they grew up in an all many of -- -male environment. once they got that encouraged not just their wives but daughters to take their place in the world. they never wined and whimpered. ..

>> at evening, we are here in north carolina and thank you all so much for coming out tonight. i'm just going to talk for a few moments, and then we would like

to the if there are any questions. we have some questions are coming from the audience. this book is a labor of a lot of people. when i started to become a writer, i realize it takes a huge organization to write a good book. this is a book that is published by this and he acknowledged the agency that helped make this possible. in the book came out in april of 2013 this year. and i have had a great time promoting insuring the book with people all across the country. it appears to be a world when. this is about the world peace and the geopolitical situations that situation that i create about 35 years ago i taught in richmond public schools in richmond, virginia. i was a beginning teacher, and i didn't know what i was doing. and i have no idea what to do,

really. but the key thing that i realized is that the geopolitical simulation of what to do. the author didn't know what to do. she asked me, what do you want to do. and you might have heard me say it before. but it really upset me. as a young teacher waiting for guidance, i wanted to have direction on how to do things well. and instead of giving specific directions, she opened this large big space in that empty space really became the template for everything that i was viewing after that. i had to create a curriculum because there wasn't any. i was teaching gifted and talented inner-city kids i would try to do with my good mentors

and listen to what they advised and they are interested and we have to teach remarks because they will be in charge. and so we have to have a boardgame. my school had a curriculum, i was teaching social studies, they allowed me to teach the

boardgames and we can put these two together. i think right around 1978, problem solved. it has just been part of the creek on. and we can use a modern term i put all three together and created the first 4-foot by 5-foot plywood board game called the world peace team. it was about africa. >> so we divided these students out into the teams. the objective was to solve the problems and make it more interesting. to actually prove all of the countries to each other at the same time. but we rose to the challenge, these ninth graders day. we have been playing the game ever since 1978.

later on i started to use fictional countries because i found out that they were bogging down and not winning the game after a few years. and i didn't know why. and i question them and it finally came to light. >> today the 4-foot by 5-foot plywood on the floor, is a 4-foot by 4-foot plexiglass that towers over most of my fourth graders. and this power emulates our earth. there are four layers.

there are four of four spooler sheet of plexiglass in can arrange, one of them that we can make it house based in between each layer horizontal. on each way we have hundreds of game pieces from hobby shops and toy stores and i collected them over the decades. the bottom level is called the undersea level and it includes undersea mining, coral reef, endangered species all under there. and then there is a space level on top over the heads of most of my fourth graders scattered with crystals, stars, space stations, research and asteroid mining and a black hole. the next level down is big things in common that we lose for clouds.

the things that we have here on earth, and the students are devising this into a poor four country teams. there is a prime minister, minister of defense, and a cfo or chief financial officer to some state eagerly want to play that role. so we have a weather goddess that handles this and the severity of extent or emergencies and we also have a

saboteur and sometimes if the student that is always in trouble and that student is my best student. i want to use that student skill set. so i are factored in, would you please use your ability to get in trouble so much and cause so much disruption to the good of the game and all the other students. and they juggle this. for that reason and it's a twofold job. we try to do that without confusion.

and they usually are briefly so as well. we all know that the person fair, we don't know who they are. the knowledge of that person's existence forces everyone to have to consider more deeply everything that is said in the room, every nuance and gesture and alliance and each one has a top-secret dossier. and they have documents they are linked to fines and fees and treaties it was connected to

every way possible and this is economic and military and social. everything else changes as much as possible. we really believe that they can handle it. we are thinking that we need to break things down into bite-size pieces. we give them the challenge and ask them to rise to it. middle range countries and economics is very important.

the game starts when we started hurting crises oil spills, endangered species, everything i could think of is all tied together is one big messy problem. and this is designed to fail massively at first. i think that failure is a part of life. we have taken the stigma out of it in the game. it is a condition that exit

and we like it to last a little bit longer. but they will alternate and in the way we are not protecting students from reality but in this appropriate way, having them work through failure as well as success, which also has this and immediately goes into despair because everything falls apart. and we have that kind of respect, we finally have not a teacher with 25 or 30 students, but we have 30 or 31 coteachers and they are empowered to take learning onto themselves for themselves. i'm famous for saying that i

