friend and the skateboard teaches that learning is not a privilege only for those running with the experience, but it is equally available to those watching others learning. It is important to emphasize that those others are learning, not merely showing or even teaching.

As we all know by now from research, we are equipped with mirror neurons that allow us to feel what others are feeling. It is the next best thing to experiencing it ourselves. It is the cornerstone to our capacity for empathy. And me and my friend believe it enables us to learn from each other — not in the traditional teacher-student way, but a learner-learner peer-like way. It makes me wonder if teaching without learning yourself is really a successful strategy for helping students learn!

Finally, the third story with my father and the driving lessons teaches that the best learning is not the one that focuses on the end-goal, but the one that enables the learner to independently continue learning towards that goal. By teaching for essential skills that promote independent learning, one empowers the student to take their learning in their hands.

The best coaches in sports often do this with their teams. It can be frustrating to spend hours of training basketball without actually using a ball, but the independence one can gain when the ball is in their hands allows them to continue learning even as they have long stopped with the formal lessons and are frantically trying to score to bring their team a victory in the final moments of an important game.

I got reminded how transforming learning can be the other day, when I decided to let my daughter get the razor in her hands and shave my beard. She hesitated and was scared to try at first. The first few attempts barely touched my skin. But as she gained confidence through the experience, I could visibly see her fear transforming into excitement. So much so that I soon had to ask her to slow down before making a cut on my throat.

I usually try to stay away from giving advices on my blog, but I will try to do so this time. Given that I am striving to ask questions as a way to clarify my thoughts through my posts, I figured it won’t be too bad if I give you an advice about asking questions yourself. (I know, advice on asking questions sounds like a cheat compared to advice on taking action, but I firmly believe everyone needs to workout the actions themselves based on their situation!)

If you’re a teacher reading this post, I’d like you to think about this question: Is my teaching transformational, or merely educational? If no, please take a look at the gap between the goal and the method and think of ways to empower, promote independence, allow other subjects and inputs to disrupt the flow. If none of that works, maybe it is time to start learning yourself in front of your students’ eyes and minds?

If you’re a parent with school age kids, on the other side, consider asking your children’s teachers: What do you do to empower my son/daughter in her learning? How can I help him/her continue learning when leaving the classroom? And don’t forget to check if you’ve made your own learning transparent to your kids and maybe even their teachers?

Perry Chen with Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim post interview at LA Film Festival, June 2010 -- Photo by Zhu Shen -- © Perry's Previews

When 8 years old Perry Chen entered 3rd grade, his teacher was in for a surprise. Perry was an avid reader and was able to understand the meaning of words at high school level. Instead of drilling him with the same homework practice as expected by an average 3rd grader, the teacher encouraged him to write — and changed his life forever!

Today, less than a month shy of his 11th birthday, Perry is famous as the youngest film critic in the world and gets free passes to screenings of the newest films for kids, interviews movie makers and actors, even joins them on the red carpet. As a young reviewer, he has a unique way of rating movies by giving them starfish and is not looking just for the visual effects and their appeal to kids, but is very interested in the story — particularly the moral message coming out of it.

You would think he’s too excited about being a movie critic, but Perry’s passion doesn’t end with film reviews. He already had an interesting career doing book reviews in the past and recently added restaurant reviews to his growing portfolio. He enjoys drawing and essentially turning any kind of materials into art and have recently ventured into doing animation films. Since his interests are far and wide, there’s no knowing what he may end up doing next!

Perry believes that combining education with entertainment is a great way to inspire learning and get more kids follow their passion. He has recently been invited to speak at TEDxRedmond — a TEDx event particularly hosting kid speakers in front of a kid audience:

We had an opportunity to ask Perry few questions and are really happy to share his story with you — enjoy!

Waiting for Superman, which you recently rated with 4.5 out of 5 starfish, paints a bleak picture for many schools and teachers. Still, your story as a movie critic seems to start 2 years ago with an insightful 3rd grade teacher. Can you share something from this story that explains your relationship with this teacher?

