Erin Freschi, a California mom who has worked in education for nearly 25 years, has a nightly ritual with her 8-year-old son, Sawyer. Instead of bedtime stories or songs, Freschi and her son wind down by watching TED Talks. The name of their unique ritual? TED Before Bed. “It started when Sawyer was in first […]
It’s a few months after graduation, which means the luckiest new college grads are knee-deep into internships and entry-level jobs. How to stand out? Business writer Margaret Heffernan suggests: Start by taking a coffee break with your coworkers. Companies grow best, she suggests, when workers are connected by social bonds. Heffernan’s TED Book, Beyond Measure: […]
Body image, beauty and bullying. In TED-Ed Clubs, students are guided through the process of making a presentation on an idea they feel passionate about — and dozens of students in clubs around the world have boldly chosen to talk about how to combat negative body image, distorted images of beauty and the bullying that […]
The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. Powerful thoughts on slavery’s legacy. Last week, Bryan Stevenson spoke with The Marshall Project about the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In a Q&A, Stevenson shared his thoughts on the deeply entrenched legacy […]
More than 40 years after the Stonewall Riots, even as Caitlyn Jenner dominates pop culture, coming out as gay or transgender remains deeply difficult. In some cases, it’s downright dangerous; in others, it’s enough to tear families apart. But as you’ll discover in these six StoryCorps interviews, love — of each other, and of oneself […]
Comic books usually feature superheroes. This one, however, stars the speakers who shared ideas at last week’s TEDGlobal>London. The graphic novella “Beyond the Edge” was created by the “scribes” at Innovation Arts and gives a three-panel pop rendering of each talk at the event, with special appearances by the day’s performers. There are no villains […]
At TED2005, James Horner shared the secret of what made him such a powerhouse film composer — he made it a point to watch each film as a viewer rather than as a creator. “Very often directors will say, ‘That’s not what I had in mind. I shot it with this in mind.’ But when […]
A few weeks ago, I was driving to the grocery store listening to an interview between a mother and daughter, Elizabeth and Sara Bell. I was astonished to hear the intimacy of their conversation. Elizabeth wants to interview her mother, who is 65 and suffering from dementia, because she is afraid that the disease will […]
At TED2009, Joachim de Posada shared a spin on the marshmallow test — he re-created the famous experiment with kids in Colombia, to see if they’d react differently from the suburban California children who were the subjects of the first test. In Colombia, he found one clever girl who ate the inside of the marshmallow, […]
Alice Miller was born in a body that didn’t feel like hers. Every day, Yee Won Chong has to debate whether to use the men’s restroom or the women’s. Geena Rocero found success as a fashion model — but kept her birth gender a secret for nearly a decade, fearing what others would think. All […]
(Editor’s note, as of Nov. 1, 2019: Ameenah Gurib-Fakim stepped down as president of Mauritius in March 2018, following accusations that she misused a credit card given to her by a nonprofit. Read more here.) You’ve heard of a philosopher king. But what about a biologist president? Ameenah Gurib-Fakim — the biologist who gave the […]
It is Dead Duck Day 2015 — the 20th anniversary of the day in 1995 when a mallard duck flew into a glass window outside the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, fell to the ground dead, and then became part of the first scientifically observed instance of homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks. Now, each June 5, curator Kees Moeliker […]
Sharing an idea isn’t like snapping your fingers — things don’t just instantly change. But as more people hear an idea over time, it can trickle into people’s thinking — and shifts, both subtle and extreme, can happen as a result. In a TEDWomen session called “The 19th Minute,” host Courtney E. Martin invited several […]
The first TED took place in February 1984 in a theater that looked like a college lecture hall, complete with swivel desks at each seat. More than 30 years later, TEDWomen is happening this week in the same theater at the Monterey Conference Center. In a nice piece of symmetry, it will be one of […]
Lots of happenings in the TED community this week. Below, some highlights. Police on trial in Afghanistan. This week, Kimberley Motley represented the family of Farkhunda, a 27-year-old woman who was brutally murdered, in an Afghan court against 19 policemen who are accused of standing by while she was set on fire, run over and […]
If you could sit down and interview your mom, what would you ask her? Would you ask about your childhood? Her childhood? Would you re-tell old funny stories? Try to dig up some of her secrets? As an adult, the idea of interviewing your mom can seem pretty scary. Kids, on the other hand, are […]