TEDxLjubljana#1
Duration:
19 minutes and 58 seconds
Country:
Slovenia
Language:
Slovenian
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Video Podcast
Producer:
TEDxLjubljana
Director:
TEDxLjubljana
Views:
125
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Posted by:
tedxvideo on Jul 6, 2009
dr. Andrej Bauer
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Video Transcription
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- Thank you for showing up in such a number.
- I discovered TED Talks about three months ago
- and when last Wednesday -- they gave me a lot of time --
- they appeared in my office, I thought: "This won't work."
- Then I tried to try and see if I can put together something interesting.
- If I understood the organisers correctly, I was supposed to talk about education.
- At TED Talks
- you can find some very interesting talks on education
- and I am very happy, that we'll see one of those later.
- That is one of my favourite talks.
- It pays off to stay until the end.
- So I have no other choice but to do something else.
- I can't simulate
- Sir Robinson.
- I decided to tell some personal experience about
- how it is to be a teacher and
- a master. You will ... I will explain why
- master.
- Often ... Here I see you're mostly students, right?
- Some of them are mine. I don't know if you ever thought
- how the teacher experiences
- the teaching process.
- What I see from my side. So I would start with
- how I dress. Previous week my father,
- after coming from the faculty, asked me:
- "This is how you go the faculty? To lecture?
- I dress like this for the fields on the farm."
- Then I thought,
- there is no big difference.
- He has to water the potatoes the whole day,
- so that it grows, while I have to lecture the whole day,
- so that you grow. Well, but if
- I am more serious. The first thing
- I bump into as the teacher, every year we start
- every year -- I teach the second year students --
- when I come into the classroom, there is this wall
- in front of me. Then I need to work really hard,
- I have to work for two months,
- to have some students appear behind this wall.
- And I am sure, if I wore a tie to the lectures,
- it would took four months instead of two,
- so I am wearing this.
- This is the first,
- first experience I ever have.
- Nobody wants to talk to me.
- I was lucky enough to go to school abroad.
- Already in high-school I was attending Devin,
- where they have this international college.
- It was great there.
- We were without the parents and we were 18.
- It was great. But mostly
- we were also educated in a very different way.
- They could afford to have
- classes with ten students and now, I can tell you
- that any teacher would want to have classes with ten students
- instead of thirty or hundred. Then I went on
- to the United States and that is from where I brought
- many methods, with which I think,
- I operate today.
- So the first thing I bump into, is how very very hard it is
- to talk to students.
- For example, students don't want to answer questions.
- We can try it right away. How much
- is two plus three? ... (Five) ...
- So? No, no ...
- I didn't hear anything.
- Nobody, who would talk to me.
- Well, this is the best you can get. In time they
- soften up, as they see I am not totally normal.
- This relaxes them a bit.
- But what I want to say, that as the teacher
- I have to work really really hard -- at least here --
- to have somebody talking to me.
- I am not blaming anybody for this
- Probably sometimes in the elementary school kids are thought
- not to talk to the teacher.
- But ... this is one thing
- you need to go trough. Actually the main thing,
- I want to talk to you about, is that I would like to compare
- two very different things.
- On one side, I am a maths teacher, I give lectures at the faculty of mathematics.
- I took a picture of this today. Whatever it was on the board, I took it.
- Now, here on the board, what do you see here?
- Here you can see, it is not very visible, but here you can see
- the definition of the universal and existential
- quantifier, but I won't, don't worry, I won't
- explain this. On the other side, already for some time
- I am training aikido. I am the one, who will fall on his head here.
- For some time I am training aikido
- and I am also teaching it. Here and there
- as a teacher
- I experience some thing, which are very different
- from how we teach things here
- normally
- in school.
- I want to compare this. Here
- the students are used to
- the teacher does everything. Actually,
- in the previous talk we've heard all the things
- which the teacher does in class. He's lecturing, correcting,
- grading, but we've heard nothing what the students to.
- That's how it is.
- The teacher must do everything.
- I don't think this is very wise.
- The students should work more then the teachers.
- I already know the things I lecture. They should be working.
- This is normally solved
- by giving people homeworks.
- You know this doesn't really work.
- Specially at the university.
- I don't know why,
- but the students don't want to do homework.
- Homework is repulsive, isn't it?
- I know ... In aikido things are totally different.
- In aikido people are doing things for years
- without even knowing,
- why they do them.
- Year after year they are doing them.
- This. And that.
- They don't know why. And then ... nobody tells them.
- And nobody tries to tell them.
- And it's good that nobody tries to tell them.
- The system is totally different, Japanese. Aikido carries
- a lot of philosophy, in particular Zen Buddhism.
- It's founder was a member of such a sect.
- So it contains a lot of eastern philosophy
- and also tradition, so some things are different.