My 3rd grade teacher Ms Joli Harris is wonderful, who encouraged my writing book and then movie reviews when my mom suggested the idea to her after she told mom about my decoding words at high school level. I would turn in my reviews on Mondays and she would write comments of encouragement and sometimes questions for further discussions on each of my review for the rest of my 3rd grade year, all in her spare time. She was loving and nurturing, supportive of my creative endeavors always. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher! Our 3-way collaboration (parent-student-teacher) is the foundation of my later success as a child film critic. I am so grateful to her…

What is your favorite movie? Do you also have a favorite character from that movie? What do you like the best about them?

It’s hard to pick one favorite movie from the 50+ I’ve reviewed. In 2010, How to Train Your Dragon really stands out, because I am a “dragonologist” who also draws dragons well, and was born in the year of the dragon (2000). Most importantly, I love Hiccup who seems wimpy and different, but is the one with true power inside who saved his people by seeing and thinking differently. I love the moral of the film: Friends are more powerful than foes. Being different empowers you to see what others cannot. Also, interviewing directors Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, and voice talents Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, and America Ferrara at the press junket made the film even more special!

You seem to look for powerful moral in the movies you review. Can you explain why? Do you think the moral is important to your friends and other kids too?

I love movies with powerful moral because I think movies are more than entertainment. We kids can learn important life lessons and how the world works in a great movie. The best or “Perrific!” movies are educational and leave you thinking long after it’s over because of the powerful moral which is important for me in my rating of the film. I hope it’s important for my friends and other kids too, because by thinking about the moral of a film, kids can get more out of watching the film.

Besides your mom, who do you think helped you the most in your career as a child movie critic, radio talk show host, filmmaker, animator, artist… an amazing and impressive list for anyone, let alone a 10 year old like you!

I mentioned my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Joli Harris as another important person. I also interact with other film critics in San Diego and are friends with them. Leonard Maltin, a renowned film critic, author and film historian has been very kind in giving me great advice. He said I should watch some old classic films (such as Casablanca) to learn and compare with newer films, and see how they’re made. I also look up to Roger Ebert whose writing style I like a lot. The San Diego Union Tribune called me “An Ebert in training” last year.

How do your friends or other kids at school react to your reviews? Do they find it exciting and cool you get a chance to do the reviews and interview famous people? Do you also get some less encouraging responses?

A lot of kids in my school think what I’m doing is cool, they love getting free movie passes for press screenings from me. They think interviewing filmmakers and stars are exciting. I have not got negative responses from kids. Some adults though doubt a 10-yr-old can write the kind of movie reviews I wrote. Sometimes, I’ve shown my movie review notebook to people so they recognize my handwriting. I don’t let the doubters bother me, and keep doing what I enjoy. Again, I have many more friends than foes ; ). (Remember friends are more powerful than foes from How to Train Your Dragon?)

We suppose the first reaction from adults when you say “Hi, I am Perry Chen and I am a movie critic” is to laugh before taking you seriously. Do you find that discouraging? What inspires you to keep doing your best to convince them they should listen to you!?

Adults laugh because they have “lower” expectations of what kids can do. Once they read my reviews or see me on TV reviewing movies without notes, they know I’m for “real.” I just continue to do what I enjoy and let my work speak for itself.

What would you like to change in the world and specifically in your local community? How can you contribute to make that happen?

I would like to inspire other kids to start pursuing their dreams and passion by sharing my experiences in movie review and making animation. Perry’s Previews and Amazing Kids are co-organizing our first kids Oscar pick contest called “Amazing Kids Perrific Oscar Picks” contest for kids 6-17 worldwide to pick their favorite animation film from the Oscar-nominees to win best animation Oscar and have the option to write a 50-word review of why they pick that film. Winners can get DVDs of the nominated films.

If interested to learn more about the contest or would like to participate or suggest to someone you know to do so, check the links below

Amazing Kids! Perrific Oscar Picks Contest Rules

Amazing Kids Perrific Oscar Picks Contest for Kids press release

Cutting Room Floor live radio interview, Jan 29 (archive)

We want kids voice to be heard and get them involved in combining education with entertainment while watching movies.

You seem to have lots of other interests besides movies. The list seems to includes many activities and hobbies — from Kung-Fu, to Chinese language, to drawing and from writing poems, to folding origami, to gardening! Do you find time to play with your friends or simply play with games and toys? What is your favorite toy or game?

