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associates and i'm thrilled to welcome you to the program on thinking with dr. temple grandin. it's your support that keeps us going. as many as you know, we're not federally funded and rely entirely on donations and membership support to bridge the gap between expenses and ticket revenue. to anybody who might be new to the smithsonian associates, welcome, and i invite you to explore what we have to offer and the trusted learning experiences every year. you can find out more about these events on our website, smithsonian associates.org as well as on facebook, instagram and twitter and a link in the chat box, which brings me to my next item of the event. quickly mention a few features of zoom so you're clear how we run our program. look for the chat, top or bottom of the screen and look at the links and messages throughout the program and there's also a q & a box which

we'll draw for the q & a after the session. we encourage you to submit throughout the presentation and we'll get you as many as you can. and we'll have a program which is close captioning, you can hide by clicking on the cc or the icon on the bar. and there will be a survey we encourage you to complete. we value your feedback as we look at more for learning. now, let me tell you about our speaker tonight. temple grandin is a professor of animal science at colorado state university and the author of the new york times best seller, animals in translation. animals make of human, the autistic brain and thinking and pictures, an h.b.o. movie starring claire danes. and an outspoken advocate for the autism community. and resides in colorado. the visual thinking, who think in pictures, patterns and

abstractions is out now and available for partner seller, politics and prose. without delay, please welcome dr. temple grandin. >> it's great to be here and talk to everybody tonight on zoom and i appreciate if you can get my slides up so i can see them. and i'm going to be talking about different kinds of thinking, and this is something that really interests me. i am an extreme visual thinker. everything i think about is a picture. when i was a kid i was severely autistic and lucky to get into early educational programs. i can't emphasize how important that is. and i'm now a college professor in animal behavior. and so i think we'll go on to my next slide. the first thing is you have to realize different kind of thinking exists. a lot of people are mixtures of different kinds of thinking, but there are some people that are extreme.

i'm an extreme visualizer and if you saw the movie about me, you'd see how i think. when i started with animal behavior, i thought everybody thought in pictures, i didn't know that verbal thinking existed and i was shocked when i discovered there are a lot of people around that don't think in pictures. that was a complete shock to me and being a visual thinker helped me in my work with animal behavior. and we'll go to the next slide. and it shows a shadow and a shoot. and a lot of work, a lot of things, there's a shadow. a picture of me, taking a picture with my camera and i'm making a shadow that's scaring the cattle. often times people don't look at those things. they don't think to look at what the animal is seeing. because the animal lives in a

-- they don't live in a verbal world. we know that the dog's nose is sensitive, but they have an internet trunk line from the nose to the visual cortex, three dimensional smell pictures. let's go to the next slide. now, the thing is looking alt things in engineering, mathematically inclined earning nears, and visual thinkers like me who are terrible at algebra, can visually see how to fix something, too. my thoughts of picture. and now the lunch pad and we're under the launch pad at five years ago and i saw a motion on the stairway and i saw something in there that should not be in there.

and he's on the next slide. a raccoon waddled down the steps. i thought what have you been chewing? and, yeah, nobody knew he was living in the launch pad base and there was a raccoon in there and hopefully he didn't do anything to it. nobody else knew he was there. that's seeing risk. let's go to the next slide. we need visual thinkers in science, i review a lot of journal articles and we're getting to where there's more and more and more mathematics, and all of this fancy mathematical stuff on the data, but you see these two from mixing samples and one has a magnet that spins around and the other contraption like a ferris wheel for test tubes and a very expensive cancer study was completely ruined because

one lab use add magnetic stirrer and the other a rotating thingamajigy, that messed up millions of dollars of research. and i'm not going at doing the math, but i'm looking at a paper right now and they haven't told me what's in the thing, this is really, really important, it matters, when you're feeding animals. and let's go to the next slide. there's three different ways of thinking. i'm an object visualizer. a lot of people are mixture. my kind of thinker thinks totally in pictures, very good m mechanical things, fixing cars, skilled trade and some autistic adults in the basement playing video games. we need to get them out working on cars and they're going to find them more interesting on the video games. a lot of these people are

