Welcome to imagination in action, where we have conversations with compelling people driving the action that will power our futures. These are successful Imaginators you want to know?
Okay, Esther, yay, Esther is here. And I see you have a big candy cane. And you wrote that she's the other Esther thing that I love
that oh my god, she, you know, we do remember that conference that we went to in Germany, we went to a conference, a DLD conference in Germany. And it was really hilarious because they came over and they're like, We want to interview you. And then and then they did. And then and halfway through, they're like, What was your name? That's like, Esther.
So in a minute, I'm gonna introduce you. But how do you feel about the fact that Google was founded in your former garage? I know you had so many tourists coming to your house, that you and your husband ended up moving? But But what is that a responsibility? Is that a burden? Is that a source of pride? Just just throwing it out there?
Well, it's a source of pride. But I want to clarify the reason people have a hard time figuring out whose garage this was, is because, you know, Susan bought the house. But you know, it was her new house, she had just gotten married. And so we spent a lot of time there, involved in you know, furniture moving and helping you know, what, what happens when your child buys a house. And then also, you know, coming to grips with the fact that mom and dad, were not going to pay the mortgage. So somebody else like, maybe you need to pay it. And so that's how she ended up. You know, this was actually a blessing in disguise. Because otherwise, she would never have wanted to rent the garage to somebody. But she needed some help paying that mortgage. And so sure enough, she ran into the right people just happened to be Larry and Sergey. So that's, that's how the garage story goes. And yeah, it was a great house.
To everyone. You're listening to imagination in action. This is where we have Imaginators and Alison and I call it long form journalism. She and I alternate asking questions of our Imaginators. Tonight, we have one Imaginator and that's Esther would JIKI Esther is famous for three things, teaching a high school class that has changed the lives of 1000s or 10s of 1000s or kajillions of kids, inspiring Silicon Valley legends, like Steve Jobs, and raising three daughters who have become famously successful. Although you know, in my in my mind, you're my hero of the family. What do these three accomplishments have in common? They are all the result of trick. That's their secret to raising successful people trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness, simple lessons, but the result or results are radical. Esther is a leading educator and journalist and in my in her life and crossed many times, and I'm always starstruck and inspired. She's the mother of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Fulbright Scholar, Janet magicky, and 23. And me, founder and magicky. Do you have a favorite of those three? Actually, you don't have to answer that right now. As we as well. Oh, and if you could go into one of their rooms at different points of the show because this is a mobile show clubhouse by the beauty of clubhouse we can do this sort of thing anywhere. As well as a teacher and a mentor to James Franco and Lisa Brennan jobs jobs grandmother to to 515. No 10 grandkids. Esther's widely held is one of the most successful parents and educators in the United States. Esther offers essential lessons for raising, educating and managing people to their highest potential. I see her managing up all the time. She is the author of moonshots and education I'm holding that book right now signed by her 2014. I'm never selling that on eBay, and the best seller how to raise successful people may 2019. And I know Time magazine, I think I don't think they excerpted the whole thing. But they had the highlights from the book. She's co founder of the track dot app 2020. And she is very proud to tell you it's free and innovative way to empower students by gamifying education using a peer to peer model. And she also has a partnership with UC Berkeley Engineering, using her pedagogy to teach engineering skills. Esther's Written bestseller, how to raise successful people simple lessons to help your children become self driven, respectful and resilient. Okay, so, Esther, thank you, of all that what what are you most proud of and most embarrassed by?
You want that in the same sentence? Okay, so what I'm the most proud of, are my children, grandchildren, and my students, they all sort of fit in the same bucket. You know, I try to take care of them all. And that immediately
or is not the right word. What are you self conscious of?
self conscious of? I tend not to be self conscious, I think, maybe embarrassed by what could I be embarrassed by? Well, it sounds kind of crazy. But you know, I could be embarrassed by my, my declining athletic ability. So I was a very good skier. And now I'm on the blue slopes.
Well, it's not about how fast it's the journey. So so that was that was sort of an awesome. That was our first formal question. Let me turn to Allison, who is equally excited to have you here, my co moderator. Alison, by day is the chief futurist for BCG, she helps billion dollar companies understand trends. But on this show, she's just just a kind soul who wants to help our Imaginators kind of model what they're doing and give the world ideas and action. And ladies and gentlemen, Alison sander.
Well, Esther, thank you so much for being with us. And I can't imagine a topic of more interest to more people in the audience. So I look forward to the questions later on in the show. And Haley, thank you for that amazing music to start us off. So Esther, we hear so much about later successes in your life. But can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and early education, we understand you're the oldest of three children and first in your family to attend college. But tell us a little bit more about sort of your early days?
Well, I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. So for those of you that might know something about the Orthodox Jews, women are not ranked as the highest level. And the reason is, it's, it's a religious reason. It's because only the men can say the prayer for the dead. And women can't do that, because they're not somehow allowed. And so that moves you to a second class position. And so this was something that basically ruled my life. Because, you know, girls, were just, you're supposed to be in the kitchen, you're supposed to learn to cook really well, you're supposed to, you know, get married when you're 18 years old, and then produce more children. And, you know, my parents came from Russia, my mother was from Siberia, of all places, my father was from the Ukraine. And so I was the first one born here in the US. And the whole family that had come are about six of them, they all cheered that they had an American citizen in their midst. And, you know, I had, I was the only child for about five years. And then after that, my two brothers were born. And so I sort of really enjoyed the first five years, it was kind of the center of attention. And then they actually told me when my brother was born, that I was now going to play second place, because boys are more important. So you can imagine a little five year old hearing that Well, I actually didn't even know what to do. But it didn't impact me. I thought they don't even know what they're talking about. You know, pretty soon, you know, I'll be back to my tricks and I'll be back to being number one again. But anyway, that turned out to be true. I was number two, and then eventually number three.
Esther just Just following up on that. What did your own parents you mentioned Russian immigrants teach you about what did and didn't make for great parenting and which of your successful lessons for raising your your children, which came from your own childhood? And did you have any like issues from from your childhood traumas or challenges that you want to do? Avoid repeating And you don't have as mistakes as you brought up your kids?
Well, so that's a great question. And so just getting back to this environment that I was growing up in, what happened was that at the age of 10, I had a brother who was about two years old at the time. And he was playing in the kitchen on the bottles on the floor. And he opened up one of the bottles, which just happened to be aspirin, and he ate them. And so he was pretty sick. But what happened? My mother being this emigrant, she called the doctor and said, Well, what should I do? And clearly he wasn't listening. Because he said to her, well just put him to bed and see how he is in a few hours. Because that was probably just the standard answer that he gave to everybody. Anyway, she not not being sure of herself, and being afraid to ask questions, because he or she wasn't America, the great land of the planet, or whatever. She just didn't want to be disruptive. So she didn't question anything, she followed the instructions. And after two hours, of course, he was quite sick. And we took him to one hospital, they packed his stomach and, and another hospital, because he had to stay. And they, nobody wanted to accept him because we didn't have proof of payment. So by about the fourth hospital, he was accepted, but then he died. And what that did to me, it was dramatic. Of course, I didn't realize that as a child, I was 10 years old. So you know, you don't think about that when you're 10. But what that said to me is that you should always challenge authority, don't just follow instructions, because they tell you, they're right. And, you know, this was just something and nobody said it to me, that was just like, This is what I was gonna do. I was never going to believe anybody. Again, I was gonna check and make sure it was true myself. So I went from being kind of a lackadaisical student, to being a pretty well, I was totally focused on just one area. And that was nonfiction. And I spent a lot of time in the library, and a lot of time reading. And I think it was that event, that pretty much changed my life, because I wanted to make sure that that never happened to anybody else. And that it didn't happen to me again. And so when I, my daughters were born, I knew I did not want to bring them up the way I had been brought up. Because especially also, the other thing I didn't mention, I had a lot of corporal punishment, I was being beaten up all the time, because my father, the method coming from Russia was spare the rod, spoil the child. And so I just got beaten all the time. And his favorite method was whipping off his belt, and then beating me with the belt. But the two big things happened when I was 13, I grew quite a bit, I am five foot 10 girls in my generation, we're not five foot 10. You know, as matter of fact, I could not believe that it happened to me that I was like this giant. But on the other hand, it helped me because then my father could no longer hit me cuz I was then almost two and a half inches taller than him. And so you know, and also, they wanted me to get married, you know, they had already planned everything, you know, the Jewish girl get married at the age of 18. And that's it taken care of. And I refused. I don't want to get married, I refuse to get married. And I wanted to go to college. And they cut off all my financial situation. So I had to earn my own money to go to college. Fortunately, University of California Berkeley gave me a scholarship, which is remarkable, honestly, because I don't, I don't remember how lucky I what I did to get it. And I went off to UC Berkeley, on a bus, you know, with my suitcases, and that was it. And I was like, boy, I am going to get an education. And I'm going to get out of this situation. Because I didn't mention that we also lived in poverty. So we didn't have very much the number one thing was not to eat too much, because we don't have enough food. So you always had to share the food.
