My notes from the Adora Svitak TED presentation video shown at TEDxPortland.
TED Video
Adora Svitak
When was the last time you were called childish?
Childish is associated with irresponsibility and irrational behavior. Age has nothing to do with it.
George Bush, War are examples of irresponsibility and irrational behavior.
While kids have raised 120,000 pounds for Haiti, written inspiring biographies (Anne Frank).
So childish is not a good word.
On the other hand, maybe some irrational behavior is good.
In anything, before you can do it, you have to dream it.
It has to be imagined.
At the Glass Museum in Tacoma, Washington, they say that children who have no preconceived notions of what glass art looks like can push the boundaries of what can be created.
Learning between grownups and kids should be reciprocal.
Because this has to do with issues of trust.
Regimes become oppressive when they don’t allow all people to have a voice.
Adults put restrictions on kids.
When expectations are low, kids will meet those low expectations.
When I was 6, my mother bought me a laptop, and I wrote over 600 short stories. My parents encouraged me. But publishers were no so encouraging.
One large publisher of childrens books said “we don’t work with children.”
Eventually I was published.
Kids eventually grow up and become adults.
But hopefully not adults like you.
Hopefully better than you.
Progress is made so that kids can grow up and do more than their parents.
Adults must listen and trust more.
Kids will be the leaders of tomorrow, they will be the ones to push the world forward.