Hey there. As you complete your mini unit on Ted.com, have a peek at this.
This is what's expected of you: complete a set of notes each, on three different Ted Talks.
You must also write an essay or composition on your Ted Talk.
See below for an example of the notes, and then an example of a composition.
Example of Notes:
Ted Talk
Title: Stroke of Insight
Speaker’s Name and position: Jill Bollte, brain researcher
Overall Topic: Discussion of her stroke. Dicussion of brain functioning.
Specific Thesis: Bollte suggests that we, as humans, are not just individual sentient creatures; rather, she suggests that by accessing the right side of our brains we can become less aware of our individuality and more in touch with our role in the ‘wholeness’ of everything around us.
Insightful, Inspiration, Remarkable, and/or Extraordinary Ideas:
- the left and right hemispheres of the brain are actually, physically separate
- although a brain researcher, Bollte did not immediately know she was having a stroke
- once she knew what was happening to her brain, she could understand, almost in a step by step way, why her brain could no longer control the different aspects of her body.
- “How Cool!” is how she describes the moment when she realizes that she is a brain researcher who gets to experience, firsthand, her own stroke from the inside out.
- she describes the two hemispheres as having different personalities
- right hemisphere – cares about information that is right here, right now
- left hemisphere – thinks linearly and methodically. Is all about the past and future. Takes the enormous collage of the moment and categorizes it.
- et cetera . . .
Example of Composition
When one plays the word association game and one says, “science.” You’ll undoubtedly hear responses that include words like lab coats, egg-heads, nerds, experiments, smart people, and the always popular, but somewhat disfigured, lab assistant Igor.
Those same white lab coats and experiments come with a further, more pragmatic connotation, though, and that is that science is based in observation, measurements, and fact. And, not surprisingly, none of those three have any place in organized religion or, on a more personal level, ones spirituality. In fact, in this day and age you would be hard-pressed to find a scientist of any worth who will even entertain the idea that there is such a thing as a cosmic life force helping to shape our lives. Why do so many scientist refute the notion of spirituality and religion? Well of course because such a thing could neither be observed nor measured and, therefore, is not a fact at all. One scientist, though, believes that science and spirituality, two almost separate belief systems, can exist together.
In a refreshing talk entitled “Stroke of Insight” brain scientist Jill Bollte describes a life changing moment when she, in fact, began to perceive the spiritual world. In 1996, Ms. Bollte began her morning like every other morning as she prepared to start her day at the University of Wisconsin. This day, though, was to be different and life-changing. A hemorrhage began in the left lobe of her brain and in less than 45 minutes she found herself, as a grown woman, to have all the capacities of a 1 year old baby. She could not talk, walk, listen, read nor do anything else that an adult could do and so begins her story of transformation.
At first what makes Ms. Bollte’s talk unconventional and intriguing is that, being a brain researcher, she is able to track her own stroke as it happens, step by step, understanding fully and completely what is happening to her brain and body and why. Near the end of the talk, though, she begins to reveal the real thesis of her discussion and that is that there is an external life-force, spirituality, if you will, that surrounds us all. And as the left side of her brain, the rational side, began to shut down and the right side of her hemisphere takes control, she loses all sense of her body and begins to perceive herself not just as an individual, but as a collection of “sixty trillion molecules” that she cannot separate from her surroundings: in that moment she transforms from an individual into part of a collective whole.
The insight that Bollte makes, that there is a greater force that connects us all into a common, collective whole, is a common theme in literature and can be found in everything from Paul Simon’s “I am a Rock” to Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones. In Sebold’s work that same collective spirituality is felt by a number of characters as they perceive that Susie is trying to connect with them from heaven. In the climax of the story that connection goes a step further with Susie actually exchanging bodies with Ruth as she makes loves to Ray Singh.
Bollte’s resonated with her audience as they sat rapt by her talk, but it also resonates. . . et cetera.