staying in the basement doing this, they're not going into great careers in the video game industry. so visual thinkers like me that allow ab tract math are good with inventing equipment, design, working with animals don't think in words, photography. things we're good at. and we're terrible at math, and we're good at practical problems, keep the electrical systems working and we'll go to the next slide. your mathematical thinker, the engineer that has an engineering degree, computer programming, engineering, physics, math. art and mechanics go togetherment and i know that sounds weird. music and math go together and i'll show you later on how the different kind of mind, once you realize they exist can be complimentary and many, many, people are mixtures. are mixtures of the different kinds of things.

but then you get the kid to get the special ed labels and then an extreme mathematician or an extreme mechanical person. let's go to the next slide. and then verbal thinkers, writers, psychologists, lawyers, teachers. people think in words and to the next slide. and there's research and this research is outlined. a chapter in my visual thinking book, here it is, visual thinking, made the new york times best sellers list for a week. i was pleased about that. what the research shows there actually is two different types of visual, ones like me and mathematical ones that think in ab tract patterns. lets-- abstract patterns. ... is, one kind of thinking tends to be dominant. and there's been discussions in the schools about, well, we going to teach phonics or we're

going to teach a whole word. it would be a good idea to teach different methods, you know, the kids that are mixtures they might be able to learn to read with either one of those methods. but the kid is different, like needed phonics. let's go to the next let's go to the next slide. turns out i've got a big visual trunk line in my brain for visual thinking. another slide of that. and there's another picture off the big internet trunk line visual thinking. go on to the next slide. now let's look at how you prefer to take in information. an object visualize lik' me if i'm try to show how a water pump for example, works, you would rather look att the pictures and the photographs of the diagrams. the verbal thinkable look at the written. the mathematical rigor willti be this patient my company to look at both. both the diagrams and the text. go to the next slide. now let's look at how the different kinds of thinkers might design a planet. this is a very interesting study

done with hi school students that were the specialist art school, specialist sites i school, or humanities program would be very language-based. and the art students working in teams they make fantastic planets with crystals, may be with polar bearsrs on it. really, really imagine it. science students tend toaw just drop a round planet, not very much imagery. describe its gravity and other factors. and the humanities students may just splashes of color. in the beginning they just used words and then they erased it because of n supposed be an art project, not words. go to the next slide. so theg thing that's interestig is verbal thinkers are very top-down. they tend to overgeneralize. again i get question all-time heady teach autistic kids? i need to know if it got a little kid that's three or how they got a kid that's super good at math?

may be needs to be moved ahead in math. i need to have more information. and both the object visualizers and the mathematicians are bottom up. i get concepts with specific examples and put them like on the spreadsheet. like maybe specific examples of good and bad behavior, for example. and you can put them in different categories like robbing a bank is much worse than may be spitting on sidewalk, for example. then i can put them on but i have to use specific examples to make concepts. the next slide. now, , when the patent office first started, the object visualizers like me, the very, very mechanical people, they ruled, making things like rain harvesting equipment, the sewing machines, things that are mechanicalyo devices. now we've got a lot of people in tack and a lot of computer

programmers but even with tech like here with zoom visual thinkers can make the simple interface. the more mathematically inclined programmers have to program it. so we will to the next slide. and the inventors 3-d printer, remember 3-d printer is a mechanical device that is controlled by computer. it's not our car. such is the rolling computer. it's a mechanical device that's scott electronics in it that control. let's go to next slide. now i'msc very concerned that we are screened out by kind of thinker, and absolutely can't get algebra. i've done a lot of work on a large meatpacking plants can design equipment and they're all kinds of people working out in the shop that barely graduate from hi school. they may have taken a single welding class and they are inventing and patenting equipment. there's two partse' of it uniqu. that's what i call the clever engineering department and then there's the degreedth engineer doing more mathematical parts of