don't know the answer, but it really is true. i often do not know the answer. and i don't know everything even though i am a so-called teacher. we can help each other. so with that sudden rephrasing of the question or redirecting of the question back to them, they think that he doesn't know, we have to help him. and it creates some compassion for me. they really want to help me. they're like, we have to put our heads together, we need to get out of this jam because he's not sure. so we built to work on problems together. i can't do that. all i can do is ask questions in line with the possible consequence, but they can do whatever they want and this is fair game. they can go to war if they want, they can can do espionage and have trade deals and have them be on balance or whatever they want. hopefully that environment they

learn what works and what does not. the remarkable thing is that after years and decades of doing this, is they always, always, always come out on the side of compassion. even though i put them in these situations to be reactionary and do the wrong thing, they still find their way through that to take care of everyone on the planet and solve all of the interlocking problems. every time i play the game i go in thinking that this is and would work this time. maybe maybe they will launch a nuclear weapon this time. i cannot stop them. but they never have and they come close a few times. it's been a pretty dark day because they have gone as far as humans will go. but they turn around on their own. and there is a moment when they all sort of understand that they are not playing against each

other i think that a couple of decades ago, where they seem to master everything, time seems to speed up or slow down to glacial speeds and they feel like they have been masters of their own universe and they can solve every problem, and they do. they saw them at that point reasonably and feasibly and sometimes they call a recess and check the internet to see if it's a possibility. and it flows over and it flows over four minutes or even an hour or so and it's miraculous to see. children in full power and

wisdom. every one of them was required. at the end, they reached that state. and they are going to attack each other for more reasons.

it is 30 years of data in a sense. and the filmmaker from virginia, charlottesville, they documented a film about this process. this is a very fiery young girl

in the next year she read in class, in a fifth-grade class. it took about a hundred dollars to get some fresh water at the freshwater well. and they had to transfer this may have a well put in to save lives. a 10-year-old girl with an idea inspired by her real-life experience in a simulation. and i don't know how you grade back. there's a lot of talk about grading and teaching to tests and that kind of thing.

and we are talking about the consistency of getting a letter grade. one individual that i know is a great consultant and he says that a test is a snapshot. when you're trying to get a big picture, you want a full amount to determine someone's day and the director, jamie baker, an eye, we travel around the world.

and what we find is there are so many great teachers in the world. astounding numbers we have the idea that everyone is falling apart. my experience is that there will be so many fantastic teachers and students are doing well in a lot of places. as we can see in the rearview mirror and see what we have done and get a good look at ourselves

and we can't see the landscape coming out in front of it. so that would be my only comment about that. so the film has been on public television across america. several times. a number of countries i believe that chris is very happy to have had a successful day. they all turned really well. we all came out at out at once. and my mother's gesture there, it was part of my gesture but

all of those experiences have gone into making every effort i can imagine an imagined to be. and so they owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of this teachers and we all do, really. we all have come from somewhere. somebody made it possible for us. without them we may not have survived.

and you hear about things in the book and that is just the tip of the iceberg. and a lot of community members are working hard just to try and we are talking about this book, not just about teachers, but about her education. again, i can talk all night, i'm happy to relate some stories.

so it is a lovely campus so chris went and showed the film. and they were excited. and it sounds good, i will accept it, i said. that sounds wonderful. but at the end of the screening, this well appointed young woman came up. and it's like him i'm sure we

will have some time in our schedules to come and see. we will make some time. so chris and i were invited to the defense department on behalf of the undersecretary of defense. and we had the most amazing revelation. and they play this geopolitical simulation, it had been screened and transferring four times in the pentagon. and we were stunned and it's the

oddest thing and there has been a space and we are tiring and suffering. we need answers wherever we can inspire. so you can imagine how i felt as a teacher. so my students rose to the challenge. we studied real world countries

to be prepared for the real world that we will be prepared for at the pentagon. the staff chief and a staff member. and that would create a life paper full of information. a top-secret dossier as they walked down the hall of the pentagon. and you've got about a roomful of military people.

so the students would've answered. it was an amazing experience. and the kids were just having a great time taking this to her soviets had targeted this during the cold war, thinking that we are the underground information bunker. and after that his there was a door for us to usher in the then defense secretary. he was warm and affable but your grandfather. and welcoming students into his office. and you allow the students to come to the desperate that is what he did, he said don't touch

all those fronts, especially the red line. but he had a discussion with them. again, a policy discussion not a photo opportunity. he talked to them about strategy and what is your hardest problem. here is our hardest problem, how do you deal with yours. we took off his coat and he got comfortable and it is mailed from the capital of the white house and he stopped and did an amazing thing. there are military commanders and leaders that have a special metal coin minted in their unit's name and that is given by the commander to a subordinate above and beyond the call. the defense secretary, leon panetta, and a ceremonial handshake, give everyone the students inclined.