So I mean, I was determined to get out of the situation that I was living in. And so when my children were born, my main goal for them was literally to be independent thinkers, be as independent as early as as possible, and and that's all I focused on. There were no books out like there are today all there was no Amazon, there was the only book that I ever had was something called Dr. Spock, because that was a medical book. And it was like if your child has a fever, do this or do that, or whatever, that diaper rash. But I never saw any books on how to empower your kids. But my method was from me internally, it was like, How can I give my kids the ability to think early, so that nothing happens to them? That would be you know, that I wouldn't want. And so the first thing I taught them on how to do was swim. Because we have a pool in the backyard and I want to like, Okay, you guys need to know how to swim because even if you're one year old, you can toddle around you can fall in. So they all learned to swim really early. Course, they all told me no, you can teach babies to swim or children to swim. And I was too early. So I found a book in the library, of course, that said, how to teach your baby to swim. And I thought, well, here's someone that said you could do it. So that's how it started. They all swam really early, they all learned to read, not because they taught them to read, I taught them to read street signs. So in case they got lost, or something, you know, is read the sign. And I taught them numbers so that they can memorize their home phone number. So I did everything that was sort of like empowering and practical. They of course, learned to read in school, I mean, they knew their letters and numbers and stuff like that before they went to school. But it turned out that my method, whatever I was doing, made them into very independent children. And they thought nothing of walking down the street, you know, four or five houses down to go to the kid next door, and say do you want to play. Also, the other thing I did is we traveled my husband's favorite activity was travel. And so we did a lot of traveling actually. And to create
a physicist, right, they accomplishes this,
right professor of physics. And so and took her first trip when we when she was four weeks old, we moved to Geneva, Switzerland. And so I can just tell you that it all, as I was saying earlier, it all paid off in terms of independence, they were very capable of sort of Susan was very capable of taking care of Janet Janet was capable of taking care of and they all kind of took care of each other. They all helped me out in the kitchen. When we lived in Switzerland, they learned to speak French pretty fast. And they would go down to the bakery, the laundry, and they would order bread. You know, I was just basically wanting them to think on their own and to question everybody, and it all went back to this tragedy in my life. Where, you know, if they if she just would have asked, you know, is that really the right thing to do with the baby that swallowed aspirin? I mean, all she had to do is ask one question. But um, so I think that that, also, that drive, you know, I wanted to help other kids, or be also independent thinkers, which is how I started out as a teacher in journalism, and I always thought journalism as a way to represent the voice of the underdog.
You're jumping ahead to some of our next questions. But so you know, you're on a mission. It sounds like growing up that way. Allison to you.
Well, that's such a perfect lead up to our next question, Esther, because that's such a powerful story at at the age of 10. But then you had this extensive education, starting with UC Berkeley, and then later going on to the Sorbonne going to the school of journalism, what in your own education experience impressed you? What did you see as done really well? And then what did you find less effective in your high school class college and graduate school?
Well, in high school, I'm, I took everything. No. So I went to Los Angeles Public Schools, at a time when they had too many students in none of facilities. And so they used to have what was called Double sessions, which meant half the student body started at seven in the morning and went to 1130. And then the other half, started at 12 and went to four. And so I asked if I could go to both sessions. I think I was the only student in the school to do it. Anyway, I went to both sessions. And I mean, I took everything. And I loved it. And I did. I did really well. I mean, I was, I was just hungry for education. But I did really well. And I did so well that I ended up being the valedictorian of the class. And I didn't even know that was something that was coming in the graduation. So I was really stunned by this, but obviously, I'd done well, and then I do well enough to get a scholarship at Berkeley. And in the in that in, I mean, I took a lot of things at Berkeley, I took physiology zoology, I actually ended up majoring in political science, political philosophy and English. And, and I don't know why, I guess the reason that I decided to do that, originally, I thought I would go be go to medical school, but I realized that it, it was just gonna take too long. And I didn't have that any resources. And I was still having all this pressure for my family to get married. Can you believe that? They weren't paying anything, but they were like, Oh, my God, you're gonna be 19 years old, and you're not married. By the way, I want you to know, I got married at 20. So, you know, the pressure was there, to, to get married. But I, I loved what I was learning. But the main thing that I learned was to challenge a lot of what people were telling me and and I still do that today. And that's what I've taught my students to do, is to challenge whatever it is they're taught, make sure that it makes sense. And if it doesn't make sense, do something else.
Esther Did you read? Books on human psychology and parenting? You mentioned Dr. Spock, when you were being a mom, when it came to raising your own daughters? What were some of the challenges in early lessons you got of what did and didn't work? And did you use some of the same parenting approach and style for your three daughters? Or did they pull you in different directions?
But they were all really different. They all pulled me in different directions. I did not I don't have a book that I read on how to parent. I, I guess I'm sure there were books out. But the only one I thought Dr. Spock was the best. And but I didn't, I didn't read anything else. I did send Susan to being nursery school. And so and as you know, Susan was she was always very level headed. Little kid. And she was always even tempered. And Janet was I mean, Janet, from the day she was born, or maybe when I first became obvious when she was four months, that her good number one goal was to beat Susan. So she was not level headed. I mean, she was a daredevil. And, and and was also different. And she already realized that she had a lot of competition, Susan, who was of course older, Janet, who was like this unbelievable superstar that did everything. And so and was like looking around for like, what could I do, you know, that would make me special, which I thought was pretty funny. And she's the one who she just became Miss charm. She was so charming that I mean, literally everybody just fell for it. So they were all different, and they all had different goals. But but, you know, I had to interact with each one of them differently. And, I mean, that's the only thing I can say they were all athletic, primarily because I guess I focused on athletics. And they all were, you know, felt pretty capable. And I think that I was very happy that that they were willing to question people. And, you know, if that didn't make sense to them, they were willing to say, well, that doesn't make any sense. You know? I you know, and ask more questions about it. I'm not sure that I'm giving you the answer you want because
No, you're doing great. And this is imagination action. We're talking to Imaginator. Esther would JIKI. And Alice and I are going back and forth on questions. And the second part of the show, we're going to open up to some questions from the audience. But Esther thank you for the example you've set, and how you how you the actions you've, you've done. So Allison to you.
Yeah. So, Esther, this is so interesting. I mean, it's wonderful that you can link your experience in later days back to these early influences. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about trick the method that John referenced in his introduction, and that you describe in your book, How to Raise successful people, simple lessons to help your child become self driven, respectful and resilient. So what district stand for and what makes it key in your mind for raising successful offs?
So what I did is I tried to put into an acronym, all the principles that I use, not only in parenting, but in my classes, because I started in 1984, at Palo Alto High School with 20 kids. In a typical journalism program, you look around the country, you see 2025, at the most kids in the journalism program. And the question was like, What did I do, to have hundreds of kids want to take journalism. And today, it's the largest journalism program in the nation. And so I was trying to figure out what I could tell everybody that would help them replicate some of the things that I had done. And so my students actually helped come up with the acronym, because I asked them, you know, what am I what do I do that is different from other teachers? I don't understand why you don't want to take journalism, why aren't you taking ceramics or something like you don't have to do any work? Because I make them work. And they told me repeatedly, this was two years in a row, where the kids said, you trust us? And I thought that that was kind of like, it's like, what an answer that is, how am I supposed to deal with that one. But they both groups set it and they set it independently, so they weren't influenced by each other. So I thought there must be something to that. And then I also realized that I was respecting them. Because they came up, you know, teenagers, they come up with some of the wackiest ideas you've ever heard. And so then I pulled in. So what else do I do, and I give him a lot of independence. Instead of being a teacher, who dictates and tells you what to do all the time, I collaborated with them, setting up the rules for the class, setting up expectations for the classroom, setting up how you do it. And then kindness that was just that was, was obvious to all of them, they're like, you're always nice to us, you care about us. I mean, I kept getting these, this feedback, the school collects feedback on teachers. And I would get this feedback because like, you know, that I care about them, not just as a student, but as a person. So I put this all together, and this acronym, and I realized that it was what I did with my children also. And then I wanted to help other parents also have successful relationships with their kids. And so that's why I put that together, and did it that way. And I think, I think if you just think about it, what I did with my children early on, is I trusted them and respected them. I gave them I taught them, how to protect themselves, and then I trusted them. And then I when they came up with wacky ideas, like you cannot imagine the wacky ideas my kids had, I can go into that later. But I didn't make fun of them. I didn't laugh at them. I didn't say terrible. Same thing with my students. And I think that builds into a child the sense of accomplishment, and that they can do anything. And I can see that in my kids now as they're adults, that they're willing to take on anything for the most part. And well, maybe not black bears in the middle of the night or something. But, you know, most challenges and they can figure out a path out and how to work with people and also how to empower the people that you work with not just, you know, do it yourself and be great, but also bring other people along on the mission. And have them also be part of part of whatever it is project that you're working on, which is what I did with them. And so they replicate it. And so that was, that's where this acronym trick comes from. And that's why, you know, that's why I built that book around the acronym. And I thought it was be easy for people to remember. You know, when you're a parent, you're like, frantic, you know, kids here doing crazy things. And you're like, and you need to stop yourself and say, Oh, my God, am I does this action show that I'm trusting them, and respecting them. And so maybe, then you can stop, breathe for 10 seconds, and then move forward. So that was my goal.
