Thursday, September 27, 2018

Week 6 Story Lab: Ted Talks

Sources:
A New Theory of Human Intelligence by Scott Barry Kaufman

I really found the first one by Nina Paley to be very interesting. At first, the title seems to make no sense. I had never thought of copyright as this terrible thing, but she made some very good points. For example, I never knew that copyrights could be permanently withheld from someone else. I had always assumed that it meant you had to pay royalties to use someone else's intellectual properties, not that they could reject your attempts to use their media, even if you pay. I feel similar to her in that this is a stifling of creativity in a way, and can only hurt the exposure your idea may receive otherwise, as nobody else could use it and bring attention to it. I also found the permission culture comments she made to be an interesting take on the world currently. Because of laws surrounding things such as copyright, we immediately begin to self-censor ourselves in a way, as we know we are unable to use certain ideas or forms of media due to their protections. She mentioned early on that she has comics from earlier in her career that not only are not producing additional money due to their copyrights, but it also prevents them from gaining the exposure that could boost her career as a comic artist. These types of things I had never thought about before.

The other Ted Talk by Scott Barry Kaufman intrigued me. The opening story of Blaine, a child who was diagnosed with many disorders, such as ADHD, General Anxiety Disorder, and more at the age of 8, turning into someone who excelled in school and simply learned in different ways was astonishing. Many times in our educational system, kids who learn a slightly different way or who struggle to grasp the concepts the traditional way are treated as incapable of learning, when they simply have different strengths when it comes to retention strategies. I highly disliked art class as a child, and to this day struggle with creativity because of these types of things in those classes, such as a struggle to focus and constantly needing small breaks to regain my focus and attention. I also found his discussion about IQ tests to be very interesting as well. When he talked about it, I went and looked at some online examples (short attention span, constantly shifting and getting off track, I know), and on some of the questions, such as language, it marks you incorrectly for having a different definition of a word than the one they assign to it, which affects trying to decide what you believe is the best antonym to said word. I can understand where they are coming from with their choices for the correct answers, but some can be subjective based on the interpreter. I was also amazed by Dr. Kaufman's personal story. He was a student who was listed as special education in elementary school, which for many children can be a death sentence, but he was able to get out of the classes with the help of a teacher, went to college, completed a doctorate at Yale, and is not a staff member for UPenn, one of the most prestigious schools in the United States. I absolutely loved his story and his speech, as I can relate to many of the things that he spoke about and found the material to be phenomenal.

Almost everyone has seen these "If you see it, you're a genius" posts on the internet
Source: YouTube

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