and that was general martin dempsey, the head of the chief of staff and he said, i would like to claim you as well. and he's going to be. you can imagine what the students felt and what they will carry with them from this and being in this great hall and people trying to do their best to help us out, it is quite a moving and wonderful thing at the same time. i will finish with one last story, then it's time for you to ask questions. where to nashville, tennessee. and we were giving talks at a school there. and a young man came to pick us

up and he's a teacher at the school. he had nice clothes and a haircut. i thought he had been figured out. young guy, what does he know? he got his card and said that i saw the film world peace and the fourth-grade achievement and i said that i like that film. and i said oh, that's nice, would you like about her. and he said that i liked that you have the students write the letter. the military leader wages this on the troops and they have to write a letter home to the fictional soldiers explaining what happened, offering condolences. but the gentleman said, i like that that you have them write letters so this is how work.

i did several tours in afghanistan. i found one of the battles and it was one of the worst street battle scenes in recent history. and all he would say about that is that it's a kinetic situation. he said it is kinetic. and he said i'm glad you have them write that letter because when i was a commander i had to write that letter. and i had to make the phone call to the parents and go to the home of the parents and tell them what had happened. so you keep having to write that letter, he said. have them do it, so they have an idea of the consequence of what war is. it is a bloodless way and that

is great, but you keep the letter in the game. and i don't know if i could've gotten a better affirmation. this young man was a most terrible of situations and circumstances. if you have any questions or comments, let us know. >> you mentioned little girl and have you had any other students that have been part of his?

>> that's a great question. students leave your classroom, and if you are at the top level of fourth or fifth grade, they leave the school and you may never see them again. you can lay awake and wonder what happened to these kids and fortunately through social media, a lot of my students are coming back are coming back from 10 or 20 or 30 years ago.

it's like he let me defy the u.n., i did everything. i tried to have a two and it failed. but the game allows that. and she said, no, i am in war and peace studies at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. and i sold diplomatic problems and when i get a problem, my fingers start tingling because i'm working with diplomacy and i can understand why i am so good at it. and it's like, oh, i've been dealing with this since i was nine or sold. so she wrote a letter and put it on the water. there are letters that come in from areas like that. one student said that she was essentially part of my job and

kind of took over, this was allowed, and she had moved away. but memories make this tolerable. i mean, what do you know? that is on our website. so yes, i think we are getting some great feedback as we do go on. it is a wonderful thing for a teacher to hear from a student who comes back to let them know what happened. sumac yes, circular sumac i have heard about your book and what are some of the ability to several communities decide? >> the question is what kind of saboteur abilities and capacities and capabilities of the saboteur. well, that's a very high unction student, someone who can think of two minds, they can try to

win the game, they can try to destroy that same time. most of it that happens is up here, it has to be, should i say wise enough to be able to create problems that make the game more interesting and more challenging. and also the same time, try their best to solve all the problems that they have been dealing with and the problems they create. our best saboteurs do that. i will say that in the film a boy named kate and realize that they were about to catch up with them and they were going to figure out who the saboteur was and they were getting close. he didn't want to give up the wall, the role is too important to the game and he didn't want to let go. so he says i don't know what to do, they are going to find out who i am. but what can i do to misdirect

the investigation. so kagan called in a missile strike on his own cat. an incredible decision. a completely misdirected or read the misdirection against himself. no one believed he would do such a thing. so this subterfuge really work. it's an amazing strategy and sacrifice. so that is one of the tools are in most of the tools are here, but it can also as a mercenary, sometimes our girls are saboteurs as well. a few mercenaries, a stinger missile or something like that. mostly they kept right here. and again, at the end of the game, are saboteurs always

cheered and celebrated. you'd think people would be upset. but no, they are so happy. you made it harder for us, you made a more interesting, you made a better game, thank you for that. so it's kind of an odd thing to see the person that is trying to destroy this using the ability to actually help them to communicate. you might be a good saboteur. how do you? >> [inaudible] >> you could fill out an application at the end of this and we can see what we can do. [laughter] >> oh, he's expressed already. that's really cool. are there any other questions? >> did you talk about making the level of curriculum matched in? >> yes, we have talked about that. can we make a videogame and we