To show Esther, I want to follow up and I want to ask about helicopters, and the competitive scene in Silicon Valley. So today, we face an epidemic of parental anxiety and a generation of helicopter drone parenting. What do you see, as the reasons for this? And your methods seem the antithesis of that? The opposite of helicopter parenting, in the competitive in this competitive rat race world? Why? Why do you, you know, think it works, and what is your advice on that to parents who are just trying to get get through the day.
So you know, what's going on is parents see the path in school. And it's in school and extracurriculars around the school as a very sort of narrow path. And if they don't have their kids do X, Y, and Z, they won't get in to the top schools, and then they won't be successful. And so because of this fear, and also the fact that they're more empowered, now they have more money, more able to do these things. They want to make sure that their child has every opportunity out there to do whatever it is. And so that is where the helicopter parenting syndrome comes from, it actually comes from a good spot in the sense of the parent cares a lot. But what happens is when you over care like that, when you do things and clear the way for your children, they don't build those skills up themselves. And then they don't feel empowered. And I have in the book, this phrase, and which I say the more you do for your kids, the less empowered they are, the less they see themselves as capable of doing that on their own. And it's, I cannot tell you how important it is, you know, I never helped my kids get into college, they never took LSAT exam, prep classes, or whatever they're called. Not one of them got a three point a 4.0. In high school. They all did the things they wanted to do. And it was crazy. Example, being an who was musically gifted, decided not to play the piano not to do music, but become a competitive ice skater. Oh my God, how can that be, you know, with this gift for music? Anyway, I let her do all the things she wanted. I let them all do their, their thing, whatever it was. And I just thought I've taught them to think I've taught them to have all the self respect. I've taught them that when you make a mistake, it's no big deal. Just do it again. And that was it. And I let them go. And parents today aren't doing that. I mean, here's an example. This is Susan is really mad at me for this. Anyway, all the time that she went, she managed to get herself into Harvard almost fainted. And I think it was her essay myself. That author she did do well on the LSAT. Anyway, I said you want to go to Harvard, you know, it's on the other side of the country and it's freezing, and they want to go to Harvard. So she went to Harvard. And she went on the plane by herself with her suitcases. And then when she got this, this is why she's mad. She's like, Mom, you can't believe this. All these other mothers are here fixing up their daughter's rooms with the cutest bedspreads and you aren't here. So I got into trouble for that. But anyway, she was definitely independent, I was very confident sending her off by herself. And they are all three of them did something similar, although none, they didn't go to the same schools, they all went to different schools, because of course, they couldn't go to the same school for fear that you know, the other person was there, even though the school might have been big. So, does that answer your question, hopefully?
I think it does. Esther, I wanted to ask, most parents obviously, desperately want their kids to be successful. But as you point out, the definition of what is success is super complex these days. So what do you think success is? And how do you think you measure success versus a helicopter parent? And then a corollary to this as for today's parents, which of the following do you personally view as most concerning sort of the percent of boomerang kids who seem to move home permanently? The level of student debt, the use of antidepressants and anti anxiety pills? I mean, how do you measure on the opposite side of success, kind of the warning fact.
I do think there is too much in the way of all these anti anxiety pills. Depression tells for depression, the reason kids are depressed, is because they don't see a way out of whatever is it is that they're trying to solve, and they don't feel self confident. You know, there's a lot of paths to success, success being being able to follow your dreams, that's my definition of success. And to be able to have enough food and shelter and enough money to be able to, I mean, that's not a billionaire, that's just having enough resources to be able to do it. But parents are, they're so freaked out if their kid does not get into a four year Ivy League, I see it everywhere. And, you know, I would have been perfectly happy if my kids would have gone to Berkeley like I did. And, and that's part of the reason why I didn't help them at all, as like Berkeley's open, you can go to Berkeley. And I can also tell you, there's another route here in the University of California. For those of you that are in California, I don't know, if every most people probably aren't. But you know, if you go to a community college in California for two years, and they're free, by the way, and get a B average, then you have access to any of the UC system, schools, UCLA, Davis, Berkeley, any of them. So, you know, I, I have never been that hung up on on big names. It was more again, what you can do and how you can do it. That was most important. To me. Parents need to calm down about this.
So just going another direction here. How do we raise resilient kids for these challenging times? And I heard you compare Russian parents to a snow plow truck does that? Is there anything they are relating to build the resilient generation.
So if kids are going to be resilient, that means they have to have experience doing something tough when they're kids. And so I think sports are really important for kids learning how to win and how to lose how to work really hard at something, I would advise all kids to do sports. I don't care what sport you do just a sport. Team sports are actually better if possible. In terms if they don't do well in school, for some reason, so the way that I taught my classes, and I'm not I don't know how to deal with this part of the system. Is that when you didn't write whatever you were writing, well, I just made them revise it. So I never give gave a grade until they had revised to such a level that it could be published. Some kids revised twice, some kids revised 10 times, but they all did it. And they all learned that they could do it. So I think that that also toughen them up. It gave them the idea that they can do it if they just put enough effort into it. And I think parents have to stop rescuing their kids from everything the snowplow. Okay, that particular question was about, yeah, Russia and Russia have a lot of snow. And so my analogy was, if you're a snowplow parent, which is, you clear the way, so the kid comes and can just walk down the street, then that child doesn't ever learn how to deal with the adversity that comes with life. And parents are afraid to let their kids suffer at all. We don't want them to really suffer, you know, you don't want terrible things to happen, that you should let them you know, experience life, because how are they going to experience it when they grow up? They don't have any practice when they're little. So I started to say, I do think that you shouldn't do everything for your kid. Let them do some things themselves. And if you want me to give specific examples, John?
No, I think that's great. I think we can get into some more examples later. We're just getting started. This is imagination action, we have Esther would JIKI is our Imaginator. And Alex and I are having a ball interviewing you,
Esther, you've been known to say change your parenting change the world. But as you're talking, I'm trying to imagine you talking to one of those highly stressed out parents in Palo Alto. You know, have you had success turning a helicopter, the modern version of helicopter parents, as we call them, drone parents, they're sort of hovering 24/7 over their kids. I mean, have you actually turned some of those around to be relaxed. I know, it sounds easy to coach relaxing. But can you give us an example of, you know, not with a specific name, but cases where you have hovers to give their kids a chance to fail.
I've had a lot of parents, to be honest, as parents in my classes. I think one of the things that they really liked about my class was that their kid didn't ever have to worry about their grade. All they had to do was do the work. I spent a lot of time talking to parents about how important it is to let your kid do what they personally want to do. Go to the school that they want to go to pursue the career that they want to pursue. I must tell you, it's hard. And I don't want to say I think there's certain ethnicities that are more focused on following up on what the grandparents did, or what the grandparents might have wanted. When kids have that kind of emotional pressure on them, they tend to be depressed. And they're really stressed. And one of the things I also talked about this in my class, is like, I don't think the answer to depression is a pill. As a matter of fact, I think it's bad. I think that depression comes about, as I said earlier, because kids don't see a way out. They they feel inundated by their problems. And they don't see a route that they can take that is successful out of the problem. And I think teenagers tend to be a bit myopic. They think that their problems are just going to last forever. And now is this is this is the future and it's happening now. So they need to have some perspective, that's the main thing I would give them is perspective. Give them stories about kids that, you know, maybe, as a matter of fact, there's a lot of kids who did not do so well in the beginning of high school or middle of high school or whatever, went to somewhat of a you know, second rate college and did really well there and then now are doing really well because everyone develops at a different rate. I think parents just have to have to calm down because the biggest stress in a kid's life is their parents, and what the parents want them to do. And if those parents think that they kids don't know what you want, you have to think again, they know. And that controls a lot about the way they behave, and what they think is important and not important.
So, Esther, you mentioned, you have grandkids 10 of them to be exact. What do you think are some of the challenges that kids growing up today face that are different than the challenges that your daughter's face? And as COVID increased resilience in this generation, or left them at a disadvantage? In your opinion?
Yes, I do have 10 grandchildren, they range in age from 22 to two. I would say the challenges facing this generation are different. And they're more challenging than it was before because there's more options now. And I think that the biggest challenge today is social media. And the reason it's such a big challenge is because everybody is on social media, well, maybe people over 60 aren't. But most people are on social media, and then they're always comparing themselves to other people. And teenagers are probably the worst. They're always like, oh, you know, this one's doing that. And why can I do that. And back when my kids were growing up, there, their circle of comparison was tiny, by comparison to the social media world, you know, they could just look at, like, what their good friend was doing. And, and then make a decision. It's hard. And I think especially teenage girls, and teenage girls on Facebook, or, you know, they, nobody, I keep telling my students, no one posts a picture of themselves being sad, or not attractive, as like, everybody gets all doctored up for the picture, and then they post it. And so you know, the kids forget, but they don't even know. And so they think everybody else in the world is having a wonderful time. And it's only they are the ones that are miserable. So I think it's a harder, the bigger challenge for parents today, because teenagers, the number one influence on teenagers are other teenagers. And I think as a parent, I've told this to my daughters, and they know it, you lose your impact. When your child is about 12 or 13. You no longer have the same ability to impact them, unless of course, it's money, which you can withhold. But otherwise, it's their friends have the greatest impact. And that's why you want them to know how to think and not to be afraid to make to stand out. And to say something that is not popular. You want to be able to to make decisions that make sense. It's tough.
