Top 5 TED Talks for Educators 2024

I LOVE TED Talks. About six years ago, I posted my list of favorites for teachers on my blog, and it has been shared thousands of times. I decided it was time to update things, as the educational landscape has changed so much since then. Guess what? Even with all the changes, three of my Top 5 have withheld the test of time. 

Get ready to be inspired and invigorated!

Top 5 TED Talks for Teachers 2024 updated:

1. Rita Pierson - "Every Kid Needs a Champion"
   • A heartfelt reminder of the importance of building positive relationships with students. This TED Talk inspired one of the most beloved prompts in my Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers Journal.
   • Best Quote: "Every child deserves a champion—an adult who will never give up on them."
2. Sal Khan - "How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education"
   • Explore the potential of AI to revolutionize education with personalized tutoring and teaching assistants.
   • Quote: "AI could spark the greatest positive transformation education has ever seen."
   • With all the negativity surrounding ChatGPT and school, this talk will leave you excited and inspired with the possibilities to provide every student with a personal tutor, and every teacher with a turbo-charged assistant.
3. Sir Ken Robinson - "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"
   • A compelling case for nurturing creativity within the education system.
   • Why it's still relevant today and a must-watch for every educator.
4. Tyler DeWitt - "Hey Science Teachers, Make It Fun"
   • A call to make learning engaging and accessible through stories and demonstrations.
   • Reflects on the impact of deconstructing jargon and fostering a love for science.
5. William Kamkwamba - "How I Harnessed the Wind"
   • An inspiring story of determination and ingenuity from a young mind in Africa.
   • Encourages teachers and students to appreciate the power of education and creativity. 
   • I find it helps me connect with the very

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Transcript

Okay, teacher friends, welcome back. At the time of recording, it is your summer break. Yay! I hope you are crushing it. I hoped you listened to all the episodes the last three weeks that were there to set you up for success. How to set boundaries with your family over summer. How to watch your mental diet to make sure you're not mindlessly consuming things that are actually unhealthy.

aggravating your nervous system, keeping you in that fight or flight remote mode when, you know, we just need to chill out over summer. And the other one, which was why about you should not worry about investing in professional development this summer. What's going to move the needle for you is investing in personal development.

And I'm here to help with that. Okay. So those were three good coming up to summer episodes. I hope you caught them. So now that we are in summer,  I decided for the, for this week and for next week is to just be in like a kind of more chill, inspiration mode, deep thinking mode for you to consider education, your craft, your place in it, the place of education in the world.

I know that doesn't sound very relaxing to you, but we're going to do it in a fun format. Because I have had a blog much kind of abandoned for the last few years, but the most popular by far blog post that I ever posted with the top five TED Talks for teachers and the top five TED Talks for special education teachers.

So next week we'll tackle special ed.  This week, we are going to tackle the top five TED Talks for educators. And I have some new, two shiny, new, relevant,  two in there and three oldies, but goodies. I can't wait to share them with you. Love me a TED Talk. You know what? I kind of have a short attention span.

I love to learn new things. If an expert is going to stand there and give me the best of their stuff in 18 to 20 minutes and for it to be entertaining. Ha! How could we lose? So, hold on to your hats. I will see you on the inside.  Welcome to the Balance Your Teacher Life podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries, and achieving better work life balance. 

If you're passionate about education, but tired of it consuming your whole life, You have found your home in the podcast universe. I'm your host, Grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show. 

All right, so I have been obsessed with TED Talks since I want to say, oh gosh, 2009 2010. I know when I first started writing. I was writing in, fun fact, in a different niche. And wow, I just, ah, I love it. Love me Ted Talks. I have used them in the classroom with the kids. I've used them for my own learning entertainment for many years.

And I know that now many people are used to them. You know, I think I was like one of the first few people to see Renee's Brown, The Power of Vulnerability. And I, I sent that to everybody I knew. So anyway, so.  Some of you may have favorite ones and you might be thinking, why are they not on your list?

Well, I just think that they are so well known now, like Carol Dweck. Okay. And her one on growth mindset and Angela Duckworth on grit in education, right? These are very, popular ones. People should know them by now. Nothing revolutionary there. But I am going to give you my top five for 2024. And the first one is an oldie but goodie.

You're going to say everybody in the world has seen that. Good. Go watch it again. If you just want a jolt of inspiration, you cannot go wrong with Rita Pearson. Every child deserves a champion. I'm sure you've seen it at a PD, at your district.  The woman is so sincere. She shares such charming Anecdotes. In fact, it was really her TED talk.

I've always been very open about that. They inspired the question in my positive mindset journal that I have every week. If you work through the journal every week, one of the prompts beginning of the week is who can I champion this week? And that was 100 percent inspired. By her Ted talk. Now, all the links to the Ted talks are going to be in the show notes, of course, but maybe you're driving.

So hopefully you remember that talk. You know what she, unfortunately she died very,  pretty quickly after she made that talk, but what a beautiful legacy. And when I rewatched it recently, you know, I did kind of laugh because I love that Ted talk so much, but at the beginning, she actually does everything that I teach against, so, you know, you can. 