- For example, there are no competitions.
- It's like there were no grades at school.
- If somebody does not want
- to learn aikido, they don't have to.
- I wonder how it would be, if aikido was compulsory in schools.
- Then things would change. And for years you are doing things,
- you don't understand. And then some day you say: "Aha,
- this is why I was doing this for eight years."
- You don't get this in schools a lot. In school, everybody wants to know
- from the beginning, what something is good for.
- So, this is the difference.
- But they both actually have
- something in common,
- from my perspective as a teacher. That is
- I can't be a good teacher
- if I don't have authority. I think that I, as a teacher,
- have to have absolute authority in the classroom.
- No law can limit me.
- Of course if I
- beat somebody, well, if I did it in aikido nothing
- would happen. But if I was going to do it in class then
- of course I'd have to answer to that. This
- wouldn't be right. On the other hand I have to have
- the authority. So there is some discrepancy.
- The question is how to build the authority. And
- as far as I can see, the only way to build the
- teacher's authority is the knowledge. If I
- can show to the students that I know something and
- I know how to forward them this knowledge, then this
- is much better authority than any tie. Or any law,
- any regulation or
- threat with lower grade or anything else.
- So, this is something that I'm trying
- to say to those who are or who want to be teachers.
- You can't be successful teachers
- if you don't have enough knowledge.
- It's not working this way.
- This is why I get concerned sometimes. When I look at the grades
- my students get,
- there are students on pedagogical direction and students on research direction.
- and the curve is like this. Like this.
- There are two slopes. This is called
- bimodal curve. And those
- who are on pedagogical direction...What do you think,
- which slope is theirs? The lower or
- the upper? They are almost always
- in the lower. Of course there are some bright exceptions but the statistics says
- they're in the lower. This is
- weird. This is the same as crop of potatoes,
- that one that my father produces, being
- collected from
- the earth and being sellected and we'd
- eat all the thick potatoes and leave the small ones for the seed every year.
- It's the same philosophy.
- I don't know if this is smart. I think
- it's not. I think I even remember one episode
- of Planet of the apes when that alien, when he fell onto the Planet of the apes
- he tried to tell the apes that you can't do that.
- And they didn't listen to him. Yes, well,
- since I'm a teacher I can't get out of my skin so
- I have to teach you something. I can't just
- talk what teaching is like.
- I think I can try to teach you two things:
- something from aikido and something
- from mathematics. Let's start with aikido, you can see here
- what is going to happen. Do we have any
- volunteer?
- (restlesness)
- We have a volunteer.
- I've had prepared two scenarios.
- One in case there is no volunteer and one in case there is.
- Hi! (Nice to meet you. Matjaž.) Matjaž.
- Matjaž, you're going, you're going to be a kind of a brute now
- who comes in and starts bullying here
- that you want a wallet. OK? But,
- first, if you can just go out.
- We'll call you when we
- need you, yes. Just wait outside.
- OK. So, as I had said,
- aikido has one really
- funny philosophy in a way our people are not used to it.
- The first one is that you
- avoid the conflict if you can. OK,
- let's continue with the next chapter.
- So...
- I'd like to show you something from mathematics.
- (applause)
- The only question is if we want to have mercy
- or not. But I'm afraid that when he comes in
- he'll be annoying.
- You are recording, right?
- He can see later what we were talking about.
- OK. I bought this today in Merkur
- and it cost less than 40 cents.
- So, I'd like to show you one thing.
- Why? So you can see that if you know how to think right
- about things and tell them to somebody then
- people will understand, even if
- they really don't have the appropriate knowledge.
- What I'm trying to explain here is something from
- four-dimensional topology. This is a generalization
- of geometry. And I'm going to start like this:
- Have you ever asked yourself, how,
- for example you wake up in the bed one morning and you ask yourself:
- "U, what kind of dimension is the place where I'm living?"
- We all know that it's three-dimensional.
- But why is it three-dimensional?
- Let's say, I'm just looking around; but how do I know it's three-dimensional?
- Topologists deal with these kind of things.
- They like to think about these things. Mathematicians think a lot about a lot
- of strange things. Well, let me tell you what they have figured out.
- Do you see this wall here?
- Do you see this isolation?
- That is made out of these rectangles.
- How many rectangles connect together? Three, right?
- You have a point where there are three connected together.
- Do you see? Here. Yes?
- OK? Look at the ceiling. They are put in different way
- but still there are four that connect together, right?
- Yes? Now, if we made a very strange form we could connect five,
- like this, some triangles.
- But can you go through also with less than three?
- Can you, for example, build a house
- with only two bricks always sticking together
- or are there some points where there are three bricks connected?
- (answering from the audiance)
- The bricks are final. Somewhere is the end of them.
- They are not like this around the universe.
- Or a parquet.