Esther, can you tell us a little bit more about the tract out and the resources that you think are available today for teachers and kids and parents. I know. You talked about the Dr. Spock Bible being all that you sort of had to ground you but today we are online with social media. I mean, what what is the tracked app and what other resources are available.
So I created tract together with my former student who is the CEO, he graduated in 2006 or seven. Went off to UCLA. Majored in chemical engineering, went to work for Exxon Mobil for five years where it was in charge of $100 million division. And I think he decided about five years into that, that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in oil. And so moved to Uber. And he was part of the leadership team at Uber. And then along came the pandemic. And so he resigned, and I retired. And it was like a match made in heaven. And so he we became co founders of tracked and his goal. And my goal is to recreate the freedom that my students feel in the classroom, for kids everywhere, to empower them make decisions work with other kids, it's peer to peer online learning. And what's the most unusual about it is it's created by teenagers for preteens. And, you know, they get to create local Learning Paths about anything they think, is important. And, and teachers can use this in their classroom for free, they sign up, and then they can bring all their kids on the target age four, the user is age for age eight, to 14, or grades four to eight. And the creators, the kids that are creating this content are good age 15 to 22, something like that. And the content is, in creating this content, the teenagers, what do they get out of it, you have to ask? Well, the main thing they get is leadership training skills. Because when you learn how to teach large groups, or even small groups, you are honing your leadership skills, because that's what good leaders do. And so they are learning how to be effective leaders, beginning intermediate level creators. And then if they become advanced, if they want to stay with it, then we pay them. So they actually get can earn what's not a huge salary, but they can earn pretty good living, they're getting paid about 20 bucks an hour. And so some of the learning paths that they do, I think some of them are a little out there. But that there, they are categorized into multiple subject areas, their health history, math, physical science, reading science, visual and performing arts and world languages. And it's all tied to the Common Core State Standards. So why do I do that? Well, because I'm trying to make the world easier for teachers. And you know, teachers are always worried about am I doing enough of what I should be doing? Because I have to, like kids have to know certain things. So this way, the teachers can say, Oh, they're working on this standard, or they're working on that standard, they can know exactly what the kids are doing, even though the kids get to pick their own topics. And some of the topics are like out there. I mean, for example, there's one on one of the biggest mysteries in art history, Stonehenge, somebody did that when how to find a Loch Ness Monster, just reading some of these online now. Pokey ball, how to play pokey ball. I mean, there are 1000s of these things right now. So you know, when the kids get to pick whatever they want. And our response so far from kids has been like, oh my god, this is so great. They love doing it. It fits into what I call 20% time in the school. And that means you know, you 80% of the time is traditional lecture method or whatever. This is 20% of the time, where kids learn to be self reliant, creative, how to communicate with their peers, how to pick something, and it's all project based, by the way, so that all their their projects are
put up on a board where they can either be shared in their class, shared in their school, or shared with the world, they have a choice. And they get points, it's gamified. They get points for their projects. And these points at the moment, we're going to add more, it's going to be more of a point type thing. But right now with the points they can go to the game board or the prize board. And they can buy for example, they can donate a meal to another kid. They can feed a child a plant based meal, or they can help provide critical support to kids. All these ideas for what to do with the point Guess where they came from? It's remarkable. It came from the kids. We had like a student council of the first kids on the program. And they're the ones that pick this. And this was number one thing that they wanted to do. It can donate to the Malala Fund, they can plant a tree, they're part of the Surfrider Foundation. Of course, there's the typical stuff that we originally had, because we being adults, we had like hats and shirts, and food and candy, and stickers. And then turns out, they want to donate meals, and what and they're very worried about the climate. So they're picking things for climate. And we're, as I said, we're expanding that based on the input from the kids.
So Esther, you said, social media is a concern, raising kids today. In 2015, there was a survey done, and they determined that millennials are going to take 27,500 selfies in their lifetime. I mean, 2015 seems like, you know, a generation ago, I gotta assume that number has gone up since then. What he you know, we talked about helicopter parents, but what do you think that means? What do you think that says, you have a generation growing up? Where they're the center of their images? Is that saying to be concerned about and? And how do they make decisions and make ethical decisions? You know, you know, I think your daughter's YouTube and, and 23 in me, you know, there, there are a lot of decisions to be made that have real implications, or gray areas around. If you're the center of the universe, does that make it a challenge to be able to take on tough questions like that?
Yeah, I think it does make it harder to take on tough questions. Also, you know, I think it helps promote narcissism where you think you're the center or you think you should be the center. I think technology does impact brain development, and their well being and their relationships, which is part of the reason of these 10 grandchildren that I have, that they all spend a lot of time with each other, and a lot of time with their friends. And I think that's really important. Although if you see pictures of teenagers today, if you see them all going out to pizza or something like that, or going, I don't know, anywhere, you always see them with their phone. You know, they can all be sitting in a restaurant.
It's like an extra limb. You know, if they lose, they, they feel like part of them is gone. Their identities gone. I mean, adults.
I know. But people, you know, when they see each other, they should just talk to each other and not just talk to their bone. Why Why be with somebody if you're going to be on your phone anyway. That I think is a problem. And I do think I think it's unfortunately, I think it's gonna get worse. And the reason I think this is my prediction, it's probably going to get worse because of this metaverse. And these this gaming that people are doing nonstop online. And there's even more gaming coming. And I mean, you're watching Tik Tok, or, I mean, teenagers don't like Facebook. I don't know if you know that. They think they say that their grandparents are on Facebook. So they don't want to be there. But
but there's some place I grew up for a second. This is imagination, inaction. And we've reached the our point. I'm going to play our new intro. And then Haley, I'd love for you to do a musical interlude. And then we'll go to Allison and in a moment, we'll we're also going to get some questions for you, Esther, and we're not grading you on your answers you but by the way, you're doing great and thank you. But here here is the intro. Welcome to imagination inaction, where we have conversations with compelling people driving the action that will power our futures. These are successful Imaginators you want to know. All right, and with that, Hayley, could you play something? You know, you've been listening along and you know, I'm sure some of you What Esther saying speaks to some of it. You know? Yeah. curious on what what your thoughts aren't? And do you have something that you think is good to play at this moment?
Have a song I would love to play that I wrote what I was 17 but I can't remember it. I can't I would have to go back and but yes, lots of lots of interesting and inspiring thoughts. Esther, thank you so much. For all of your wisdom. I'm gonna I'm going to play the next song that comes to mind. This is called Would you wait
for me to be different, I just need to be okay. I could tell you. I'm running as it says here. I could come given the shooting hands when I change my mind. Oh, is it sir Hi? Thank you, thanks for having me.
Great. Thank you for for playing. And Esther, what would you think of the lyrics? They're
tough. They're great. I like the whole song. She could have kept going.
Well, maybe we'll hear again. Tyler DeWitt, do you want to come on stage? Maybe ask a question. And I see Esther, you have two friends. Herman I think is
Carmen Herman gear? Yeah. And his wife, Lisa,
you know, so I don't know, if you you want to join? You know, let's, let's take a minute and get a few. A few. Well, actually, Tyler, so Tyler 100,000 People watch you a day. You're at 100 million views. You're a YouTube educator. What are you seeing? What do you agree with what estar saying? What do you what do you see that she may not have brought up or you see things differently?
I agree with with with everything that Esther is saying. And you know, people parents reach out to me all the time. I used to teach high school to you know, Esther and I met years ago at TEDx Beacon Street, and I really enjoyed our conversations back then. But But But anyway, um, you know, from what I used to teach high school and everyday parents would always say, you know, how can I make school harder for my kids? I want my kid to get in Harvard. I want my kid to get an MIT. How can I make it harder? How can can you you know, parents reach out to me, they say Hey, can you give me a list of 200 chemistry problems to make? You know, to make their chemistry education harder and more challenging? You know, and always write them back with funny but somewhat Curt responses of like, forget the chemistry problems, go out and have your kids play outside? Do something they care about make art, make music, join a sports team be a teenager, you know, forget the extra chemistry problem. So look, I couldn't agree more with everything Esther is saying and man is it rare these days and we need more voices like this screaming from the rooftops? Forget the academic horribleness just let kids be kids.
Hey, I know this isn't an infomercial for YouTube. But But given that you got a PhD at MIT, and you didn't follow your dad at becoming a tenured biology professor and state you're a YouTuber. Do you have anything you want to say to the mom with the head of YouTube?
Whoa, yeah, I want to say you know YouTube what, what an incredible platform right to let to let people from all over the world find content that that they're interested in and and works for them and the way it democratizes it right. So it's like, big, big corporate network executives are no longer the ones deciding what you're going to be able to consume. And similarly for me in education, it's no longer just about how a professor at a particular school is teaching a class. If that approach doesn't work for students, they can go on YouTube, and they can find another professor, another teacher who can meet their needs. And I just I think that's incredible.