Love something, but not agree with every part of it. But I totally get where she came from. I don't know if you remember at the beginning of the talk, she starts with, she starts with the words, I have spent my entire life either at the schoolhouse, on the way to the schoolhouse, or talking about the schoolhouse.

And it gets a big laugh from the audience because we all get that, but you know what? I did have that whole episode about hashtag teacher life. Right? Like, you should have a full life. Teaching should be a beautiful part of it, but it shouldn't be your whole life. But regardless, her TED Talk, just precious.

You know what? It comes in under eight minutes. So for that reason, I'm going to tell yourself, tell you, go listen. It really packs a punch and reinforces the need to build relationships with children. We know this. As well as the power of positive expectations, but my favorite part is when she talks about she was teaching something wrong in math and just, you know, her class rallying around her, you know, when you have that relationship with the class and things aren't going great and you're like, come on, let's figure this out together.

I remember when, oh my gosh, during distance learning. And I remember there was just, Some technology things we just couldn't figure out. We'd be on zoom and one of the kids would be like, let me go get my big brother. He's in high school. He'll figure it out. And he'd come on screen share and figure it out for us.

Right. That really feeling of community. So that is always going to be my number one pick. Do love that. Okay. Then a new one for this year. Oh, so much respect for this man. I'm sure you're going to have a warm feeling when I say Sal Khan. So my number two pick for 2024, how more timely can we get than this is Sal Khan's Ted Talk that he did not too long ago, and it coming in just at 15 minutes.

How can AI save not die? Destroy education. We have been hearing all educators, you know, poo poo and how chat GBT, all of that is the end, the end of school. But I got to tell you, he really thinks artificial intelligence could spark the greatest positive transpo Formation  education has ever seen. Okay.

I was so excited about that statement. I stumbled over it. I'm going to say again, Sal really thinks that artificial intelligence could spark the greatest positive transformation education he has ever seen. So he shares about his bot, Conmigo. Hopefully you've heard about that. If not, go check it out.

Google immediately Khan Migo, which is Khan, K A H N, like Sal Khan, M I G O. It is free for teachers, has incredible features. But he shares that what this goal is for, it allows each student to have a personal tutor.  Right? Using AI and for each teacher to have a personal teaching assistant. Like, isn't that what you've always dreamed of?

And I've watched demonstrations of it. And clearly, you know, it is really like a tutor. It doesn't give kids answers. You can watch a demonstration of it. Like it will say, we are beginning to record this for your teacher. So the teacher can see exactly what you're doing. interaction with the chatbot was, but it will guide you just like a teacher was to critical thinking.

It is just, I cannot say enough about Sal Khan and everything he has done to really democratize quality education and make it possible for people all over the world to learn. And going back to what I said about classroom community before, you know, when I was teaching math in fourth grade, sometimes, you know, there's new ways of doing things that, you know Confuse me sometimes.

You know, I learned back in the 70s on a slide rule. Not even kidding. We didn't even have calculators then. Okay, and sometimes if I would get tangled up or if the kids were struggling with something, even one of the kids, it was like he was our friend, would say, Hey, let's see how Sal Sal Khan did it.

We go to Khan Academy and see him teaching that concept or one of his staff teaching that concept, like cannot say enough good things. So if you have not caught this TED talk yet, if you are really feeling gloomy about the future of education and want to get inspired and just be like, Oh my gosh, this is so cool, then absolutely.

How AI could save, not destroy education with Sal Khan. That is my number two pick.  All right, coming in at number three, this really is an oldie, but goodie. This goes all the way back to 2006. And I got to tell you, that is almost two decades ago, and I still think it is as pertinent as ever. And of course I love this man cause he is British and it is, did you hear how, how strong my accent was there when I said British, it was like I was just on the high street in London there.

Sorry about that.  Anyway, it really, you know, I lived in this country for about 15 years before I became an educator. And I really became an educator because  I had a child who went to kindergarten and I had not been in a school, any school, since my own schooling until my child started kindergarten. And it was so different, which maybe it would have been different anyway, because I was, you know, 30, school had changed in 30 years, but it was a bit of culture shock.

And that's how I got fascinated and interested in becoming a public school teacher. I want to be part of the solution, right? But  it is different. And, but I love this TED talk. So it is Sir Ken Robinson. Yes, he has been knighted. If you don't know that, you don't get born with a Sir title. You have to literally get knighted by the Queen.

And he was. So Sir Ken Robinson and his TED talk from 2006 is Do Schools Cure Creativity? And you know, he's very entertaining. You don't just need to have a British sense of humor to find him funny, but he makes this profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures rather than undermines creativity.

And  I think it's still relevant today. In fact, spoiler alert for next week I found some fascinating TED talks.  regarding kids with, you know, what we would classically say have special needs or whatever. So about how creative they can be. So that's where we are with that. That's my number three pick.