I do play with friends from my school and elsewhere, not as often as for some other kids. But I enjoy it. On most weekends, I would go on nature walks with my parents to Torrey Pines State Reserve, the beach, or Carmel Creek trail.  One of my favorite weekend activities is to visit the San Diego Zoo.  I love doing live drawings of colorful birds at the Hummingbird Aviary (my favorite spot), petting animals, listening to Dr. Zoolittle’s stories at the Children’s Zoo area, and watching the bird show. I also spend time in our backyard garden with flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees. I help my parents harvest fruit and vegetables for fun. I enjoy watching my favorite TV show Phineas & Ferb on the web. It’s a funny, entertaining, and smart show for kids and parents to enjoy. I also likes to toss my stuffed penguin toy with my parents as a fun exercise. When I was younger, I loved to play this “deep dark forest” game with my mom in the big closet in the master bedroom, where we pretend it’s a deep dark forest, and we do role play of different animals. It was a great game! We still play that sometimes now.

Your message to kids from the TEDxRedmond stage was “If you believe you can achieve! Dream big and do something about it!” Would you like to add something to this message for the kids following World4Children but you didn’t say it during your TEDxRedmond speech?

Persistence is key! Kids may like to do one thing today and lose interest on it the next day. In order to do something really well, you need to spend time on it and keep at it, and NOT giving up because it’s difficult or you get bored. Find something that REALLY interest you and learn it and get advice from experts, ask your parents to help connect you with experts.People in general are very nice to kids when they need help. Movie review and making animation are NOT easy things to do for a kid. But I persisted with my parents’ love and encouragement, and my teacher’s support. Mom also found me professional animators to show me how to use animation software and tablet. I’ve learned so much since last year, it’s amazing! I’m almost done with my first animation short about a young Holocaust survivor, called Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest. We’ll submit it to various film festivals around the world this year!

What would you like to say to adults that may be interested in working with kids like you, but for some reason or another haven’t done so yet?

Adults can be great mentors for kids who share their interest. I want them to remember when they were kids and be kind and nurturing to us as if they’re treating their younger self! That’s how kids can learn and become better.

Mom Zhu & Perry in the garden

As usual, we like to ask few questions the parents too, so we had a chance to talk to Zhu Shen, Perry’s mom and supporter in many ways! Dr. Shen has her own biotech consulting company BioForesight and has produced an educational DVD about “The Art & Science of Social Media and Networking.“

Can you tell us your part in the story with the 3rd grade teacher? Did you find the engagement with the teacher helpful in inspiring Perry to write book and later movie reviews or you ended up helping him on your own?

Perry’s 3rd grade teacher Ms Harris’s encouragement was essential. It shows Perry that she cared and she thought this was an important activities worth her time and support. I spend a lot of time with Perry to take him see movies and discuss with him afterward, and to type up his hand-written review and post them on his website. I also coordinate with all the media outlets Perry writes for (Animation World Network, Amazing Kids, San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Entertainer, etc.) and media inquiries, events, speaking engagement, film and other commercial projects. From working with Perry, I have learned many new skills, including website management, photojournalism, video editing and production, making documentary films, and even animation!  We have made lots of friends with award-winning filmmakers, animators, and artists from various countries, including in China where I came from. It has been an amazing journey already, and I look forward to more adventures and exploration with Perry!

As you’re working with Perry to promote him and support his dream, did you hit some walls that made you frustrated? Can you share a quick story?

We’ve had so many friends (real life friends and virtual friends online) who are so supportive and wonderful of Perry’s artistic and creative activities. There are always challenges along the way, sometimes technical, other times personal. One needs to face them and find creative solutions a lot of times. I remember when Perry was working on his first 7-second animation scene as part of 70-animator collaboration “Guard Dog Global Jam“ based on Bill Plympton’s Oscar-nominated animation short “Guard Dog” last Nov, it was difficult to figure out certain aspect of the animation software functionality as first-time animator, and to get it formatted correctly for the final movie file. I emailed other animators on Perry’s behalf, and called Toon Boom Animation software technical support staff many times who were most helpful, before finally figuring out how to use certain features and get the film done according to specs on time! Again patience and persistence are important, we’re grateful to all who offered to help along the way.