So given that Esther may have influence over her daughter, is there anything you want to say about something you'd like to see at YouTube? Or, or in terms of education? Is the future textbook, no textbook at all and bunch of YouTube videos?
I think it is, it's going to be tons and tons of YouTube videos, I students are always going to need to know how to read. Alright, and so sometimes, you know, I get a lot of trouble because people say, Oh, if people are learning a lot of their content from video, what about reading? And I would say yeah, but right now we're trying to do two things. At the same time. We're trying to teach chemistry, and we're trying to teach kids how to read chemistry. All right, we can't do both at the same time. So if we can offload some of that teaching to video, which has done incredibly well on YouTube, you know, what, then we can spend class time teaching kids how to actually read difficult technical content. And we don't have to, you know, cover 50 pages a day, because we have to fly through the curriculum. So So yeah, so I think the future is a mix of video, which will actually let us focus more on actually teaching kids how to read.
So Tyler, any
Oh, you're breaking up a little bowl. I don't know what
sunshine and it's me. Any anything you want to say to Esther to improve YouTube that she might bring up at the holidays?
You know, honestly, nothing comes to mind. I know some folks have some beef with a platform. But for me, I've I've I've typically in my experience only seen the good side as something. That's my little my little son. So you should you should mute me. But I only really had a few.
Yep, that's Felix.
Yeah. All right. Esther, do you want to bring in Herman your friends? Or should we go to the room and just see what questions people have? Oh, yeah. Allison, you in the Moderator role?
Yeah, no, I just wanted to follow up, Esther, because several people have written questions in and I had the same one myself. You know, it's so fascinating that you've grown up in the very heart out of Silicon Valley Teaching at Palo Alto High School. But you know, how do you see this debate around technology forming? You know, there are rumors that Steve Jobs and other technologists kept their kids from, you know, spending their whole life on technology devices? Where do you think there are, you know, very reasoned discussions happening and tech companies actually thinking about how technology will influence brains? And as the mother of some technologists, you know, how do you see for this audience in the future sorting this out, because the tech Titans are only getting more powerful, they gained quite a bit of money in since COVID happened, and where do you see the kind of points you're making about social media actually being reasoned out?
That's, that's a good question. And so I think, unfortunately, I think that people are going to be even more involved in their devices. And this is the reason I think this whole Metaverse, that, and web three, and you know, NF T's and digital currency. And all that adds up to more people spending more time on their digital device. And I personally think this is not a good situation. Not good for teenagers. It's not good for adult. It's not good for anybody. And the number one source of stress. Apparently 83% of teenage teenagers said that school was the most significant source of stress. But it wasn't just academics. It turns out that this generation is really stressed about gun violence, school shootings, rising suicide rates, treatment of immigrants, sexual harassment and climate change. And if I just think about everything that I just said now, I did not grow up with any of those You know, the only gun violence I ever saw was in a western when I went to the movie, and school shootings, it was just non existent suicide rates, nobody killed themselves, divorce rates. I don't none of my parents friends ever got divorced climate change that we never even heard of that immigrants, immigrants to the United States were welcomed, everybody was, you know, was treated well. We're like, Oh, my parents came from that country to and sexual harassment, or sexual harassment was there was a lot of sexual harassment, but it wasn't classified as such. But there's so many things today, that teenagers, well, everybody has to worry about. And I would say that climate is one of the number one issues on the minds of most of the teenagers today. And that's why I actually wanted to have Herman and talk a little bit about climate because I think there's things that we can do, the kids can be involved. And we actually include climate and tract. Oh, by the way, I should say for tracked, any teacher that wants to get tracked for free, they can just go to teach dot tracked tra CT dot app, as like a housing tract. And they can get their entire class, I don't care if it's 30 Kids, 50 kids or 200. Kids, they all get on for free. So and then parents who want to use it at home. And adult, I think you can get it for free for exactly how long. But if you just type watch and W O J, my first three letters of my name, also get it for I don't know how long for free, but enough time. So I think teenagers today need to remember that they should exercise big time to have fun with their friends. And without having a electronic device. Go outside, you know, write about it. And if I have to tell you what I did, of course, this book got to be sort of legendary with my students. I used to take 52 kids to New York City for a week. And because that sounds a lot, like Oh, my God, how could you do that? But let me tell you, they were super responsible, if you believe in them. And you think they're going to be good. They're great. And so that's, but that's the kind of things that we should be doing more of letting kids go places travel, you know, see other people. You know, what happened to museums? I guess nobody goes to museums anymore. But But the greatest thing? Those are my suggestions.
Alright, so let me let me call on people in the room and see if there any questions. Shashank. Do you have a question? And Esther, if you could write these down, I can't tell if you're moving. But we're going to stack a few questions. And then you could either take them one at a time, or if there's some general themes, you could cover them.
Right, and I'm gonna write it down.
Great. Shashank, do you have a question?
Thank you, John. And Esther, good to share the stage with you remember, me back earlier this year, I had the pleasure of hearing you as well. And I have also had the pleasure of meeting Susan in life when she was here in Oxford. So this is like, past midnight here in England. And I'm so proud of you and everything that you do. So thank you. Thank you so much. No specific question, but I just want to recognize that Thank you. All right,
great. You don't have to write that one down. But thank you for the comment. Okay, Todd, and then Tom, Nina blink if you want me to call on you. Okay, so Todd and Nina.
Thank you, John and Allison. And thank you Esther, for taking the time. My question is really around. The other issue facing people today learners of all ages, and it has to do with the rate of change and the perishability of skills and I just wonder, I heard loud and clear about independence and we actually use the trick analogy. Acronym with our 11 year old now. So thank you for that. But I heard from you and from Tyler about letting kids be Kids and so forth. Had I late in life? Do you think it is too late to ignite that fire for learning inside of people? And can the trick acronym, those five features or elements be applied in adult learning? I work across 60 community colleges. And that's that's the reason for the question.
Great. Thank you, Todd. So Nina, if you could ask your question. That would be great. And then we'll go to Tom.
And thank you so much. And thank you, Esther, this has just been fascinating to hear. One of the things I think about you and your students a lot actually, I remember seeing a newspaper that they made that was like, I don't know, 100 pages as as like holding the LA Times. It was like 12. It's so impressive what they turn out and hearing some of the subjects that you were saying that teenagers are concerned with today. school shootings being one of them. I was curious if you talk about this with your journalism students talk about how to cover school shootings. You know, these these are, you know, traumatic things to cover for an adult journalist. And I was curious, even the environment, but certainly the violence that's happening on high school campuses, if you talk about this in your newsroom, and
great, great, excellent questions. So Tom, and then Todd, will get two more and then after, you can take these but Nina is leader at clubhouse and very long journalism experience. Oh, by the way, next week, we're going to have next week, we're going to have Bob Metcalf, the inventor of the Ethernet and and Metcalfe's law, the network effect, we're going to be talking about innovation, and connectivity and the Internet and geothermal he's very passionate about that. We're also the week after that, we're going to have Tom Carroll, who was one of the journalists in the spotlight movie, someone played him. But he worked for the Boston Globe and was part of the spotlight team. And he runs a journalism program. And we're going to talk about, you know, where's journalism, fake news, and so on. And then we also have coming up, we have some leaders who are involved in growing organs. And we're going to talk about the pros and cons of of that. That's going to be pretty, pretty stem focused. But let's go to our next question, Tom. And if you don't have a question, we'll just move on. Todd, do you have a question?
Yeah. Thanks, John. And thanks so much for all you've done in your life on education. As a parent, I really appreciate it the you mentioned the new challenges that that our children face. And I saw that more like that's I came home to me when I was helping the School Foundation was running to enhance library notes. The biggest section was dystopian, I think what a lot of us grew up, we probably knew all five dystopian books. And now there's just shelf after shelf of dystopian literature. And, you know, that's one way the kids are trying to do with it is through the literature. But I'm kind of curious, since you encourage writing and everything. Do you think that's good to just kind of go ahead and dig in that these are their fears, you know, write about and read about? Or is that too much? Is that just too much when you're growing up to deal with all that? Thanks.
You know, it actually, I'm just going to call on Kunal and Esther Dyson, did finish this stack of questions, and we're gonna try to get everyone's question in. But Kunal, do you have a question?
Yeah. Hi, Esther. Hi. Here, you know, you choose to hear your voice. I actually leave for India in less than 10 hours. So I'm going back to the motherland. So as someone I love and respect so much, what advice do you have for me as I go back home
as you travel to India,
the closer for this round will be Esther Dyson. And Esther always messes up the curve, because she always asked such great questions.
Hi, Esther.
It's clarity.
