TED Talk 6

Dave Eggers' wish: Once Upon a School

Once upon a time, I was a 15-year-old girl. I had just started high school in San Francisco. I moved there from a small town in Texas, and I did not have many friends. I spoke little English, though no one else in my family did. I had a hard time in school. I did not understand most of what went on at school. But I still tried. My teachers all said I was too shy. I could not help it. What more could I do? I was getting desperate. One day I was walking down Valencia Street. I saw a sign that said "Free Tutoring". (If anyone needed that, I did). It looked like a pirate store. Although it was odd, I decided to give it a try. Hesitantly I walked in, unsure of what to expect, but desperately hoping someone could help me. At first all I saw were peg legs, eye patches and a list of practical jokes. As I walked further and further in- getting more and more uneasy with each step-it opened up into a vast but homey room. It was a wonderland. There were kids at every table, getting help individually from teachers. It was school, but not really. There was a feel about it that made me feel like I was not different from any other kid that walked in there. Someone quickly asked me what I needed, and then I proceeded to get help from a nice lady who helped me learn more English. Oh, how it helped. At school, I was not falling behind, but rather slowly starting to get ahead. Every day I learned. Every day I grew. I yearned to go back every day to this pirate tutor place. I looked forward to it every day. I loved it. When I went to school everyday I had confidence that I could learn and succeed. And I did. When I went home every night, I had all my homework done, so I was able to help my family more. I taught my younger brother English, and eventually both my parents. Because of that, my brother was successful in school too. Oh, how grateful I am to the thoughtful people who thought up that small shop, 826 Valencia, so that my life could change for the better. I cannot even imagine what my life would have been like otherwise.

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Dave Eggers is not only a writer, but also a publisher, philanthropist, and an advocate for students and teachers. He has written three books, and has an independent publishing house. It is no surprise that his tutoring lab, 826 Valencia, was a huge success, and even grew, with 6 more chapters throughout the United States.

Once upon a time, Dave Eggers lived in Brooklyn, among many other writers and teachers. After hearing several complaints and concerns from teachers that they could not get enough time 1 on 1 with the students, he decided to do something about it. After moving to San Francisco, he, with others, bought a space on Valencia Street, and named it 826 Valencia. They turned it into a tutoring center, which made "profit" by selling pirate supplies. At first it was hard to get it started, but after it got rolling, it became a huge success. Kids loved it. It felt different from school. They were more successful, and felt more hope. They went home and could spend more time with their families, and that made more happy families. More happy families created happy societies, cities, and world, idealistically. Over time it grew bigger and bigger, and in addition to just tutoring kids after school, it allowed whole classes to come in for fieldtrips, and even went into schools and taught classes and helped the students that would not necessarily come to them. The classes and individual students wrote books. They were eventually published and sold in the pirate store, where they started making money. The kids worked extra hard on these, because they knew that they would be published and put out on a shelf for people to read, and they knew that no one could change their work. It was a success because the store was public, street level, and open. The tutoring center was based off of optimism and success, and made a huge difference to the students that walked in there. It proved the point that school and writing can be fun. It inspired many other shoot-offs, such as a superhero one in Brooklyn, and many others across America. Since then a website, called Once Upon a School, was also created. He then ended his talk with a TED wish: "I wish that you - you personally and every creative individual and organization you know - will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved, so that within a year we have 1,000 examples of transformative partnerships." He wants each person to do something they can to help out schools and students wherever they are. There are kids out there who do not know what they can really be. We need to help them see that.

I really enjoyed listening to Dave Eggers' TED talk about his tutoring center. It really intrigued me to hear how he took a simple complaint from a teacher and did something about it, rather than just blowing it off. He found a way to make the world a better place, and he literally did do that. I have never heard of anything like this, especially how they merged it with a pirate store, so that they were able to use that space on Valencia Street for their organization. I loved how it was free, and the kids could feel comfortable coming, and getting help. I am sure many lives were changed and people helped from this, and the off-shoots of this organization. And it all started because of an idea. A creative idea that had the potential to change lives, such as the made-up one above. I know personally that I could do more of this, because although I am in school, and I do lots of activities with my church, I am not very involved in the community, and making lives better. I could definitely strive to work harder to come up with ideas and make them grow into something. This largely relates to education, because of the direct connection to the help it gave students in writing and reading. It was remarkable to me that 1 on 1 time would raise a student's grade up a whole grade. If every community started organizations like this, the world would prosper. Like Dave Eggers said, it would make families, and in turn, communities, cities, and the world happier. Education is such a huge part of our world, and it is emphasized so much. For the kids that struggle, it is a necessity for them to find resources to help them find a way that they can learn just like everyone else. I think these types of organizations are needed more around the world, and if Dave Eggers' wish came true, it would affect the world 100-fold. What a difference one idea makes. And the other part is, that it was non-profit to begin. It all started with intrinsic motivation: that drive to do something for the community, to help others in need. It slowly turned into a small profit, but that was because of the fruits of the labors of many people, and because of the work that all those students made. Even still, the main purpose was not to make money. It was to make a difference.

In his TED talk, Dave Eggers used several techniques that made his talk more intriguing. At first, he started by thanking everyone at TED, which was interesting, because no other person has done the same, that I have seen. Then he proceeded to teach the audience about his organization, in a story-type format. He went through each city he lived in, and the steps that built off each other to eventually get to the final product of 826 Valencia. It was easier to listen to his talk when he talked in this manner, because I could picture the progression. He also used the screen a lot to show pictures of what the inside of the store/tutoring center looked like. That way, it was easier for the audience to picture what he was talking about. If he had just said that they made a pirate supply shop and merged it with a tutoring center, it would sound crazy. But after seeing pictures of it, it was much easier to understand and picture. Another prominent technique that Dave Eggers used was humor. When he got nervous, which is very normal, he would make a joke about it, so it was not as awkward for him or the audience. It made the atmosphere more comfortable and not so stiff. Plus, numerous times during his talk, he made sly jokes that made the audience laugh. He did it in a way that was classy, and did not stray from the topic. He was able to stay on track, but still keep the audience engaged. A last strategy I noticed Dave Eggers using was notes. He had several papers on a stand, and he kept referring to them. I have not seen any other speaker do this during a TED talk, so I was intrigued that he could do that. Although it was not as professional, it was very understandable that he could not remember all that information and the order, especially when he was nervous. At some points, it did distract from the talk, but not often.