haven't had that for the longest time and i thought, no, it's a visceral, kinetic, kinesthetic, spatial, techno, why would we want to take all of that away based on relationship. you have an iphone application or put you on a videogame. and of course, the game is about achieving peace and it is designed to fail. so some of the first interest that we have is about putting this in the big box and we thought, no, if we do that, nobody's going to buy it because who is going to say i want that game, the one that's going to fail massively. that's the one i want. normally do that. i don't think we have much in that way. maybe a few people, a saboteur or it can't love them. we have been approached by a number of game design companies

and engineers to think about how we might augment the actual physical game than there has been quite a bit of interest and we are sharing this exercise. they're trying to do it in an authentic way that maintains those essential elements, but we would like to make it sort of a legacy so that after i'm gone, it can be in its original form, elise close to vest or maybe better. >> yes, sir? >> if a group of fourth graders can put together world peace, what are the possibilities for those of us who are young at heart? [laughter] >> yap, yap. don't we wish.

yes, the most amazing thing is that most young persons could be the answer to any given problems. we cannot afford to lose anybody, not any single person. whether those young at heart, or those adults and college shootings. they play the most amazing and sophisticated games and i have no doubt that high school students college students can save this world. i have seen them do it in a relentless and compassionate way with no obstacles. leaving no stone unturned. time and time again, they found reasonable practical ways of doing this. they simply refused to not save the planet, no matter how fierce the clever interlocking problems has been. they would not stop so that gives me great hope.

also knowing that every child that comes along could be the next president or cure for cancer, alzheimer's, we never know. so we have to make every possible effort for every possible child. they can help us fix the mess that we have created. we have let them such a huge problem. we do not have enough time ourselves. so we are giving them a huge burden and asking them to help us. so i hope that the adults can take advantage of that. it is hopeful that people like the pentagon, we also have shown us what the united nations, they are looking into it and asking questions of these fourth-graders out what we could do to help. >> i think we are about done. i want to thank you for for

having me. the documentary about the fourth-grade achievement in my literary agent has helped to make this possible. in all my teachers whose on their shoulders we really do stand. we really appreciate you coming. thank you. [applause] >> we would like to hear from you. send us a tweet at twitter.com/booktv. >> booktv continues with meredith whitney. she talks about the relative non-impact of the housing crisis on states like north dakota and indiana and texas and explains why the states will become the new powerhouses for the american

economy. >> it is a real privilege and a pleasure for me to be here with meredith whitney who is to my right. also a dear friend of mine, meredith and i actually go way back. many moons ago before she was a market mover, she nice to go on television together on fox news and we got to know each other then. we had been pretty close ever since and this is great for me to do five days later she became

instantly renowned around the world. she has been around for a lot longer. she has put out a report about the housing market and said that she was headed for its subprime doom. and she went on to make other calls and i don't think hsbc. >> yes, they are in the clear statement that also proved true. and that also landed meredith on our cover of "fortune" magazine in 2008. and so she was not the same, think of them in the same

person. but she actually turned her focus to another trouble zone, which was the state municipal finances and she worked on a report that came out in 2010 called tragedy of the common and it was all about how this was the next big danger area in our economy, and that a lot of state and municipal finances have gone on a down this path that the banks have gone down. so she turned this into a book, which is called fate of the states, new geography of american prosperity. which is a more optimistic look of the future of prosperity in the country and it has a lot of really novel and interesting premises in it. so i would love to welcome meredith here with us today. so why don't we start by talking about the thesis. the country is reorienting long

what people will do well in others that one. will that look like and why? >> it may not seem obvious to some people why i got into this, but in fact it was a natural progression for me. because of financial institutions driven by mortgage for the last 15 or 20 years had so much of their exposure in specific regions of the country and that meant that certain consumers were being targeted by the wonders and had disproportionately more leverage than others in the country. in addition, just like certain banks and individuals got the housing bubble would never end and home prices would never go down, as governments are also betting on the same thing. so you almost saw a double

leverage and an individual leverage and also the leverage and it's like, i've learned that if i'm if i'm so smart, should focus on how the u.s. economy looks on the other side. how will grow. >> what is clear to me as it wasn't going to grow in areas that were pulled into this so

this is a profound change and what i want to do is to find a resource that i can compare different states by state-by-state so the different growth opportunities that come from that. and i looked through everything i could possibly find. and that is why the report that i did in 2010 is so voluminous. and when i looked out with things like part of the consumer look and what businesses were in certain states and certain regions and how they were going or not growing. and were they influenced by unemployment and i will give you a couple of statistics that i continue to find fascinating. it is growing 30% faster in the

center of the country than is on the coast and not because people have jobs and are not overleveraged. so that continues into this momentum for those areas, creating more jobs and more consumer spending and more investments and importantly, the subject is so loaded. and it goes to the very basic social services and poverty in its most interesting thing i've ever worked on. they are investing education, not by coincidence, but job opportunities are moving to this. the states are having to cut back so much. they're having to cut into an area that is a constitutional early special span, which is on education and never should be. so you see structural unemployment.

