After breaking onto the literary scene with his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers established the non-profit 826 Valencia to encourage kids to flex their writing muscles. In his 2008 TED Prize speech, Eggers called for us all to engage with local public schools and students. Naturally, the talks that mean the most to Eggers speak to this wish.
Eggers explains, “The best TED talks make sense of complicated ideas and trends, and have an elegant simplicity to them — that’s why the talks only need to be 18 minutes long. It’s plenty of time to get across a clear and bold idea.”
Below, his notes on four great talks.
Gever Tulley: 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do
“The first TEDTalk I ever saw was Gever Tulley’s ‘Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.’ I loved that — it was so concise and convincing, and articulated some ideas I’d been thinking about far better than I ever could have.”
Geoff Mulgan: A short intro to the Studio School
“Geoff Mulgan’s talk about the Studio School continued the discussion about kids needing to touch, create and experiment -- how they benefit from project-based learning. After seeing that, it makes the creation of similar programs seem insanely easy.”
Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?
“Philip Zimbardo’s ‘Demise of Guys’ talk was great — everything Zimbardo does is great, I think.”
Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius