Dave Eggers--- Once Upon a School

One on one connections and education for a student can greatly influence their success in a learning atmosphere. Even 40 or 50 hours a year of individual aid can increase a student’s abilities by one grade level. Eggers begins with a school in San Francisco that had many students struggling with English studies because it was not their first language, and then shows how a tutoring building opened near to the school became very popular among the students in the area. Many other buildings associated with the concept of the first one began to open all over the country, and some internationally, often focusing on areas with students in homes that need the extra help. He is very humorous with the audience, and connects his ideas and successes to all those free tutoring schools and what the students tutored were able to accomplish after the fact. Eggers' style of speaking and interacting is very informal. Teaching a student one on one can help them much more, and it is important for international societies to be able to single out students to help them outside of the classroom. Schools normally do not have the ability to help students learn in this manner because they are short on the staffing for each student. This form of aid can greatly improve their performance in the classroom and is a great supplement to their education in the school. Worldwide, this would help create a better equally educated group of students, and can help children that need a hand reach the levels of their peers.

Clay Shirky--- How Cognitive surplus will change the world

Cognitive surplus, or the ability of a person to do generous acts without any form of reward to come, will change the community of the future and help the advancement of civic ability. Shirky is very thorough in his explanations of different studies and the definitions of terms he uses of importance. He uses pictures and statistics from different studies to prove many of his points. Many experiences and actual stories are cited to provide explanation for his theories, and explains them all in great depth. The human willingness to do acts of generosity towards other humans without a chance of reward is something that fluxes with the times, and will become very important to the success of the future. Teaching children to act kindly and share with others is often a skill emphasized by elementary schools and is an important skill for generation of the future of possess. The future cannot succeed without those willing to act kindly on another’s behalf even without reason, because relationships between people that are strictly business would become the new interactions without some generosity, and are too constricting and limited in what they can provide for the future.

Ken Robinson--- How school kills creativity

Robinson presents the idea that the current public education system condemns creativity after a certain point in a student’s career, and that this is a wrongdoing for their future. He used many personal experiences and humor to connect with his audience. Sometimes he would even get slightly off track of the main point to tell a funny story, or to run with an idea the audience found interesting. He has a very informal style of speaking with his audience, and relates to them well through his stories and the way he tells them. Most importantly, he demonstrates how the creativity of a student is something that should be nurtured, and encouraged, rather than squashed down to accommodate for more academic thinking. This directly applies to the education system, and how this is an aspect that needs reform in many places all over the world. Creativity is vital to the success of the future, and cannot be quelled.

Alison Killing---There’s a better way to die, and architecture can help.

Killing thoroughly explains that death is such an odd and uncomfortable subject for so many people that they are unwilling to consider how truly scary dying in sterile places such as hospitals and being there long term can be, and how that should be changed. She tries to use a lot of history and real life experiences to relate to the audience, and show them how things should be fixed, such as comparing a beautiful hospital built in 1419 to a normal hospital of the 21st century. When she speaks about herself and her own experiences, she is more informal with the audience. But when she tells stories of history and general facts, she tends to be more formal and straightforward. The theme of her speech is that the whole idea of sterile and uncomfortable hospitals needs to change so that the people occupying them can feel better about their surroundings. Many people spend much of their time in a hospital themselves or because of relatives and know the environment, as hospitals are generally like this all over the developed world, and changing the way hospitals feel is important to changing how people see them. Helping develop the ideas of the future is left to students in education, and ideas like this are for them to change.
Ted Talk

Sarah Kay---If I should Have a Daughter

Her main point is to try spoken word poetry. She spends a lot of time explaining this through the stories and experiences of herself and experiences she has watched other go through. She is very informal and relating towards the audience, and creates a comfortable atmosphere for them when telling her stories. The things that she explain matters in the presentation are passion to write what and how you like, and to try different things to express yourself. This applies to everyone to try and better convey themselves through words, and more demonstrate their mind to others. Students must use this to show style and uniqueness in their writing and other activities.