TED演講稿三分鐘.doc

ted imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 ft. imagine a plane full of smoke. imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. it sounds scary. well i had a unique seat that day. i was sitting in 1d. i was the only one who can talk to the flight attendants. so i looked at them right away, and they said, no problem. we probably hit some birds. the pilot had already turned the plane around, and we werent that far. you could see manhattan.e1d(:ted) two minutes later, 3 things happened at the same time. the pilot lines up the plane with the hudson river. thats usually not the route. he turns off the engines. now imagine being in a plane with no sound. and then he says 3 words-the most unemotional 3 words ive ever heard. he says, brace for impact.i didnt have to talk to the flight attendant anymore. i could see in her eyes, it was terror. life was over.now i want to share with you 3 things i learned about myself that day. i leant that it all changes in an instant. we have this bucket list, we have these things we want to do in life, and i thought about all the people i wanted to reach out to that i didnt, all the fences i wanted to mend, all the experiences i wanted to have and i never did. as ithought about that later on, i came up with a saying, which is, collect bad wines. because if the wine is ready and the person is there, im opening it. i no longer want to postpone anything in life. and that urgency, that purpose, has really changed my life. the second thing i learnt that day - and this is as we clear the george washington bridge, which was by not a lot - i thought about, wow, i really feel one real regret, ive lived a good life. in my own humanity and mistaked, ive tired to get better at everything i tried. but in my humanity, i also allow my ego to get in. and i regretted the time i wasted on things that did not matter with people that matter. and i thought about my relationship with my wife, my friends, with people. and after, as i reflected on that, i decided to eliminate negative energy from my life. its not perfect, but its a lot better. ive not had a fight with my wife in 2 years. it feels great. i no longer try to be right; i choose to be happy.that sadness really framed in one thought, which is, i only wish for one thing. i only wish i could see my kids grow up.151413 20about a month later, i was at a performance by my daugter -first-grade, not much artistic talent. yet. and i m balling, im crying, like a little kid. and it made all the sense in the world to me. i realized at that point by connecting those two dots, that the only thing that matters in my life is being a great dad. above all, above all, the only goal i have in life is to be a good dad.i challenge you guys that are flying today, imagine the same thinghappens on your plane - and please dont - but imagine, and how would you change? what would you get done that youre waiting to get done because you think youll be here forever? how would you change your relationtships and the negative energy in them? and more than anything, are you being the best parent you can?thank you.ted -fide.fidefide-fidefidefide-19fidejohn locke1561rudyard kipling-nkali,ted-3030but sadly, today, languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. a language dies every 14 days. now, at the same time, english is the undisputed global language. could there be a connection? well i dont know. but i do know that ive seen a lot of changes. when i first came out to the gulf, i came to kuwait in the days when it was still a hardship post. actually,not that long ago. that is a little bit too early. but nevertheless, i was recruited by the british council along with about 25other teachers. and we were the first non-muslims to teach in the state schools there in kuwait. we were brought to teach english because the government wanted to modernize the country and empower the citizens through education. and of course, the u.k. benefited from some of that lovely oil wealth. 1425okay. now this is the major change that ive seen - how teaching english has morphed from being a mutuallyenglish-speaking nation on earth. and why not? after all, the best education - according to the latest world university rankings - is to be found in the universities of the u.k. and the u.s. so everybody wants to have an english education, naturally. but if youre not a native speaker, you have to pass a test.now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic abilitywell, i dont think so. we english teachers reject them all the time. we put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. they cant pursue their dream any longer, till they get english. now let me put it this way, if i met a dutchspeaker who had the cure for cancer, would i stop him from entering my british university? i dont think so. but indeed, that is exactly what we do. we english teachers are thegatekeepers. and you have to satisfy us first that your english is good enough. now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. maybe the barrier would be too universal.okay. but, i hear you say, what about the research? its all in english. so the books are in english, the journals are done in english, but that is a self-fulfilling . it feeds the english requirement. and so it goes on. i ask you, what happened to translation? if you think about the islamicgolden age, there was lots of translation then. they translated from latin and greek into arabic, into persian, and then it was translated on into the germanic languages of europe and the romance languages. and so light shone upon the dark ages of europe. now dont get me wrong; i am not against teaching english, all you english teachers out there. i love it that we have a global language. we need one today more than ever. but i am against using it as a barrier. do we really want to end up with 600 languages and the main one being english, or chinese? we need more than that. where do we draw the line? this system equates intelligence with a knowledge of english which is quite .?600and i want to remind you that the giants upon whoseshoulders todays stand did not have to haveenglish, they didnt have to pass an english test. case in point, einstein. he, by the way, was considered remedial at school because he was, in fact, dyslexic. but fortunately for the world, he did not have to pass an english test. because they didnt start until 1964 with toefl, the american test of english. now its exploded. there are lots and lots of tests of english. and millions and millions of students take these tests every year. now you might think, you and me, those fees arent bad, theyre okay, but they are prohibitive to so many millions of poor people. so immediately, were rejecting them.,1964 it brings to mind a headline i saw recently: education: the great divide. now i get it, i understand why people would focus on english. they want to give their children the best chance in life. an