I wanted to say one thing and then ask another thing. The first was, I have to disagree about people can just learn off YouTube. I mean, everything you told us was how if you make sure not to do things for your kids, but you you provoke them, you question them, you show them you help them get mastery and etc, blah, blah, blah. The second one is I've been thinking about you a lot lately as I work in the communities I work in to help them get healthier. That the same issues around you can't bribe people to do their homework or to fix their community, you have to help them realize their own explicit motivate their own their their intrinsic motivation. And so I'm curious. You know, you're you're too good doing this in education. But how much do you talk to business people about managing adults? The same way and, or motivating any kind of end into the question just, it seems like it applies so much more broadly than just to children.
Great question.
Alright, so Esther, you can answer these in any way you want. You could say some general things. You could take them one by one, you could take them backwards. You could tap dance, do interpretive dance, to answer them, whatever you want.
Thank you. So it's interesting. The first question I don't know, was it Todd did ask the first question.
Yep. About dystopian? Yeah.
This Sophia. Was that teaching kids to deal with dystopia of somebody asked the question about learners of all ages letting kids be kids.
Yeah, that was me. And similar to Esther to Esther Dyson's question, right?
That's right. That's why I was gonna do both of them. Because can trek be used on adults? Well, it's very interesting that you asked that question. Because I was thinking of writing another book, using trick and the adult world. Oh, great. And yes, trick can be used in the adult world. As a matter of fact, it's really powerful, really empowering. For people, if they're working in an environment where they are trusted and respected, they will stay in a company, or they'll stay in any relationship, or they'll stay wherever in if they're trusted, and respected. And they can be paid, you know, twice the salary somewhere else, and not leave. Because I think that's the main thing that people are looking for. Because trust and respect, brings a sense of self satisfaction, and a sense of happiness. And you can't really bribe people to, you know, to do things, I guess you can you can pay, that we have a society where we're paying people, a lot of money, it's sort of a bribe, to do something. But honestly, they would do a much better job. And they would do it really well. If they felt like they were part of the team. And if they felt like they were trusted and respected. I'm telling you, it works. And I've had a lot of experience in those areas, also, working with teachers working with parents working and, you know, with this company that I have now. And so the question I, it would be interesting to have a discussion. But I, especially yesterday, how you know, you're working with people in these communities, and they're trying to get them to lead a happier, better life. How do you get them to eat properly and to take care of themselves well, and how to exercise and all this. And I bet that if they came together in groups, and these groups were supportive, that they would do it. I think it's groups. So, you know, part of the reason why students are so successful, and producing these incredible publications, is because they were working in teams, they believed in themselves, because I believed in them. That's kind of a key, by the way. Somebody has to believe that you can do it. And they rose to the occasion. And not only they out, did themselves they even shocked themselves. And I adults can do the same thing. I've seen that also at Google, for example. So I think I might have answered Two questions at once. But I did want to also address estar DS question about you cannot learn off of YouTube. I think you my theory about learning is that you have to do it. And not just watch it. But what you can get from YouTube, as you can see what is expected. And you can see a model of somebody doing it, you might not be able to learn how to do it. But you can get the idea of where you're headed. There are certain things you can learn off YouTube, for example, I, I can tell you what I've personally used. So I'm the plumber at my house, which means I can fix all sorts of plumbing problems. And I learned how to do that on YouTube. And that sounds crazy. But I mean, I can do, you can't imagine what I can do. It's kind of shocking. So I would suspect that, of course, that doesn't involve somebody hurting somebody. So that's part of the reason why I'm, of course doing it. But I certainly would not want to learn to operate on somebody, you're learning you too, because that would be a bit of a too much of a risk. But
and also the other thing that you can learn using YouTube that I've also done is in my classes I've taught and I still teach the Adobe Creative Suite as the whole suite as InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop and everything. And if I want kids to become real experts at it, they can find videos on YouTube, about like, how to, you know, how to use InDesign, for example. And, as a matter of fact, they pass me up, they can do things that I can't even do, because they become such experts at this whole thing. So there are some things you can learn and do on YouTube. But not everything. And
it's more just, you know, some kids will go find it themselves, but the, the personal attention they get from you the that kind of stuff you don't find online.
Unless, right, that's true, the personal attention they don't get, and that is difficult. Part of the reasons they would go on YouTube, and get that stuff is that they would come back to class or they'd be in class doing it. And then they would find it and then they would share it with all their friends. And then they would come and tell me how to do it too. So and then I would learn from them also. So it was kind of a community of learners. And we had a really good time doing it. As a matter of fact, I think you might have noticed and know how late you were there. But my kids never wanted to leave. They only want I mean suicide, throw them out 11 o'clock at night. And this will be not just two kids. This is like 40 Nobody ever want to go home. And I again, I think the reason is because it was a real sense of belonging. Community respect, fun. Food, not a lot of food, that food. It was just it was an exciting place to be. And I must tell you, if I went to been so exhausted, I probably would have stayed longer, but it was just a little bit much.
Great. Alison, do you want to ask a question? Or should we go to more in the audience?
Oh, wait, I didn't finish one of the questions. Um, I was from Nina. If you talk about this, this story journalism, school shootings, violence. I talked about everything with them. And I talk about this side things this that side thinks that the middle things this, you know, you need to read all these stories, you need to understand how different groups are feeling you need to understand what's going on. You can't when you're writing a story, you can't take aside unless you're writing an opinion piece or a column. Otherwise you have to be objective. That's the main thing that I talked about all the time. And my students, we covered everything. I mean, everything. We did, unfortunately have any school shootings, but we had some, you know, a lot of other issues that were the school was coping with I let the students handle it. I mean, and they did a good job. And then one other question was from Todd. On dystopian literature. You know, there's a ton of dystopian literature, but you don't need to read the books anymore, because you could just look around. It's happening to us right now. And so what I had kids do, they read, like 1984, Animal Farm and all those things. And what I had them do is find in those books, examples in the real world, which they would consider dystopian. They love doing that, and I must say, helping give that have put that perspective. And I also found it a really interesting, it was interesting for me to see what they thought at the same time. And then the other question, I know, I'm taking a while here, as canal, what advice when you travel to India? Well, that's a big question. First of all, you should enjoy the Indian food, I love Indian food. And then in terms of education, there's a lot of education startups that are happening in India that are, I think, pretty good. And I'm actually working with one are going to be working with one, UC Berkeley. If you go to UC Berkeley, you'll see the School of Engineering and I'm working with them on a program called WJ. It watch it, how to teach engineering skills to everybody, project based gamified, peer to peer. So would be great if more kids in India would have access. And I'm hoping to make that possible.
I love that. Thanks as to and of course, you have a home in India. And also I started my PhD at ISP. So if you have any interest, and if I can make things happen for you there, you know you have my full unreserve support.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited. You're going. And so we'll talk when you come Yeah, or even longer
money. I'm pretty sure I'll come back to these. Yeah, they
have zoom there. Yeah, they do. And
you're not sped you have to come back to India as well. Not like,
I love India. So Allison, do you want to ask your question, or should we go to more?
Well, I'd love to go to more than the audience. And so you did probably one of the most thorough jobs in any of our shows, answering questions. So really appreciate your, your taking each one so carefully. I did just want to follow up on Todd's question, tattoos question. In terms of in journalism, were there any stories that you ever didn't cover? I know, you said there's an incredible range. And you gave some great examples. But do you ever think that we have kids now who have to face so many adult questions? Are there ever anything that you came across that you thought either was too violent was inappropriate? Or did you just sort of let 1000 Flowers bloom?
No, there was one subject that we had a long talk about many, many sessions talking about it, and decided not to cover. And what this was, was teenage suicide. So I don't know if you remember, but a few years back, we had a suicide cluster. And we had quite a few kids that were committed suicide, and it was all the same way was by walking in front of a train. It was terrible, just terrible. And a lot of the kids were, like, outstanding students. And, you know, so we everyone felt terrible, you know, it wasn't just terrible for a week, it was just terrible for a long time. And even just talking about it now makes me feel really terrible inside. But we decided as a class, not to cover the suicides, we used to have a big story about the student, and we would ask the friends and we dedicate a whole page to them. And, you know, we did everything we could to try to, you know, make their memory important for us. And we decided that what that was doing was encouraging more kids who might be suicidal, to be suicide, to commit suicide. So we net we did not cover suicides. We just didn't, we will maybe write a small story, you know, and put it on page two or something like that. And I think that we came to this conclusion on our own I think afterward I saw other research that showed that there were a lot of copycat suicides. I don't know, I still haven't done enough research on this. But I also wonder, today with all the shootings and everything else, how much copycat stuff is going on. Anyway, the suicides stopped in Palo Alto. So I should just tell you, that was about three or four years ago. No more suicides, at least keeping my fingers crossed. No more.
Thank you, Dan. I think it'd be great. We have so many people with questions lined up for Aster.
Great, Raj. Gerald, with some? Yeah, let's get some other questions. Raj, we're stalking questions. Do you want to ask one?
Yes, please. Thank you so much. And thanks, Esther. I don't know if you you. I'm sure you don't remember, but 2008 when President Obama was first term, we came to your daughter's home and for a session with President Obama and I got a chance to meet with you. And your husband. And we had a long discussion about his escape from Poland. Yes, I remember that discussion so fondly.
Wow. Yeah. dramatic escape.
