A 13-year-old boy showed in a TED Talk what teenagers need and got more than 10 million views

Not long ago, a 13-year-old named Logan Laplante performed on the famous TED Talk website. In his speech, Logan clearly demonstrated what happiness, creativity and self-realization are for teenagers in this 21st century. The young man also emphasized the role of education in this process and how schools should act.

As of this writing, the lecture had more than 10 million views on YouTube. All this success is probably due to the way Logan speaks in a way that touches everyone’s heart, regardless of age or background. But the lecture is, above all, an invitation to reflection for those who have children and for those who work with education.

We, from awesome.club, we considered Logan’s ideas to be different (and, in a sense, innovative) and, of course, decided to share them with you. After all, the video is a lesson on behavior and a lesson for anyone who wants to get to know the minds of today’s young people.

“Often, children are approached with a very annoying question: “what do you want to do when you grow up?”, says Logan in the lecture. According to the young man, what adults expect to hear back are responses such as astronauts, surgeons and even politicians. The problem, however, is that these are often the dreams of parents, not children. What does a boy want for the future? Most likely, he wants to learn rollerblading or surfing. Or maybe he intends to become a successful blogger or Minecraft player (video game loved by children) famous. When Logan himself asked his 10-year-old younger brother this question, the response was something like: “Dude, I’m 10 years old, I have no idea. Maybe a skier. Shall we go get some ice cream now?”

That is, children respond to this type of question with their passions at the moment, with activities that seem interesting and genius to them and this, of course, almost never corresponds to what parents want to hear or the activities they believe are best for the little ones. Logan himself, answering the question, gave a simple and obvious answer, but quite profound. “When I grow up, I want to be happy. As happy as I am now.” But, as with other children his age, he is more interested in simpler, more immediate questions, such as “Have I had a bath today?” “how did my room get so messy?” and, most importantly, “how do I get girls to like me?”

According to neurologists, the brain of a teenager is quite interesting: due to the fact that the prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed and the large number of neurons, young people are often more creative, more capricious, more emotionally unstable and more impetuous than adults. Therefore, an average teenager wants simple and very clear things: to feel safe, not to be mocked or ridiculed, and to be loved as he is.

“So it seems to me that when adults ask us what we want to be when we grow up, they believe that we will automatically be happy and healthy that way. But maybe things are not like that. Go to school. Go to College. Find a job. Get married and, pam!!!! You will be happy! Seriously? And where do they teach children to be happy and healthy? For some reason, the teaching of these essential issues is completely separate from the traditional school education system”, says the young man, highlighting, for himself, a list of eight components of happiness that should be present in the lives of all children:

Play sports Eat well and eat right Spend time outdoors Help people Communicate with people and build quality relationships Have fun Rest and learn to deal with stress Develop spiritually.

All of these issues were inspired by the work of Australian psychiatrist and anthropologist Roger Walsh, who calls them “therapeutic lifestyle changes”. When Logan was preparing his talk, he asked the famous researcher some questions. In particular, he asked if schools nowadays consider or prioritize these items. The answer was a clear “no”. Teenagers learn things outside of schools. Most education, in the end, focuses on how to make a living, not how to live. They are very different things.

In 2006, another professor, British educator Ken Robinson, delivered what is still considered one of the most successful talks in TED history: Do Schools Kill Creativity? In his presentation, Robinson told how traditional education eliminates individuality and explained the importance of creativity in the literacy process. The teacher proposed to create an educational system aimed at stimulating the development of children’s creative abilities instead of suppressing them.

In his presentation, young Logan said he was very lucky because his parents watched the video of Professor Robinson and took him out of a traditional school, still at the age of 9. The parents decided that the boy would study alone, considering his interests and his individuality — this model is increasingly known in the world of education and even gained the expression “hackschooling”. It is evident that this attitude was not approved by all. “I remember my mother’s tears when some friends told her that she was crazy and that she had made a stupid decision,” said the boy.

Logan himself claims that, most of the time, his study model resembles the style of a chain coffee shop. starbucks🇧🇷 That is, he can study anywhere: at home, in a park and, of course, in a coffee shop — Starbucks is known for providing spaces for people to work with their laptops while enjoying a coffee🇧🇷 At the same time, the boy actively uses online resources for learning and, according to him, has no problem with socialization. He communicates a lot with colleagues and finds like-minded people on the Internet. The most important thing is that if a person has the motivation to learn something, he will be able to go very far on his own.

Like most boys, Logan is very dedicated to Math, Science and History. And, if before he didn’t like to write texts because his teachers suggested he talk about butterflies and rainbows, today he’s happy because he can write essays on subjects that, in fact, interest him, like skiing.

Logan claims that his education follows a “hacker” model — hence the term “hackschooling”. “I don’t have any specific program. I’m hacking my own education. I take advantage of the opportunities that society, my friends and my family offer me. It’s like a collage of knowledge because it’s a mindset, not an educational system.” He guarantees, however, that any teenager can adopt this model and that even traditional schools can be inspired by it.

Logan studies Physics in practice with his friends. For example, he and his colleagues built an enlarged replica of Newton’s pendulum to test the law of conservation of motion. The boys experiment a lot and are not afraid to make mistakes. In the same way, they study History knowing the biography of famous characters, as well as works by artists and theater plays that deal with these characters (in this case, in addition to History, they are studying Arts). Its educational experience has a very practical character and is combined with physical activity, essential for the development of the body.

Finally, it is important to highlight that Logan’s activities are, in general, outdoors, in order to create greater contact with nature and develop greater control of his own emotions. In one of the group’s games, a kind of training on ropes in trees (similar to tree climbing and with the use of safety equipment), young people stay 18 meters above the ground, which forces them to deal with fear and stress so that they have more confidence in their own abilities.

Logan says his biggest idol is an alpine skier he calls a “hacker”. It is not about “hacking” computers (the original meaning of the term), but stereotypes. “Many people believe that hackers are obsessed with computers and that they filter viruses everywhere. But I don’t believe it. For me, hackers are first and foremost innovators. These are people who challenge and change the system, making it work differently, better. They are people with an out-of-the-ordinary thinking.”

Logan is convinced that the world needs more people with ways of thinking similar to those of Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, for example. But he makes it clear that this is not just about technology development. There are many things, according to the young man, that can be “hacked”. For example sports, education, medicine and even the way of life.

Finally, even though he’s only 13, Logan says he’s thinking about starting his own business. He always liked skiing and, therefore, decided to start sewing clothes for skiers. With the conscience of a more experienced entrepreneur, he started his project by visiting a factory that produces skis and accessories to understand what types of equipment and machines he would need. Not long after, he landed a position as a production assistant with the aim of improving his skills in the areas of design and sewing. Aware that you start at the bottom, Logan made deliveries, cleaned restrooms, and offered all kinds of help to his colleagues. According to him, those were his best days because, at the factory, he met happy and creative people doing what they really liked.

“Snow makes me happy. And it’s a good metaphor for my life, my hacker-style upbringing. If everyone skied down the mountain the same way many people view education, everyone would go down the same route, the safest one. Only most of the snow would remain intact. I look at all this and see thousands of possibilities: jumping off a snowy rock, freestyle on a ramp, sliding from one ledge to another… and, the way I begin to imagine, I understood what I want to be when I grow up. If you ask me, I just know that I want to be happy.”Logan concludes.

Do you believe in the education model proposed by Logan? Or, in his opinion, this education system …