TED Education

TED: Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world. The annual TED conferences, in Long Beach/Palm Springs and Edinburgh, bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less). This section contains talks generally related to education.
English United States Health & Fitness
64 Episodes
1 – 20

Why you should love statistics : Alan Smith

Think you're good at guessing stats? Guess again. Whether we consider ourselves math people or not, our ability to understand and work with numbers is terribly limited, says data visualization expert Alan Smith. In this delightful talk, Smith explores the mismatch between what we know and what we think we…
7 Feb 2017 12 min

How America's public schools keep kids in poverty: Kandice Sumner

Why should a good education be exclusive to rich kids? Schools in low-income neighborhoods across the US, specifically in communities of color, lack resources that are standard at wealthier schools — things like musical instruments, new books, healthy school lunches and soccer fields — and this has a real impact…
3 Nov 2016 14 min

How to fix a broken education system ... without any more money: Seema Bansal

Seema Bansal forged a path to public education reform for 15,000 schools in Haryana, India, by setting an ambitious goal: by 2020, 80 percent of children should have grade-level knowledge. She's looking to meet this goal by seeking reforms that will work in every school without additional resources. Bansal and…
6 Jul 2016 14 min

How to spot a liar - Pamela Meyer

On any given day we're lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lie can be subtle and counter-intuitive. Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, shows the manners and "hotspots" used by those trained to recognize deception — and she argues honesty is a value worth…
22 Jun 2016 18 min

The Chinese zodiac, explained - Shao Lan

A quarter of the world's population cares a lot about the Chinese zodiac. Even if you don't believe in it, you'd be wise to know how it works, says technologist and entrepreneur ShaoLan Hseuh. In this fun, informative talk, ShaoLan shares some tips for understanding the ancient tradition and describes…
20 Jun 2016 6 min

How better tech could protect us from distraction: Tristan Harris

How often does technology interrupt us from what we really mean to be doing? At work and at play, we spend a startling amount of time distracted by pings and pop-ups — instead of helping us spend our time well, it often feels like our tech is stealing it away…
20 Jun 2016 14 min

Sakena Yacoobi: How I stopped the Taliban from shutting down my school

When the Taliban closed all the girls' schools in Afghanistan, Sakena Yacoobi set up new schools, in secret, educating thousands of women and men. In this fierce, funny talk, she tells the jaw-dropping story of two times when she was threatened to stop teaching — and shares her vision for…
12 Oct 2015 17 min

Linda Cliatt-Wayman: How to fix a broken school? Lead fearlessly, love hard

On Linda Cliatt-Wayman’s first day as principal at a failing high school in North Philadelphia, she was determined to lay down the law. But she soon realized the job was more complex than she thought. With palpable passion, she shares the three principles that helped her turn around three schools…
10 Jun 2015 17 min

Suki Kim: This is what it's like to teach in North Korea

For six months, Suki Kim worked as an English teacher at an elite school for North Korea's future leaders — while writing a book on one of the world's most repressive regimes. As she helped her students grapple with concepts like "truth" and "critical thinking," she came to wonder: Was…
10 Jun 2015 12 min

Clint Smith: How to raise a black son in America

As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of…
24 Apr 2015 5 min

Khalida Brohi: How I work to protect women from honor killings

Nearly 1000 "honor" killings are reported in Pakistan each year, murders by a family member for behavior deemed "shameful," such as a relationship outside of marriage. When Khalida Brohi lost a close friend to the practice, she resolved to campaign against it. Yet she met resistance from an unlikely source:…
25 Feb 2015 18 min

Laura Boushnak: For these women, reading is a daring act

In some parts of the world, half of the women lack basic reading and writing skills. The reasons vary, but in many cases, literacy isn't valued by fathers, husbands, even mothers. Photographer and TED Fellow Laura Boushnak traveled to countries including Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia to highlight brave women —…
19 Feb 2015 5 min

Ben Ambridge: 10 myths about psychology: Debunked

How much of what you think about your brain is actually wrong? In this whistlestop tour of dis-proved science, Ben Ambridge walks through 10 popular ideas about psychology that have been proven wrong — and uncovers a few surprising truths about how our brains really work.
5 Feb 2015 14 min

Bassam Tariq: The beauty and diversity of Muslim life

Bassam Tariq is a blogger, a filmmaker, and a halal butcher — but one thread unites his work: His joy in the diversity, the humanness of our individual experiences. In this charming talk, he shares clips from his film "These Birds Walk" and images from his tour of 30 mosques…
2 Feb 2015 4 min

Carol Dweck: The power of believing you can improve

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it …
6 Jan 2015 10 min

Pico Iyer: The art of stillness

The place that travel writer Pico Iyer would most like to go? Nowhere. In a counterintuitive and lyrical meditation, Iyer takes a look at the incredible insight that comes with taking time for stillness. In our world of constant movement and distraction, he teases out strategies we all can use…
28 Nov 2014 15 min

Fabien Cousteau: What I learned from spending 31 days underwater

In 1963, Jacques Cousteau lived for 30 days in an underwater laboratory positioned on the floor of the Red Sea, and set a world record in the process. This summer, his grandson Fabien Cousteau broke that record. Cousteau the younger lived for 31 days aboard the Aquarius, an underwater research…
24 Oct 2014 10 min

Fred Swaniker: The leaders who ruined Africa, and the generation who can fix it

Before he hit eighteen, Fred Swaniker had lived in Ghana, Gambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. What he learned from a childhood across Africa was that while good leaders can't make much of a difference in societies with strong institutions, in countries with weak structures, leaders could make or break a country…
22 Oct 2014 13 min

Mac Barnett: Why a good book is a secret door

Childhood is surreal. Why shouldn't children's books be? In this whimsical talk, award-winning author Mac Barnett speaks about writing that escapes the page, art as a doorway to wonder — and what real kids say to a fictional whale.
22 Sep 2014 17 min

Shubhendu Sharma: How to grow a tiny forest anywhere

A forest planted by humans, then left to nature’s own devices, typically takes at least 100 years to mature. But what if we could make the process happen ten times faster? In this short talk, eco-entrepreneur (and TED Fellow) Shubhendu Sharma explains how to create a mini-forest ecosystem anywhere.
5 Sep 2014 4 min
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