TED Talk Analysis: "Childhood Poverty"

Bert Lubin
Google images

Dr. Bert Lubin delivered his TED talk titled “Childhood Poverty” on October 3, 2013 at a TEDx conference in Golden Gate Park.  Lubin is the CEO of Oakland Children’s Hospital, where children are not required to pay for treatment, so the audience most likely assumed that the speech would involve many health statistics and explanations.  Most members of the audience probably had a basic understanding of what poverty is, but they lacked the ability to see all the details of how poverty could have a direct correlation with health.  Before watching the speech, I expected a well-researched description of how poverty relates to health in children because Lubin is a healthcare professional.  The purpose that Lubin gives for delivering this TEDx talk was to persuade the audience into believing that poverty is all citizens’ responsibility in order to improve the healthcare in America.

Screenshot Taken during speech

Lubin’s delivery of the speech had its ups and downs.  What he did effectively was show how passionate he was about the topic.  When he repeated that “poverty should be considered a disease,” it was easy to see that he believed what he was saying and wanted everyone else to think the same.  Another good thing about the delivery was the PowerPoint visual aid.  The slides displayed facts, and drew the audience’s attention to keep them engaged.  That being said, Lubin read straight from the slides and struggled with changing them at the correct times.  Overall, his delivery was well executed but not the most effective it could have been.  I think it could have been improved by more practice with the PowerPoint, and perhaps by extra rehearsals of the speech to eliminate the extra pauses.

Screenshot of Lubin's slides

As for the content of the talk, all of the information provided was researched and relevant.  There were many times throughout the speech that Lubin offered a new statistic to shock the audience.  The main topic of the health effects developed through poverty was explained through sub details such as America’s poor use of healthcare money.  Lubin remains persuasive throughout the speech that poverty needs to be better funded and examined in terms of being a disease.  He mentions that children cannot help what income they are born into, but he counters that if America were to better relocate funds in healthcare, then these children would not have to live such unhealthy lives.  One way that Lubin could have improved the speech is by keeping the speech more on topic.  His use of stories is an effective way to keep the audience engaged, but not all of the stories easily related back to poverty and children.

This TEDx talk relates to my service learning organization because it deals with children living in poverty.  Most of the cakes made by Sweet Blessings go to underprivileged children, and learning about these children’s lives helps me to better appreciate the service that Sweet Blessings is doing.  By showing these children compassion through a personal cake, Sweet Blessings is essentially following what Lubin mentioned about helping those living in poverty directly.  I found this TED talk online at:

Childhood Poverty

A TED Talk Analysis: Living Beyond Limits

Photo from Google Images 

Recently, I watched a TED talk entitled, "Living Beyond Limits." The TED talk was presented in May 2011 by Amy Purdy at an independently organized TED event, TEDxOrangeCoast, in Costa Mesa, California. Amy Purdy lost both of her legs below the knee at age 19 due to meningitis. Although Purdy was depressed for months, she eventually created a pair of prosthetic legs that allowed her to continue her love of snowboarding. Today, Purdy is a world champion adaptive female snowboarder, has appeared on dancing with the stars, and has co-founded an organization that helps athletes with injuries adapt. 

Photo from Google Images

Purdy started off her speech by describing how her imagination ran wild as a child and how she couldn't wait to "write her own story" in life. When she was 19, however, she was hospitalized with meningitis and, over a two month period, lost her spleen, kidneys, the hearing in her left ear, and both of her legs below the knee. Purdy described how she laid in bed for months, thinking about how she could never travel like she had always wanted or have an incredible story. She eventually realized that she had to "let go of the Old Amy and embrace the New Amy." Four months later, she started snowboarding again and created her own prosthetic legs that enabled her to snowboard. Purdy won two back to back world cup gold medals, becoming the highest ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world. She helped create an organization for other people with disabilities and even traveled to South Africa to help children attend school. Purdy ended her speech by saying, "Imagination can be used as a tool for breaking through borders." Her message was that facing fears and believing in dreams are what allow people to live beyond their limits. Limitations should be considered blessings because they allow for challenge and imagination to run wild. 

Photo from Google Images 

I really enjoyed this TED talk because of the inspirational message that Amy Purdy delivered. Life is filled with limitations, but imagination and effort can allow us to live beyond them. I believe this TED talk can be related to Sweet Blessings. Sweet Blessings is an organization that sends God's message to children to show them that they are loved and not alone. The children that Sweet Blessings sends cakes to are each faced with limitations, whether it be poverty or illness. Just like Amy Purdy, Sweet Blessings believes that children are more than these limitations and are capable of anything they imagine. 

Photo from Google Images

Based on the title and knowing the basic information about Amy Purdy, I believe that the audience of her TED talk was aware of her situation and challenges she had faced in life. I also believe that the audience expected to hear about her situation and feelings in depth and to be inspired to live beyond their limitations, just as I expected.

Amy Purdy did an exceptional job delivering this TED talk. She made great eye contact and her body language added to the effect of her speech and showed her passion for the topic. It was very evident that Purdy had strong feelings about her overall message. For example, as Purdy began talking about how she was "physically and emotionally broken" after losing her legs, tears were streaming down her face. However, she asked herself, "If my life were a book and I was an author, how would I want this story to go?" There was excitement in her voice, face, and gestures as she began to talk about how she didn't let her limitations stop her. Her passion is what made this speech great, and it was very appropriate as an inspiring TED talk. 

Photo from Google Images

To improve her speech, I believe that Purdy could have incorporated more visuals. This would have added more emotion and passion to her speech. For example, when she displayed a picture of herself laying in bed from depression, it was very effective in displaying how emotional the experience was for her. More visual aid in her presentation would have created a more inspirational speech. 

