Stop Teaching, Start Learning | Mariappan Jawaharial | TEDxEchoPark

you. They are stories, many people think that stories are meant for maybe history classes or maybe for English classes, but stories have a powerful impact on our lives. I give you an example when I was a child. I always liked listening to stories he told my mother. Tell me stories, sometimes the same stories over and over again. I don't think I was any different from the others. So I have my own children. My wife told stories and I told them stories from time to time, but she didn't have many stories. I ran out of stories so I made up stories but then I ran out of them too and when you make up stories they're not that good ok you make them up on the spot they're not fun but anyway one day I was sitting and reading a book in the afternoon the book that some of you will have read called swimming through the author of the book is Andy Growho was the legendary president of Intel, he was one of the co-founders of Intel, he ran Intel for a long time and interestingly enough, he passed away ago a few months.

Andy Gro, everyone knows the value of Silicon throughout the technology world, so this is his book. I was reading a lot of technology books and Andy Gr's book. I was reading swimming, so my daughter comes to me. She was five or six years old. She comes towards me. Dad, what are you doing? I told her that she was reading a book and she wasn't. Don't ask me, she just sat on my lap and said what this book is about. I said she's swimming through what I said. I'm reading that book. It's probably on the other side of a river.

Can you tell me that story? I said okay, I'll tell you. tonight and then I said this is a big book, it's going to take some time, well, we'll do the first part, the second part, we'll continue, so that night I

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telling the story of Andy Gro, who was born in Budapest and in 1956. when the Soviet Union supported a coup in that country he escaped from Budapest by swimming through Daniel and came to the United States the rest of his story I told that story for a few days all my daughters heard the story years later much later 15 years Then my daughter was in Europe and she called me from Budapest, dad, do you know where I am? 15 years later, she tells me that she was where Andig Gro was.

That is the impact of the stories we tell our children. I didn't train them. I didn't teach about Intel, but there is a story that I could say that I could teach microprocessor programming with that story, you can build stories about anything that a lot of people tell me in engineering, oh, you deal with equations in mathematics, you deal with equations, You can Don't tell stories, every equation has a story behind it. I'm KN, your microphone story about the missing microphone, I'll miss it all. Well, if you tell that story again, you were probably pumping your chest a little.

Okay, okay, okay, anyway, where was I? I'm okay so the equations, every equation has a story behind it, not just a story, it could be and is not an engineering story, most of the time there is an emotional story, there is jealousy, there is struggle, there is perseverance, if you talk calculus, it's one of the most hated subjects I have no idea why, in my opinion, it's one of the easiest subjects to teach, but you're shaking your head why because that's not how it was introduced Newton invented calculus to help people solve real problems, but we don't.

Don't do that now, right? There is a war between leanit and Newton. I could tell you that you would say: I want to know that story that could be a bedtime story. Well, the point is that you can develop stories around it. That's one way to get kids involved and you don't have to teach them, you have to show them. Put on some fuel to inspire you. Show them how to get

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ed. That's all you need for the kids and they will do the rest. One last thing I'll add is to do. things are easier and simpler when you teach your children or when you work with your young children you are not going to lecture them you do not give them complex things the same no matter what you teach or what you do in your classroom have them explain it to the level of a fifth grader, many of you will have heard of the name Richard Fainman, the renowned American physicist who was on the Manhattan Project and many other projects, if you go and ask him a question, he would say, "Okay, I have ". to present it in a way that everyone understands then someone asked him a question: can you explain to us?

He said: I'll come back and explain it to you in two or three days because I had to make it simpler. A few days later he came back and said: You know what I think I didn't understand that concept very well because I can't explain it in a simple term Richard Fainman, renowned physicist, He said I don't think I understood that concept because I can't explain it. In simple terms, what are we doing? We hide behind equations. If you don't understand, you're not smart enough to understand. So this is what I say when I work with my colleagues if you can't explain a concept you are going to teach. to your students to a fifth grade student you don't understand the concept that's all so I practice that if I have to teach Newton's law to a second year engineering student I practice it with the fifth or sixth grade student if I can't explain it to them in a simple and broad term, then I don't understand it, so if you have, if you are a student, this is what I will tell you the next time you are in a class, if your teacher tells you something that you don't understand, ask them. again, could you explain?

I don't understand if they can't explain it in a different way, in a better way that makes sense to you, believe me, they have no idea what they are talking about. It's a simple test, uh, test of your knowledge. It's not your ignorance, okay, so there are ways to engage students and I think as educators, if we

stop

teaching

like we've been doing and turn around and start helping students learn, we'll be better off and it is not so difficult. I have to find a way to engage students and recapture the magic of

learning

. Thank you.