Thank you so much for sharing that. My question was, you know, you kind of alluded to it in the in the previous comments you were just making. It's about really about, you know, all the challenges and things that kids are seeing right now. And we're living in kind of a world with, you know, so much going on. And just curious, even as parents, you know, we struggled with how to talk to your kids about some of these things. You know, you kind of addressed it partly when you were thinking about talking about, you know, suicides, but mental health, and wondering how you think about that, how do you how do we teach kids or at least build that, you know, understanding and resilience in them. So they can handle all these complex topics that are coming at us. So think.
Great, Raj. Thank you. Let's get a few others were stacking questions. Gerald, do you have one?
I really didn't have a question I really just wanted to add, because I'm really invested in this topic. In fact, I'm a co author of a book called educators who know what to do, where we actually tackle a lot of these topics that Esther is talking about. And I actually work like I'm, I'm involved in two different communities, right? I actually live in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is one of the fastest growing places and highest incomes in the country. But yet, the population of Loudoun in regards to students has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation. And I found that really interesting when I got an email from my daughter school one day saying that they were having a suicide webinar. So as I dug deeper, like some a lot of the things that Esther has talked about, and how we push our children, and how we don't actually allow our children to actually be who they are. And we're forcing, you know, this education on them that is 50 years antiquated. And then I work with Title One schools in major cities where I'm working in cities that are high crime, and I'm working with young men that see gun violence all the time. And I come from this environment, right, and I graduated high school with a 1.69 GPA. And one time I got in trouble. And I had to see, I had to go see the therapist, because I got in trouble is about to get kicked out of school. And the therapist said to me, she said, Joe, you test really high, what can we do to help you do better in school, and I set her nobody ever asked me what I wanted to do, what I wanted to learn. And I think this is where we are like, we have to have the children more involved in their education. And when we talk about YouTube, that gives them the opportunity. I actually, uh, I have a program when working with multiple schools, and we actually teach more video learning to get kids involved in what do you actually want to learn. And what I see the future of education is more of a tech. But say we have a kid who wants to be a doctor, and he goes into his freshman year and he knows he wants to be a doctor. Well, with Ed Tech, we can have a doctor actually teach that class not only to him, but to kids all over the country, and actually give kids exposure and an opportunity to at least test or get the information from someone in the field. Like I got an engineering degree with a 1.69 GPA now because I couldn't be a better student. I never had any representation. I never had anyone who could could relate to the things that I was doing outside of the classroom. And how we create engineers today is are you taking advanced math I taking advanced physics that has nothing to do with one's ability to create, right or, or, or do anything in that realm. So I think Esther, you're right there. I love what you're doing. Like I'm right on it there with you. I really don't have any questions. And thank you guys for hosting this topic, and I am complete. Great, thank
you. Tyler, do you want to ask anything or say anything? YouTube was brought up a few times. And I know that's a big avenue for you to communicate. With Tyler, say hello to Felix, for me. David, do you want to ask a question?
Well, you said, David, I appreciate it. Um, so I guess I had a question about just sort of the general theme of your some of your comments on, you know, where school where kids are today and where they were in the past. And I've got two teenagers 18 and 18 year old. But one thing I was curious about is part of the environment in school, two that I know my kids were very involved in it is this dichotomy between or this this, this contrast between wanting kids to be very politically engaged and know what's going on in current events. But things are so hyper politicized today, that, you know, I grew up in the era where you didn't talk about politics or religion in mixed company, you know, you kind of kept that separate. And today, everything is hyper politicized. And I was just curious, your thoughts on that, in particular, you know, even speaking of like, when you mentioned, Bob Wood struck my mind was Bob Metcalf. I follow my bed cap, I knew him for a while, through some other avenues, who's the guest next week. And but he was actually kicked off Twitter because of his support for Trump. And, you know, you see, you look at the aspect of, even in that realm, it's it's sort of this environment where everything is very, a lot of political conflict today. So I just wanted to see your thoughts why you think that the politics and religion kind of angle on this, maybe should be kept aside? Let kids grow up first? Are we just what your thoughts are?
Great. Thank you, David. keel, do you have a question? Yeah, thank you.
You know, earlier, Esther mentioned this out of control obsession with getting into elite colleges. And I think a lot of that is driven by the hiring practices of employers. And you and I have worked for many years in the tech field and her daughters have as well. And you're starting to see a movement towards alternative forms of credentialing. And I think that would help break that cartel and that obsession, I would like to get her thoughts on that, you know, I'm Esther Dyson, is on the stage as well. For Dad, Freeman was a big critic of the PhD in the snobbery surrounding that. So I really think that the the grease system, and its current incarnation really needs to go and then the hiring needs to work through alternative meat
kill. Great question and comment. We do have Gerald cavion lined up for a future show, he runs Europe, like a $200 million nonprofit that is helping in creative avenue into the workforce. And, and he has a lot of thoughts on that. And we're definitely going to unpack that. Liz, and then Lee and then we'll we'll go to Esther.
Great. Thank you so much for this really great conversation. I really interested in both personally and professionally in the notion of how we raise successful engaged citizens and community members. And we're particularly curious about you know, this moment for I think for too long, civics education just kind of went under noticed under considered it was really more of a nice to have but not seen as essential. Given where we are as a country where we are as a world, the period of democracy, backsliding, it's more essential than ever, that we get this right and get students engaged. My organization generation citizen, like lots of other organizations, I'm sure with folks around this table really believes in hands on action, civics learning, but we're in a political climate that is actually now at a time when it's needed most are really being divisive. And in fact, suggesting that young people getting involved hands on democracy is somehow unpatriotic and bills have been passed in Texas and other states around the country that are restricting student's ability to engage in hands on civic learning, given as to your vision and that of others on the call around a real attention to project based learning and hands on learning. I wonder your perspective on how do we respond in a climate? It says hands on learning is okay for everything except democracy. My name is Liz and I'm complete for now.
Great, excellent question and then we'll pause after This next question, lead you have a question. Michelle, do you have a question? John Kelly, do you have a question?
Like to the room?
It sounds like a very interesting discussion, but I'll just
Yeah, no worries, Jonathan knows. Do you have a question? I know you're late to the room, too.
Nope. I'm late to the room and super happy to see friends from real life both yesterday, you, John Kunaal. Here is such an important thing to be talking about. And especially as a person who sort of have left and I often say fled academia, being on the faculty at a university in Southern California to head up to Silicon Valley for several decades. I've often rethought that decision and thought, what kind of impact so this is probably one of the most important things I can think of. And thank you for doing this. When I'm brought to mind, I'll just say that the the notion that of the quote that's attributed to Nelson Mandela, there comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the water, we need to go upstream and find out why they're falling. And I think we know many times why they're falling in this is the answer to keeping so many people from falling in the river so that we can move ahead. Thanks for doing
great ihrem. I'm not sure if I said that. Right. I love those letters arranged that way. Do you have a question? Fred, do you have a question?
I'm happy to ask a question. So I have been doing a lot of rocket stuff. And it doesn't look like there's a need for an orbital vehicle that we're building right for the next five or 10 years. So what I'm doing right now is I'm building a project based steam center that is a nonprofit, rocket and satellite maker space. And so my question is, do we really think that we're going from this old school existing way of educating kids to more of a project based learning with a steam focus? Is this? Is this enough? Or is this just like the current? It's better than what we've had? And there's still more to come? So any, any feedback there? I'd love to.
Great, Esther, you got a bunch of great questions, great comments, you know, you can kind of like improv jazz? How so? Move how how are you moved? Or like a Quaker Meeting? What's on your mind? From all that?
Well, first of all, these questions are great. People are really thinking it's really exciting to see that. So I'll start with the first question from Raj, about the world of challenges and how to talk to your kids about topics that are sensitive, how to build understanding and resilience. I think that relates also to the question that was asked about, you know, civic education, and is that essential? First of all, I'd like to say, I think civil education and civics should be required for every kid in this country. And I thought it was, but then somehow rather it, the requirement disappeared. And so we have chaos now, which is really unfortunate. And so as a journalist and teaching journalism, what I always did my class, I was crazy. But um, you know, my classes were rather large, huge, actually, about 70 kids in the class, is I would pick up, you know, have these free newspapers and those stands all over the place. Well, those people probably thought that their circulation had just gone through the roof. That's because I picked him up. And I brought him to school. And I had kids read the paper. How about read the real paper at the beginning of every period? Talk about the topics that were discussed how they were discussed, or how they were written, where they were written in the paper, those articles that like they got good sources, did they not? Were they poorly written? Were they well written? So I believed in talking about all kinds of civic education, and I thought civics was a compliment to journalism because you cannot be an A sensible, independent. You know, Claire, an independent thinking journalist, unless you know something about civics. and suggesting that young people do not should not have hands on learning about civics is like, Oh my God, what's going to happen to democracy kind of a situation is that people learn by doing. They get an idea. Like I said earlier, when I was talking about yesterday and her question, they get an idea. On YouTube, sometimes they can get more than just an idea. But they learn by doing. Part of the reason why, you know, this class is I mentioned was huge to 70 kids. Sometimes it was even bigger, I let the leadership of the class be student leaders. So there were like six to seven editors who ran the program. So why did I do that? Well, because I'm training leaders, and you can't learn to be a leader by watching somebody else do it, you actually have to do it. Just like you can't learn to swim, by watching somebody jump in the pool and swim, you have to do it. And so many things in a school curriculum, have to be taught by doing, you cannot just be a theoretical journalist. You know, you can't study mass media, and then say, you know how to write a news story. You have to practice. And so I'm just talking about those two, two questions that were very similar. And how do you talk about these topics with your kids? Well, what I what we do with grandchildren is we talk about all these topics, and then give them perspective. This is what I think we don't all agree, of course, this is what somebody else thinks, but the most important thing we should do not be willing to listen, you don't have to agree, you should listen and hear them out. And so that's, that's what we're teaching. And that's also what I taught in the journalism class, is always to look for both sides, because each side has something about it that they think is really important. And maybe it is, it's not for you, the journalist to decide that side a is better than side B, but you've shot present, Side A and Side B. And so that's what my kids dead. And in the process, they learned a lot about democracy. And
so then I'll tie that Fred asked about what Fred asked about. Like, should we is it enough to have project based?
