Paradigm shift paper and TED talk

My favorite TED talk:

Sir Ken Robinson, does school kill creativity?

This talk is amazing, I have watched this one maybe 50 times. I think I really love it because I really connect to it. His main story is about a dancer, who was doing poorly in school because she was not being taught for her strengths, but rather what the society sees as how each child should be taught. She was always moving and fidgeting and teachers thought she had many different learning disorders. Truth was, she was just a dancer. She needed to be in an environment that suited her learning needs and not the basic cookie cutter school curriculum; she was put into a dance school and thrived as a student. This talk focuses on how the school system kills creativity because it does not give the room for each individual student to learn and grow their own ways, and it make kids feel like if they do not fit into the cookie cutter curriculum, then they will not succeed as a student.

One of my ideas for my essay is going off of the talk of Sir Ken Robinson and going into this idea that “all children are born artists” I want to analyze the school systems, standardized tests, the new found over diagnosis of ADD and how that could just be a factor of kids not fitting in.  I have a strong connection to this because I have always felt like I, as a student, do not fall into the stereotypical schooling system and just general student.

My second Idea for this essay begins with a personal story. MY grandpa, or Saba in Hebrew, which is what we call him, Is a pretty religious Jew. He has a huge involvement in Israel and the Jewish community all of the US and Israel. He is extremely religious and observant when it comes to specific customs and rituals, especially the debate of getting a tattoo. In Jewish tradition, Jews are not supposed to get tattoos. There are myths that if you get one, you are not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery with the rest of your family. In some peoples mind, they also bring up the ideas of the Holocaust, where we were forced to be inked against our will. His wife, my Safta, died 4 years ago. It was the most devastating thing that had ever happened to my family, and especially him. She had battled Progressive Supernuclear Palsy for 10 years and this took an extreme toll on him. Every friday night at dinner, he would read her the prayer, Aishet Chayil, or “A Woman of Valor” he would always end it with the last line, “many women have done valiantly, but you excel them all. And as I always say, those words are never good enough for my Debbie.” When she died, he had this prayer written on her headstone in Hebrew. About a year and a half ago, my sister and I started discussing getting tattoos. We both wanted to get a Hamsa, a middle eastern sign of protection, and a quote from Aishet Chayil, in honor of my safta. My sister went first. She got the line “She’s clothed in strength and dignety, and faces the future cheerfully”, or in Hebrew, עֹז וְהָדָר לְבוּשָׁהּ, וַתִּשְׂחַק לְיוֹם אַחֲרוֹן. When my Saba first saw the Hamsa, he called my sister damaged goods. Once he saw the second one, the quote from his poem, he got pale and asked what it was. My sister explained the whole thing to him, and How it was for our Safta, his wife, and he burst into tears, hugged her and said thank you. Now my Saba has a different outlook on tattoos  because of her, and I now have permission from him to get mine.