and we are going to influence the economy for 25 plus years and really very much in profound ways. >> you talk about this. i'm not sure it, but we let off for this anecdote. when we are showing how uneven things are around the country, whether it is the unemployment rate. and we see this is not enough available as employees. ..

it is contracting in other parts of the united states. another factoid is in 2006 state area that i focus on worth 23% of the u.s. gdp. today they are 26% of u.s. gdp so it is extraordinary how quickly things are actually changing and how economic strength is going from one area of one area of the country and to others and it's changing almost every level of how we operate as a country. >> to some degree part of the reason why north dakota is doing

well is because of shale which is a huge booming new hot area of our economy so to what degree is it actually the organic raw materials that each region has versus actual policies or fiscal management? >> so that is a great question. there is without a doubt an enormous economic -- in the united states from the national energy revolution we have in this country but their other things things that are happening too which are you have the derivative effects that you see reduction costs for manufacturers finally becoming more competitive in the u.s. than it is in other parts of the world so chemical companies in germany will say it cost us 20% of the production cost to operate in the u.s. as it does in europe so you have not only american companies moving back into the u.s. but you have european countries moving into the u.s.. so you start with an energy

tailwind and then you layer on this past week manufacturing jobs coming back to the u.s.. almost as powerfully as they left and that is an incredibly bullish sign for the u.s. economy. the other fact is historically these regions that are emerging and strong regions were agrarian-based economies so if you think about the natural cyclicality of the economies boom and bust because of that they have been operated with a very conservative fiscal discipline so they didn't have the access baked into entitlement programs or just general government spend programs in areas like california have. we think about the difference between california and oklahoma as an example. up until two or three years ago now had 150 years up on interrupted population growth. so they could spend and they could do whatever they want.

i can't think of any other state that has had that kind of incredible economic support. oklahoma clearly has had massive rooms and massive bust so it operates with lower debt levels and much tighter fiscal discipline. >> talk to us about new york. what should the people in this audience know about where things stand for new york state conquer new york city and new yorkers? what are the pros and cons of where we live right now? >> i think you have new york city and the rest of new york state so the bulk of economic prosperity in new york state comes from new york city which still is financially services dependent. you see population declines, not as extreme but pretty close to as extreme as you do in detroit. so i believe it's binghamton or

i'm sorry buffalo rather has lost half of its population since 1950 and when you have that great sound of jobs and taxpayers leaving there is no money left over for social services that people rely on and want to have and expect to have in order to live there. it's again this very negative cycle. new york has attracted incredible tourism and incredible foreign investment from a real estate perspective. limburg has done a great job at trying to diversify the economy as much as he can. it is still financial services dependent but you can't compare what's going on in new york city to what's going on in places like albany buffalo syracuse and upstate new york that used to be bastions of american capitalism and sadly pale shadows of themselves. >> a real estate prices in new york alone tell a quite different story.

talk to us a little bit about detroit. what has surprised you and do you think this is something we will see in other municipalities either locally or outside of the detroit area? >> how i look at this is how i look at companies and i think i get that are her every year but the way i look an approach that problem hasn't changed. during the financial crisis towards the end of bit towards the end of 2008 i wouldn't talk about lehman. i waited until the end of the week to talk about their stearns. i didn't think it was constructed to me -- for me to go out and shoot a company effectively. wachovia similarly and there are a myriad of examples. in the fall of 2010 when i

release my report, detroit and several other large cities were absolutely on the radar screen. for me to name them would not have been constructive in any way. so was i surprised by it? when you involve the government things sometimes take longer than you expect but the math was very straightforward with detroit. they did not have enough revenue to cover their expenses and so what mass a lot of this in a lot of this has been a decade in the making. what mast a lot of this was the american recovery act which gave states nearly $500 million basically to plug their budget holes and that our time. that doesn't change the structural problems in sof