Or is there more? So I think most of the classes today are still not project based. They are still theoretical. And then you have to ask, Are people really learning from those theoretical classes? So, John, can you hear me? Hello.
I'm certainly hearing you.
Yes, we're hearing you Esther.
Okay. Because I'll tell you why. I got a phone call in the middle. Oh, yeah. So I want to make
sure you're still there still with me? You're
still there? I
didn't have you here.
Yeah, I have a follow up question. yester when you're finished answer.
Okay, when I'm finished. Let's see. So there was a question from this man that X has been a teacher educators who know what to do. And he said he had one of the highest suicide rates in the nation in Latin County, Virginia, which is a very well to do County. And so why is that? Why the highest suicide rate? Well, you have to remember Palo Alto is one of the highest economic areas in the country, and we had the highest suicide rates. And I think what you're seeing is a lot of parents that are very controlling, and the child does not see a way out. And that is, that is tragic. You know, so we can stop being so controlling, and the more wealth they have, the more ways and methods they have for controlling their kids. I must say, just, we need to stop treating kids like they're part of a Pecha you know, and that we're looking so that we can put a special ribbon on them, that they achieved certain things that we the parents are, you know, wearing this Special Blue Ribbon because of that? Anyway, I don't know whether I've answered all these questions.
My phone died. Sorry, I disappeared for a second. Allison, why don't you ask one last question then do a summary?
Sure. Yep. So so so I'd love to understand a little bit more at the end of having studied education and students and parenting for so many years, you've shared a lot of of what you think people need to do. What are the top things that concern you going forward that if you had a government position, you would really think we need to focus on we sort of every five years or so it feels like we reinvent education. But what is it that you track to figure out, you know, are we actually meeting educational goals?
I would say the most important thing we could focus on today is giving kids choices, giving them an opportunity to control some of their learning, which is why I started tracked, and kids feel trapped. And they need to be aware of the fact that there's a lot of options out there, and they do not have to follow a very narrow path to success. And their parents need to let up and give them that opportunity. We today, and 2021, almost 2022 by 2030 85% of the jobs will be jobs that we don't even know today. So how can we prepare kids, for a world that we can even see, the main thing we need to do is give them the opportunity to think and to believe in themselves. And you don't get that when your main focus is memorizing for LSAT tests or other tests like that. And then forgetting everything you learned two or three weeks later, you need kids that can think make decisions and feel empowered. So I would just like to say, that's where I hope we'll be going. And it doesn't have to be the whole curriculum, I can just have 20% of the time kids can be in charge. They just have to know that they have the ability to think and be in charge.
Great today. This is the final lap for our show. This imagination action. And Allison has a great tradition where she summarizes just transpired. And I think a lot of people who missed the show, they listened to the audio and they fast forward to this. Allison, I know you were personally really excited about tonight's conversation. Love to hear your summary.
Absolutely. John and Esther, thank you so much. And Haley, thank you for the inspirational music. The topic for the session tonight was how can education prepare our children for the 21st century. Our Imaginator was Esther wood JIKI, the author of How to Raise successful people. She started out telling us some incredibly important lessons from her early days, she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family where girls had a second class position and we're meant to cook and marry among other things. Her mother was from Siberia, her father from Ukraine, and she was the first child born in the US. She told us that at the age of 10, her younger brother of two at the time died from taking aspirin and being told by the mother being told by a doctor to just put the child to bed. And she said that absolutely. Searing lesson left her always learning to challenge authority and not follow it. And she believed that that event really helped to shape her life. She refused to get married initially and all finances got cut off when she decided to go to college. It seems like a high price. She got a scholarship from UC Berkeley, luckily and took a bus out there. But she said she really grew up with an amazing sense of self determinism and just a sense that she needed to challenge authority. Part of her thesis that she shared with our audience so powerfully tonight is that her number one goal for her children and children she taught was to be independent thinkers. She said you have to give the kids the ability to think early and the first thing she taught her daughters was how to swim then how to read street signs. In case they got lost, and then how to use numbers that they could dial phones. She wanted daughters who could think on their own and who could question. And I think she got more than that. As she described to us, she had three very different daughters who pulled in different directions. And it was fascinating to hear about some of the early days but Susan, who many of us know as the CEO of YouTube started out very even tempered and level headed. Janet had more of a daredevil personality, which I would never have known. With her number one goal to out beat her sister Susan became a Fulbright scholar and, and, of course, became the CEO of 20 are founder of 23andme, and a competitive ice skater. So it was fascinating to hear how much adaptation was required for each of the daughters. But Aster started in Palo Alto High School with 20 kids in a journalism program that today is the largest journalism program in the nation. And it was really her students who came up with a trick acronym that is outlined in her latest book where T stands for trust us, R stands for respect us, I stands for independence. C stands for collaboration, and K stands for kindness, caring about them as students and as people. And those really are the main lessons that Esther discovered with her own children, but also with the children she taught. And she told us throughout the call, these are also useful for adults, and there may be another book coming to help those of us who are later on in life, she said, The most important thing is to really help children to know how to take on challenges and to how to empower the people we work with. She talked about the origins of helicopter or drone parenting, and talked about how parents today come with so much more resources, but also much more fear. And it comes with wanting their children to have every opportunity. But as a result, they tend to take on doing things for their kids, and their kids lose that independence, they lose the ability to make a mistake, they lose the ability to navigate themselves in the world. Esther told us several times in the call there many paths to success. Her definition of success is being able to follow your dreams with enough resources to carry them on. And sounds like she's done an amazing job with both her students and her children around that. She said for the next generation to build resilience, they need to do something hard. She encouraged everyone to do sports or team sports where you learn to not only win, but also to lose at something. And she implored that parents have to stop rescuing their kids, they have to avoid being a snowplow parent, where the children never learns how to deal with the adversity of life because the way is always being cleared for them. She said in teaching in Palo Alto High School, she had a lot of helicopter parents in class. And she talked about how for many kids the biggest stress in their life are their parents, their parents aspirations and their parents inability and unwillingness to have them fail in any way. She then described her 10 grandchildren and talked about how the challenges facing this current generation are different and so much more challenging than that of her children or her generation. She said, children now have more options. But the biggest challenge is social media where kids are constantly comparing themselves to others. It promotes a kind of narcissism, according to Esther, thinking they're the center of the world or should be the center of the world. And she talked about how the number one influences on teenagers are often other teenagers, which really hasn't been true before. She said that she believed the metaverse web 3.0 NFT digital currency and nonstop gaming will make the situation even worse. She said I personally think this level of technology is not a good situation for teenagers, adults or anyone. She talked about how 83% of teenagers are stressed about education with many items on that list being new to this generation, a concern about gun violence, a concern about hostility that immigrants are concerned about climate change, a concern about rising sexual violence, a concern about rising suicide and divorce rates. Finally, she said that she believes civil education and civic should be required for every kid in the country. She said people learn by doing and civics as a natural complement to journalism. She said you can't be a theoretical journalist you have to learn by doing and she reminded us that by 2030 85% of the jobs will be jobs that we don't even know today. So as she pointed out, Esther said, You need to give kids an opportunity to think, to believe in themselves to feel empowered, and to make decisions to prepare for a world that we don't yet see. Thank you so much, Esther, for a whole lifetime of education and then educating us.
Thank you. Thank you, that was a wonderful, wonderful summary. You're very talented.
She gets that a lot. But it's a reflection. It's also a reflection of your body of work and your leadership. And, and, you know, this, it's been a, it's been a real honor to kind of celebrate you and keep up the great work, your best is ahead of you.
Thank you so much, John, for this invitation. Thank you to everybody in the room for all the great questions. And I really hope that it helps many parents around the world be more relaxed and happier and better parents.
Great. And this will be posted on our website and feel free to share it. And I think you know, we've had over 800 people in the room tonight but a few 1000 or 10s of 1000s may experience this as a as not a tick tock but the opposite of long form journalism. So right, good night. Good night one and all.