Any positive stories from people embracing the idea of a 10 year old movie critic as something exciting instead of just cute and fun?

Many. All the media who covered Perry thought the story was an important one as it relates to education and entertainment, parenting, how to find and nurture children’s talents. Our friends and partners love working with us.

You hope the world in 2025 offers your son to….?

Though I can’t predict what Perry will be doing exactly in 2025, I think it’s highly likely he will be using his creativity and imagination in whatever he’ll be doing professionally, be it animator or animation director, artist, author, speaker. I don’t think he’ll be content with only doing movie reviews though… He might become a cross-cultural ambassador of film and arts between US and China and beyond. The most important thing for me as his mom is that he enjoys whatever he chooses to pursue and feels happy!

25% of my contacts on Linkedin have started in a new job last year

Just over a year ago, on January 24, 2010, I posted the big news to my family and friends — I am starting a blog! Haven’t yet figured out what it was going to be exactly about, but I was convinced it would be another New Year’s resolution that will stay out of the drawer for few months only — before it would go back to the pile of other ideas that for some reason people usually deliberate around the turn of the new year and never truly take the effort to follow up on them. Still, I thought, it would be fun to try — little did I know how much so!

2010 was a year of many changes for me. I won’t bother you with listing what has happened, as that is not the point of my article — besides, I already covered some of the changes and ideas I started working on in previous posts that I’ll leave it to new readers to hunt them down in the archive if they dare!

The thing that interests me at the moment and I want to look at in this article is change itself!

What relationship change has with our fears and happy moments? Why do we (not) change? Is it true that more people fear change than embrace it?

These are questions that I have been deliberating lately, unfortunately without making progress on finding the answers!

Being a geek for data, I decided to look into some numbers and after a while I ran into a great little service from Google Labs — Ngrams — which allows one to search for words through a vast archive of books and articles going back in time as far as 1600 or so. You can see the results for one of my searches below.

Are we facing a change in trend leading again to fear of change?

According to Google, there has been a steady upward trend for the word change – as it seems to appear in more and more books and articles all through the 19th and most of 20th century, while at the same time there has been a clear downward trend for words like war & peace or fear & happiness — with the understandable peaks in the appearance of the words war and peace around the World Wars, of course.

It is impossible to draw hard conclusions from this, of course, but it is still tempting to think that people are showing increased interest in making changes in various aspects of their lives. In particular, it seems that people are writing about change in many other contexts but war & peace or fear & happiness. So much for the myth of fear of change, right?

I certainly thought so when I got the update from Linkedin suggesting that 474 of my contacts there have started working on new jobs in the last year, before I tried to put that number in context.

While 474 may appear like a big number, it is still only about 25% of my network and it is hardly representative of the society at large, given that Linkedin is a social network focusing on business professionals who are readily using it to start businesses, find new jobs, etc. I suspect the number of people that have changed jobs in a year in a country like Canada or the US is far smaller.

I have been living with change for the past year and very much hope to continue to do so in my lifetime — change is the only way I learn and learning after all is my passion. Which is why I am not happy with the story the numbers from Linkedin and Ngrams are telling.

You must have noticed that the upward trend in the use of the word change in books ends around 1970 and plateaus until 2000 when it seems to turn down rapidly with the start of the new millenia. At the same time, after a steady downward trend for 200 years, we seem to start to write more and more about war and fear in the past 8-10 years!

I am an eternal optimist and love the fact that by embracing change in my live I am constantly building many new relationships and friendships with people I had no chance to meet if I stayed paralyzed in fear of change. Still, it is disheartening to see signs of entering a new era of increased fear of change and I hope my analysis will turn to have been flawed.

Here is to a hope 2011 will not only be a better year of change than 2010, but also a year of empowerment – a year in which many of us will look around and find someone to help pursue their dream, by instilling a relationship full with trust and respect and encouraging them to go after their passions. By doing so, we may be able to turn the tide again from fear to hope!

Of course, having fun doesn’t hurt, either!

To empower is to let them do it, even if things get messy;-)

Of course, empowering them comes with risks;-)