Why Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter

Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time — and still speak today. Why do Shakespeare’s words have such staying power? David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor uncover the power of iambic pentameter.

Lesson by David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor, animation by Brad Purnell.

Music and math: The genius of Beethoven

How is it that Beethoven, who is celebrated as one of the most significant composers of all time, wrote many of his most beloved songs while going deaf? The answer lies in the math behind his music. Natalya St. Clair employs the "Moonlight Sonata" to illustrate the way Beethoven was able to convey emotion and creativity using the certainty of mathematics. 

Confessions of a depressed comic

Kevin Breel didn't look like a depressed kid: team captain, at every party, funny and confident. But he tells the story of the night he realized that -- to save his own life -- he needed to say four simple words:

I suffer from depression.

 

How to speak so that people want to listen

Have you ever felt like you're talking, but nobody is listening? Here's Julian Treasure to help. In this useful talk, the sound expert demonstrates the how-to's of powerful speaking — from some handy vocal exercises to tips on how to speak with empathy. A talk that might help the world sound more beautiful.

Meat Free Mondays

Sir Paul McCartney asks fans to pledge support for Meat Free Mondays in an attempt to raise awareness on the environmental impacts of eating meat.

A Child's View of Sensory Processing

Learn about sensory processing from a child's prospective.

How Repetition Enchants the Brain and the Psychology of Why We Love It in Music

“Music takes place in time, but repetition beguilingly makes it knowable in the way of something outside of time.”

“The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism,” Haruki Murakami reflected on the power of a daily routine. “Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue,” Mary Oliver wrote about the secret of great poetry, adding: “When it does, it grows sweeter.” But nowhere does rhythmic repetition mesmerize us more powerfully than in music, with its singular way of enchanting the brain.

How and why this happens is precisely what cognitive scientist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas, explores in On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind (public library). This illuminating short animation from TED Ed, based on Margulis’s work, explains the psychology of the “mere exposure effect,” which makes things grow sweeter simply as they become familiar — a parallel manifestation of the same psychological phenomenon that causes us to rate familiar statements as more likely to be true than unfamiliar ones.

What is Sensory Processing Disorder?

What is Sensory Processing Disorder? Can a person have SPD but not have Autism? How can we help students/people with SPD? You can find answers to these (and more questions) in the following video.

Creating Classrooms We Need: 8 Ways Into Inquiry Learning

If kids can access information from sources other than school, and if school is no longer the only place where information lives, what, then happens to the role of this institution?

“Our whole reason for showing up for school has changed, but infrastructure has stayed behind,” said Diana Laufenberg, who taught history at the progressive public school Science Leadership Academy for many years. Laufenberg provided some insight into how she guided students to find their own learning paths at school, and enumerated some of these ideas at SXSWEdu last week.

1. BE FLEXIBLE.

The less educators try to control what kids learn, the more students’ voices will be heard and, eventually, their ability to drive their own learning. But that requires a flexible mindset on the part of the teacher. “That’s a scary proposition for teachers,” Laufenberg said. “‘What do you mean I’m going to have 60 kids doing 60 different projects,’ teachers might say. But that’s exactly the way for kids to do interesting, high-end work that they’re invested in.”

Laufenberg recalled a group of tenacious students who continued to ask permission to focus their video project on the subject of drugs, despite her repeated objections. She finally relented — with the caveat that they not resort to cliches. In turn, the students turned in one of the best video projects she’d ever seen: a well-produced, polished video about Americans’ dependence on pharmaceutical drugs that was dense with facts backed up by students’ research. “And I almost killed this project,” she said. “There are vastly creative minds that are capable of doing intensely wonderful things with their learning but often we don’t let that live and breathe. Thankfully I got out of their way and let them do the work they were capable of.”

2. FOSTER INQUIRY BY SCAFFOLDING CURIOSITY.

Teachers always come up to Laufenberg wanting to learn more about her progressive pedagogy — and they invariably ask, “But when do you just tell them things? Don’t you have to just tell them sometimes?”

The power of vulnerability

Brené Brown studies human connection — our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share. 