Do schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson. Also, fun fact, that is one of the most watched TED Talks ever,  you know, probably because it has been around since 2006, but if you haven't watched it in a while, even if you've watched it before, it's always worth a good watch. Okay. Number four, new for this year.

And I think because it's still so pertinent when we're so concerned and so consumed with all the  Really the drama in the classrooms. I really love Tyler DeWitt's talk, which is, Hey, science teachers, make it fun. Now, of course, not only science teachers should be making it fun. All teachers should be making it fun, but I find him very inspiring.

And I really take his, you know, he really deconstructs like how the textbook does things and how that doesn't spark engagement and how a cool teacher does things, even, you know, breaking it down into picture form and all the things that we know facilitate learning,  really making things fun. And how  above and beyond just that being a better way to spend your day, it really facilitates learning.

I love it. So the talk is, I think it's over 10 years now and he seems so young in it. I would love, gosh, I would love him to make a new one, see how things are going for him. But Tyler DeWitt, hey science teachers, make it fun. And again, he's a high school science teacher and he, it goes through, it's so relatable how he was so excited to present this lesson on bacteria and like, He was just devastated because his students hated it, right?

They just, it was the textbook. It was impossible to understand. And so he does have a rousing call for all teachers to ditch the jargon. Oh, couldn't we all do with that? And instead he wanted to make science sing through stories and demonstrations. But I feel like every subject could, could go through that.

You know, if you team that up with Sir Robinson's,  Professor plea to, to spark into creativity. It's all kind of, you see what we're going here, it's all about the same things. Okay, so now I am seeing here that he did do a an updated TED talk three years ago. I'm going to be honest, I haven't watched it.

Academia never had to change, now it's dire. Oh, oh. Oh, he looks older here. He's got a beard. Oh, I hope he didn't go jaded. I'm going to check that out in a minute and report back to you. Like, Oh, wow. That she didn't do all her research before she hit record. Did she? No, she did not. It's summer. What else can I say?

We'll give you an update on that and another time, but here we go. So that was number four.  Here we're coming in at number five,  again, an oldie, but goodie. And the reason I'm sharing it with you is not because it has anything to do about teaching. It has everything to do about why we're here.

Teachers. Okay. Why we're teachers, why we are passionate about education and the transformational power of knowledge to just  make the world better. Okay. You cannot go wrong with this. In fact, I really encourage you, depending on the age of your students. Students to watch this TED talk with them. So coming in at number five, and these are not in like, you know, number five is just a number.

It's not, I'm not assigning that one was better than five. It's just, they had to be in some kind of order. Okay. And that is William Capquamba,  How I Harnessed Time. The wind, right? It's just going to put a smile on your face. It's really a testament to the ingenuity of young minds, the power of determination.

And it's the story of the young man. You may know him. They made a documentary about him. And he, I love from his TED talk, he said he'd never even seen an internet. Right. That he had grown in some remote part of Africa and, you know, he couldn't afford to go to school. He, once his parents were not able to afford to go to school anymore, he had to go to the public library.

He could barely read, but he managed to make a generator for his family out of discarded junk. And once he made it for his family, he transformed the whole community. It is, again, it is just charming. It will make you smile. It will make your students smile. It'll remind you when things, you know, I'm all about the positive mindset.

Sometimes, you know, when you hear that tap into your why, and it seems so cheesy. This is why, right? This is why we believe. And the right for a free and equitable education for all people. Look what an amazing, creative genius mind that wanted to change his community and, you know, used outdated library books and junk to do so.

It'll again, it will just put a smile on your face.  Okay. So I went back and did my due diligence. Good news.  Tyler DeWitt is still in education. In case we thought he burnt out and went and started selling shoes for a living. Gosh, I always used to threaten that. I'd say, oh my gosh, there must be easy ways to earn money.

I'll go sell shoes at Macy's, but no. So his most recent TED talk, three years old. Academia never had to change, now it's dire. He is really talking about the fact how his father is a brilliant professor, but very steeped in the old school academia and that Tyler decided to go a different route and started a YouTube learning channel and the profound impact of that and the profound scope of online learning.

So, you know what? I, I did go full circle cause I, you know, I started with Sal Khan. So that's it, I had a mild panic attack there that I, that I saw, you know, it's like when you're teaching with the kids and you're watching a YouTube, I just pulled up a YouTube for a minute. And then I, I saw his little you know, on the side, you can see other videos and I was like, Oh no, what happened to this guy?

So anyway, no, all is well with Tyler DeWitt. He is still teaching just on YouTube. And yes, he looks a whole lot older with that beard. Anyway. That's it. Off on a tangent, as usual, but I hope your summer is going great. Those were my top five picks for best TED Talks for teachers in 2024. And next week, we're going to, I had so much fun looking at so many great TED Talks for special education teachers, which let's be honest, is for all teachers because these are all the types of students that Every teacher has in their classroom.

And I think you're going to enjoy that too. But in the meantime, I hope summer is going well. I hope you're setting your boundaries. I hope you're thinking about  your own personal development, about learning the skills to hack your own happiness and all the things that I love to teach. And until next time, create your own path, bring your own sunshine and be well.