#6 Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers TED Talk Response:

Dave Egger's TED Talk was about the necessities for effective learning.  Eggers spoke about one-on-one learning instead of listening to a lecturing teacher.  Using this teaching strategy, people can listen to the student and help them on a personal level instead of being in a class with twenty-five other students.  This type of learning is personalized for the student.

Every student is unique in the way that he/she learns.  Some students can listen to lectures and get all of the information they need, however, some need a more personalized experience to get the learning with the greatest possibilities.  He realized that some students can't reach their full potential by learning the standardized way, so he decided to start a free tutoring system, with the help of his friends, to help students with writing homework using face-to-face interactions.  I thought this was a great approach to education because it helped the student realize what their full potential could be.

At the beginning of his TED Talk, he mentioned that he was very nervous and it was very visible to the audience.  He talked very fast and said "uh" many times and the audience could tell that public speaking made him uncomfortable.  However, this seemed to make his speech more powerful because he still came out to share his idea with the world even though he was uncomfortable.  He shared many stories and experiences with bits of humor to attract the audience to his presentation and his idea.

The learning style is creative and interesting and so is the building that houses it.  826 Valencia was on a retail street, so Egger had to find something to sell.  He decided to make it a pirate supply store selling everything a pirate needs from eye patches to planks.  Many other tutoring centers followed this creative and wacky design to help make learning a fun and interactive experience.

One of the things I really liked about his speech was the TEDwish that he presented at the end.  He shared his wish about the community helping the younger generation to learn through human interactions and its involvement in the schooling system/environment.

Egger's ideas about face-to-face learning environments could help education around the world.  There are many students with many different learning styles, and creating more programs for the different learning styles could help students around the world reach their full potential.  I know that I like to be able to go in and talk to my teachers one-on-one when I need help, and creating a center for this kind of attention would help many students who learn more without the standardized classroom.