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxHouston, an independent event. TED editors featured it among our selections on the home page. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?awesm=on.ted.com_a0Nt3&utm_campaign=&utm_source=l.facebook.com&utm_content=awesm-publisher&utm_medium=on.ted.com-facebook-share 

How playing an instrument benefits your brain

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JKCYZ8hng&feature=em-subs_digest

Einstein Hated Quantum Mechanics. Brian Greene and Alan Alda Discuss Why

Albert Einstein was not a fan of quantum mechanics. He was annoyed by the uncertain, random nature of the universe it implied (hence the famous quote “God does not play dice with the universe”). So, Einstein tried to develop a unified theory that would circumvent what he saw as quantum mechanics’ flaws.

How the ancient Greeks shaped modern mathematics – video animation

In this Royal Institution animation about a group of revolutionary thinkers who changed the way we see mathematics, we see that maths isn't just about performing calculations, but a way of understanding and testing the reality of the world around us. Ancient thinking is still helping engineers, scientists, economists, architects gain a better understanding of our world

This project was supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. Animation by 12foot6. Narrated by James Grime.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2014/mar/12/ancient-greeks-modern-mathematics-video?CMP=twt_gu 

Why do we cry? The three types of tears

Whether we cry during a sad movie, while chopping onions, or completely involuntarily, our eyes are constantly producing tears. Alex Gendler tracks a particularly watery day in the life of Iris (the iris) as she cycles through basal, reflex and emotional tears.

Lesson by Alex Gendler, animation by The Moving Company Animation Studio.

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-do-we-cry-the-three-types-of-tears-alex-gendler 

Mysteries of Vernacular: Quirky Animations Explore the Meaning of Language

Mysteries of Vernacular is an ongoing video series by NYC-based Myriapod Productions that explores the etymology of individual words through a carefully animated book. According to Myriapod the series will eventually include 26 stories, each of which takes nearly 80 hours to research, construct and animate.

Is it a wasp or a parasite?

The emerald jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) is definitely a wasp - as its name suggests - but it lives the first stage of its life as a parasite, growing literally, inside the body of a living cockroach!

Read more: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/27/crawling-through-the-brain-without-getting-lost/

Yacouba Sawadogo - The Man Who Stopped the Desert

Photo: Andrea Borgarello/TerrAfrica

Yacouba Sawadogo is an exceptional man – he single-handedly managed to solve a crisis that even scientists and development organizations could not. The simple old farmer’s re-forestation and soil conservation techniques are so effective they’ve helped turn the tide in the fight against the desertification of the harsh lands in northern Burkina Faso.

Over-farming, over-grazing and over population have, over the years, resulted in heavy soil erosion and drying in this landlocked West African nation. Although national and international researchers tried to fix the grave situation, it really didn’t really make much of a difference. Until Yacouba decided to take matters into his own hands in 1980.

The "science" of being happy and healthy

Hackschooling Makes Me Happy: Logan LaPlante at TEDxUniversityofNevada 

When 13 year-old Logan LaPlante grows up, he wants to be happy and healthy. He discusses how hacking his education is helping him achieve this goal. 

Women's rights in Afghanistan: a headteacher's story – video

On behalf of an Afghan headteacher, Josephine Dibb shares a moving story about education and women's rights to mark Human Rights Day

 

 
Education is the greatest tool we have to empower young people to improve their life chances and help them to become catalysts for change in their communities.

That is a belief held very strongly by colleagues at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Girls' School where many of our young women face multiple disadvantages.

But the challenges we face seem to pale in comparison when I hear of the dangers faced by school girls and the women who teach them in a country like Afghanistan, where just over 10 years ago girls' education was outlawed altogether.

That seems incomprehensible for us and I know the girls themselves would be incredulous at the thought that they could be denied education. They know that education is their key to a better future.

The thought that our pupils could be poisoned, or gassed, or our teachers attacked, just because our aim is to empower young women, is unfathomable to me. And yet these are the very real dangers faced by my professional colleagues in Afghanistan.