10 ways to have a better conversation

( https://www.ted.com/talks/celeste_headlee_10_ways_to_have_a_better_conversation#t-674329 )

Summary

When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations — and that most of us don't converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. "Go out, talk to people, listen to people," she says. "And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed."

Opinion

Communication is the base of any group of species. All of them communicate on one way or another.

Humans are a species that have been communicating at first by signs and nowadays we can see that the communication has made a huge evolution and takes an important place in our society. To see its importance we simply have to realize that communication is all everywhere without exception.

No matter if it’s oral verbal communication or writing, both are essential for communities. They need to intercommunicate between each other.

I think Celeste Headlee is right when she argues that we must improve the conversation, doing the 10 steps in order to not be fifty percent in the conversation and fifty out. Because, the way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.

How could Christianity get so many followers in a short period? It’s a question that our History of Art's teacher ask us.

The reason, I think, is in the beginning of Christianity where it gets the attention of working class. How? The working class resign themselves with their hard life because they have the faith that there is another life after death; Christians believe that another life exists after death, known as a resuscitation. In this period where the huge difference between the status is present, the working class live in a bad condition.

Christianity gives us a reason to accept this condition thinking that in another life you will live better.

Now that we have an answer I have a question for those that believe in a religion. If in history, religions didn't exist,do you think history could been different? People would have act differently if they didn't have this excuse in order to resign themselves to this life and its hard conditions?

For my part, I’m sure that everything would been different.

Why you should talk to strangers

-Kio Stark

(https://www.ted.com/playlists/413/the_beauty_of_strangers)

Summary

"When you talk to strangers, you're making beautiful interruptions into the expected narrative of your daily life — and theirs," says Kio Stark. In this delightful talk, Stark explores the overlooked benefits of pushing past our default discomfort when it comes to strangers and embracing those fleeting but profoundly beautiful moments of genuine connection.

Opinion

I believe more people in our society than we think are afraid of strangers. They take fright when their parents in their childhood told them to not talk to any stranger and to not trust in any of them because of their supposing bad intentions.

I’m not saying that what our parents said is the mistake. Our parents are right. A child is innocent why normally he can’t see if he is in danger when he’s in front of a new situation or a stranger. A child is discovering our society and which kind of person there is inside.

The mistake is to live our life without believing in our learning we get after years observing our society. We must trust in our feelings and intuition as Kio Stark says in his spoke.

I’m not affirming that when we get older our feeling will never deceive us. I’m just agree with Kio Stark when she says that we must believe in our sensitives perception instead of our fears.  

I’m sure that those who leave behind this warning of their childhood and start to believie in the human -stranger or not- they will in all likelihood see that most people are not so bad or dangerous as they thought.

Furthermore, those who are in the situation of believing in strangers even they are more comfortable talking with them than with those who know them. Those kinds of people are as Kia Stark says are the ones that prefer talking with strangers because there no consequences of their talks.

When Kia Stark says that those people expect the stranger to read their mind, I think that isn’t the reason. Perhaps those people feel that stranger understands what he feels. And for them they understand better than the people that know him.

In fact, the only reason why a stranger could understand better what someone feels better than the person who knows this person. The reason is with the stranger there isn’t the idea that you have with the person that knows you.

For me the stranger can’t know what we think because he doesn’t know us. Our unconscious knows it. It why unconsciously I believe that we explain more what we feel. We externalize our feelings because we don’t expect that they could understand us without it.

With close people, instead of externalising our feelings, we expect them to read our mind. That why sometimes stranger seems to understand us better than close people. It’s because with them we are unconsciously externalizing more our feelings.

Let's use video to reinvent education

( https://www.ted.com/talks/sal_khan_let_s_teach_for_mastery_not_test_scores?language=fr )

Summary

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script – give students vídeo lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Opinion

I totally agree with Salman Khan. The occidental education has been the same during centuries. There was no evolution until know in the method of education.

Our system education is influenced by Plato. Who said every individual should devote his life to what is best fit for him to do. And the important function of education is to determine what every individual is by nature capable and fitted of doing things.

Nowadays children enter school at six where they first learn the three Rs (reading, writing and counting) and then engage with music and sports. Later when they end High school, students have to choose one between many kind of studies.

In the 5^th century BC Plato says “Social justice is giving what is due to whom it is due”.

It looks nice but in fact if we stop to think about it our society doesn’t let us choose what we want to do. And this begins with the education.

Years after years some students accumulate gaps when they don’t understand the whole subjecte. Anyway, his whole class will move on to the next subjecte, probably a more advanced subject that's going to build on those gaps. Some people over time will disengage. Not because something is difficult or the student isn’t bright. It's because of this accumulation of gaps.  

Salman Khan talks about an example: Home-building. And said if we would choose to build a house on unfinished foundations. I’m sure everybody would say “of course not”. 

Why then do we urge students to finish their education when they have not always grasped the fundamentals?

I believe our education system must change. The idea is teaching for mastery and not test results.

The human is the animal who fail the most

We just should compare a foal with an infant. The foal, after one hour trying to walk, he will get it, conversely, the infant after more than two thousand attempts to walk he cans approximately walk.

Nevertheless, the human perhaps is the animal who live the more fails in his life but is the animal that can drive a car, ride bike, etc. Regarding the horse, after 10 years he will walk as he walked when he was one year old.

Another example could be: the spider. When the spider does his spiderweb, he doesn’t fail. Or the bird. When the bird does his bird’s nest he gets it immediately at first time.

The human perhaps, should try the things many times but he is free and he doesn’t depend on the instinct like the spider, the bird or the foal. The human is free and thereby he can go more far than any other species.