- There are also points where there are three parts together.
- Why? Because you live in three-dimensional world.
- This is the answer.
- You look. So, if in the morning you want to check
- what the dimension of the place where you're living is,
- you look on the wall and you see something put together
- or a parquet, you have something at home,
- you look and you say: "Aha, it's dimension three again today!"
- Well, a person then asks himself: "But why do we live in three-dimensional place?
- Why not for example in two or four or five or six?"
- And the answer, as it seems,
- is really simple. The answer is that we live in three-dimensional world,
- so we can tie a knot on shoelaces.
- Have you ever thought about this?
- I'm warning you:
- what I'm explaining right now is very serious topology.
- Topologists study something that is called knots.
- These, for example, are knots.
- What is the difference between these two things?
- (answering from the audience)
- Have you noticed how people started answering?
- There were more people answering
- what the difference between these two knots is
- than how much is two plus three.
- This is a knot, right? This one is not a knot, right?
- Because we can untie it right? Yes?
- OK? Every knot can be untied in four dimensions.
- That means that if you tie your shoelaces
- they will -- you can't tie them. They are untied all the time.
- Ha, but how
- can you see this?
- We can imagine knots in three dimensions
- because, well, because
- brain works like this,
- it can imagine three dimensions because it's useful.
- But, how can you imagine a knot in four dimensions?
- Well, somehow you have to imagine fourth dimension.
- Let's say, if you watch TV Slovenija --
- -- if you watch POP TV, you'll never hear this --
- but if you watch TV Slovenija, then you might hear
- the fourth dimension is time.
- There is a problem with time that we're used to it
- going forward all the time. This is the same as someone told you
- that the second dimension was height but you'd
- walk only uphill your whole life. Then it would
- be very difficult to imagine what was going down like.
- This is why we can present colours in some other way
- --now you got me-- fourth dimension.
- We can present it with colours.
- You can imagine that the colour represents that
- fourth dimension.
- So if there are two points
- in different colours in the knot
- it means they are really in different
- point in the fourth dimension.
- Which means that if knot crosses itself,
- in the moment,
- when it crosses itself, if points are in the same colour,
- then it really does cross itself. But if those two points,
- where the knot crosses itself, are in different colours
- then it doesn't cross itself for real, then this only
- means that we see on the picture like there is a crossing
- but it doesn't cross in the fourth dimension.
- Can we now colour the knot so
- we can untie it later?
- It's wrong how I coloured it. Because,
- you see, here, the blue colour repeats twice.
- The green colour also twice.
- But if I went around the knot so that each point on the knot
- was in one exact colour of the rainbow,
- then anyhow I'd deal with it, there would be no crossing in the fourth dimension
- and I'd just open it and get a circle.
- In the fourth dimension, in four dimensions there are no knots.
- Now...For the end,
- I really need two volunteers now.
- ...
- Come here.
- Topologists also, topologists like to
- deal with all the things you
- can't do.
- For example...
- We are going to see now also how a student at first fails
- and then with a lot of practice might learn.
- OK?
- Without dropping the rope. And
- not those things from kindergarden when you start like this but
- when you start like this, without dropping the rope, we tie
- this. Can you do it?
- Let's say, I don't know, you go like this
- bellow.
- Yes,
- have you dropped it? Well, show me again.
- Yes, well, how? You hold it like this,
- you hold it like this...
- The important part, the important part of my task is that he understands
- what I want from him. OK, yes.
- Hold like this, you mustn't drop it.
- Well, what does your brain tell you? Can you do it?
- No, at the end it has to be like this, nice.
- Look, like this. Here,
- you can try something and a litlle like this. That's right, something like this.
- (laughter)
- Maybe I have special rope.
- Well, let me teach you.
- Slowly. I'm using this to tease my colleagues - topologists.
- I come to them, I do like this, zak zak, and they stare.
- They even have theorems stating you can't do this.
- You only think you can't do this - they know it.
- Like this,
- that's right, like this. You two again.
- You put it like this and you put it
- over here and you put it through
- that loop closer to you, in, in and over
- the other one out. And here
- out, look, out, that's right. Like this, like this.
- And now, then you just
- shake it down and you have a knot.
- ...
- You see? You have to motivate the student
- so that later, when it's over,
- that later when it's over,
- he goes home and thinks about what you had just told him.
- Let's do it again.
- Like this, that's right,
- here in through this one closer to you and out,
- that's right, there yes, and out through
- the other one, like this. Yes. Yes. That's right.
- Give your hand out now. And now just shake it.
- (laughter)
- That's it, yes. Well, you'll have to practice more at home.
- I'm giving you these two ropes. Thank you. Thank you very much.
- (applause)
- (applause)
- A a a. (laughter)
- Why didn't you come in?
- Yes. Well, it's over now.


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