Overall, Amy Purdy's TED talk was very inspirational and a must watch. 

 https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_purdy_living_beyond_limits?language=en

TED Talk Analysis - A Human Approach to Child Poverty

Metiria Turei; retrieved from tedxtalks.ted.com

Metiria Turei gave her TED Talk on December 7,2013 at Ted x Homebush Rd Women Conference in Willington, New Zealand. The purpose of the conference is to spread diverse ideas about, for, and from women from different walks of life. Turei is a New Zeland Parliament member and the female co-leader of the Green Party. She advocates for and creates policy for issues including social equity, education, electoral reform, housing, and children. Going into the TED Talk, the audience would expect for her to speak on the same issues and further dive into why she supports a specific topic. On the other hand, I viewed the speech with little knowledge of Turei or her ideas. I simply expected a speech that would address the issue of child poverty outside of the United States.

Turei excelled in certain areas of her speech. The content was appropriate for the audience, and she started off with a personal story to engage the audience. She displayed images that accompanied what she was speaking about. Examples of the images that she showed include a photo of what she perceived her childhood house to look like, and a photo of a playhouse that is similar to what she thought she had growing up. In addition to showing relevant images, Turei was effective in explaining theories that might not be previously known by the audience. She explained the theory of headology by saying that what you believe is real, is real. She further ingrained this idea in the audience by providing examples and metaphors. Finally, I believe that Turei presented her personal beliefs in an effective manner.

Turei started with logical ideas and theories to introduce her line of thinking without bringing up specific policy issues. As a parliament member, she could have easily gone off track and tried to garner political support. Instead, she challenges the audience to look through the eyes of a child to truly understand them. She provides examples such as children blaming themselves for their parents' divorces and being affected by family finances. The opposition was presented when Turei noted that New Zealand IS a great place to grow up as a kid, but not all children have the same positive experience.  In support of her own thoughts, she calls on the ideas other worldwide thinkers such as Roberto Unger's stance on freedom. Her perspective is effectively communicated when she refers back to a specific child (Amber) who wears her grandmother's old shoes. Turei concludes her speech with a powerful line. She says, "If it's what our kids need to be deeply free, then that's good enough for me." While there are many areas of her TED Talk that Turei did well at, there are parts of her delivery and content that could have been improved upon.

Turei uses video clips of speaking puppets to convey New Zealand children's real thoughts.

The visuals incorporated into Turei's TED Talk were relevant to her speech, however, they were used too frequently that they became distracting. She used video clips of speaking puppets as a representation of real children. This was a great idea that allowed her to protect the children's identities, but Turei failed to introduce the clips. Sometimes, they would even cut her off before she finished speaking. Turei could improve the delivery of her speech by varying the pitch and tone of her voice. By failing to add voice variation, she lost my attention throughout her speech. Overall, Turei was able to convey her stance on child poverty in a well organized manner without pushing political policy.

To view Metiria Turei's TED Talk, visit http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/A-Human-Approach-to-Child-Pover

TED Talk Analysis: "Meet the Future of Cancer Research"

Screenshot taken from TED.com

The TED Talk I chose to watch was of a 19-year-old girl named Eva Vertes who is a cancer researcher and has already made some major discoveries in the science field. This Talk she gave was in February of 2005 (so she is currently thirty years old) in Monterey, California. The purpose of her presenting this speech was to discuss her findings so far in the field of cancer from reading others' work and to present her hypotheses she plans to research in the near future. I chose to analyze this Talk because my topic for my argument essay was childhood cancer. At Sweet Blessings, many of the children that we make birthday cakes for are suffering from life-threatening diseases such as cancer. Although Vertes does not specifically speak about cancer in children, she speaks of a way in which she believes cancer can be cured and maybe even prevented. 

Screenshot taken from TED.com

I don't know specifically, but I assume many of the audience members in this TED Talk were researchers themselves. These audience members more than likely knew quite a bit about the current cancer research that has been done in the past and currently. These researchers probably came to this TED Talk expecting to broaden their minds on the possibilities of future research in this field, and perhaps to even spark some ideas in their own minds. However, I also suspect there were some audience members who may not have known as much about this topic. When I clicked on this TED Talk, I didn't expect Vertes to present a cure for cancer (seeing that this was 2005 and there is no cure today), but rather I expected to learn new ways in which researchers have tried or are trying to defeat cancer.

Screenshot taken from TED.com

One thing I believe Vertes did well in her speech was providing adequate explanations. Every time she would talk about a process in the body, she would be sure to describe what it was and how it worked. This was very beneficial to audience members like me who are unfamiliar with many of these. For example, she talked about metastases, which I personally had never heard of. But after she explained that it is when a piece of a cancer tumor breaks off and travels through the blood stream to a different part of the body, it was easy to understand the rest of the Talk. Another thing that I thought Vertes did well was to use her hands to make gestures as she spoke. Although this may be distracting to some people, I personally think it was helpful to keep the audience focused and to not drift off. Also, it showed that she really understood and was passionate about what she was saying.

Vertes' hypothesis was that somehow cancer cells could be used to treat cancer if they were manipulated in the right way. Of course she likely didn't know how exactly at the time, but I think it would have been interesting to hear her thoughts of how it should be manipulated so that it can heal itself. Also, although I likely would have been the same way, Vertes stuttered often during her Talk. If she could have slowed her speech just a little, I believe she could have avoided this. Overall Eva Vertes gave a very compelling speech. It was very inspiring to see such a young woman who had already done so much in her lifetime. Below you can find the link for her TED Talk. 

"Meet the Future of Cancer Research" by Eva Vertes