A technology teacher friend of mine told me about this Ted Talk video by 13 year-old Logan LaPlante and I had to go look it up. I was not disappointed and after watching the video had tremendous respect for the kid, his parents and the outlook of education. I consider myself someone who ‘hacked’ their education and I’m a total advocate for just about every word from this young shred grom’s mouth. I’ve captured many of his quotes I found moving and discuss them more below if you keep reading.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
When I grow up I want to be happy.
Logan puts it simple and sweet in that education should be based on the study and practice of being happy and healthy because that’s what it is. Education is important but why being happy and healthy is not considered education, him and I both don’t get it.
The Science of Being Happy & Healthy
Time in nature is really important to me. It’s calm, quiet, and I get to just log out of reality.
- Exercise
- Diet & Nutrition
- Time in Nature
- Contribution & Service
- Relationships
- Recreation
- Relaxation & Stress Management
- Religious & Spiritual
These are Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC’s) that Logan uses as guidance for his education and being happy and healthy. I certainly could not follow more clearly and must say the fact that ‘Recreation’ and ‘Time in Nature’ are two items on the list I think I can buy into that.
Much Education is oriented toward making a living rather than making a life.
Although this is true I do not think that our current education system is necessarily doing a great job of that either. In design school I learned a hell of a lot about design. What was missing was the business side of it. Although we were encourage to freelance and gain experience through internships to meet this requirement no formal training was given on the business end. I always say I ended up getting a masters in business while in the trenches of running a start-up marketing agency for 2 years and I really think that to be the case.
Shane McConkey was a Hacker
The TED talk does not go into who Shane McConkey was so I want to help highlight that part and share another video with you. It’s a full length movie called GNAR and you should really watch it when you have an hour:
[av_video src=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vb_go27n4w’ format=’16-9′ width=’16’ height=’9′ av_uid=’av-12nt5′]
If everyone skied this mountain like most people think of education, everyone would be skiing the same line, probably the safest, and all the powder would go untouched.
Logan speaks about his internship being his favorite class and the people who work there:
Innovators who challenge and change the system to make them different, to make them better.