engineering. when you do both. go to the nextxt slide. realizan that there's a lot of stuff we've stopped making, like we don't make the of the art 3d printing. so go to the next slide or how about the state of the art electronic chip making machine? it's holland and next slide shows all the mechanic gadgets on it. yeah, there's plenty of work there for us non to do and the same thing is true for big food processing plants like right now you want a poultry plant or pork processing plant. it's to come from holland. and the reason for that is they you can go to the university in holland or if you end up going the tech track and they don't stick their nose up at the tech track, we've got a gigantic shortage right now. plumbers, people to maintain staff heating and air. all the people that i'd call the

clever engineers and we need how are we going to keep the water running the thing about the autistic kid is to the autistic kid he's in charge of the water system that's going to be the most important thing in his life. we'll go to the next slide. and we're not making a state the art electron microscope. go to the next slide and we're not making that in 2019, just before shut everything down, i went to this point. this equipment's all important high wage country, most of it from holland we're paying the price for taking the shop classes and all hands on classes out of the schools. well, there's a lot of retired people out there that the school won't do it. then we kick the cars out of the garage and a retired mechanic starts teaching video game addicts how to fix cars. or somebody else can start an art thing or start a cooking class. we're going to get kids getting doing hands on things. i'm concerned that we've got

kids growing up the day they're going to be making policy that have never used raw they've never used a tool. this is not good. and they're going to be making decisions in the future about really important stuff that involve things. the goal. the next slide, let's look at the parachute for the mars rover we showed the parachute here, but the fabric was woven on high tech looms and made in the uk. it's let's go to the next slide and then i want out steve jobs theater. this was my fourth stop, my 2019 trip right before closed everything down. she those structural glass walls that golding has no columns they were designed in italy and built in germany and there's a lot of farm equipment now. it's coming out of italy and we're going to have problems fixing it, getting spare parts for it. and the roof is from the by she is a connection here on what we

did and educate on 25 years ago. taken out shop classes welding auto mechanics and what's going on now. another big mistake that industry made was shutting down in house engineering like here, fort collins, where i live, we used to have this big giant place called the monfort farm shop, where the monfort company, which no longer exists on built and patented and designed lots of equipment. they built some of my equipment. that's gone now and now, paying the price for taking in-house engineering and taking out shop classes. and we're building always do chip factories. well, we're going to have to get people to repair all that equipment, make equipment to go to the next slide. well, these are the classes we to get back into schools, cooking, sewing woodworking, playing music legitimate welding theater. i just talked to somebody the other day where their kid went into technical, an autistic kid.

that's all the people backstage make, all the lights work and everything while he got interested in it. because their school had a theater program. see, all of these expo? those kids, two possible careers. i'm saying too many kids. they get an autism diagnosis and they're not learning how to do anything. they get way too overprotected. she one of the problems we've got with autism is at one end of the spectrum, you've got einstein, and at the other of the spectrum, you have somebody that cannot dress, that has much more severe problems. let's go to the next slide. now. the problem is my kind of thinker cannot do algebra and i'd be screened out of a lot of programs. right. like in california for right right now. i don't know if i could from high school, but the thing is you need my kind mind. we need a mathematician too. also need my kind of mind. 60% of community college students need remedial math. well, this could take remedial math to get car mechanics class.

maybe won't ever get into car mechanics class. so the next slide, then grandfather was the inventor of the autopilot for airplanes and he was an mit trained mathematical engineer. he worked with another guy who was probably autistic who came up with this crazy new idea, an auto pilot, people in aviation. it was ridiculous. and they tinkered. they tinkered and they tinkered. they finally it to work and then it was stolen. and the stolen version was at every point during world war two. this is where needed a lawyer. that's where they needed a verbal thinker. so the is we need all the different kinds of thinkers and they can work in complementary wait till the next slide slide now let's look at who builds a huge food processing plant. the object visualizer is like design the layout, the whole entire factory, and then build all the clever mechanical

eqpment things, packaging, machin, whole shops for these people. most graduated from high school. that's it. high end skilled is the one place you don't need a college degree. other things you need a college, then you're visual spatial math thinkers. your typical stem kids, they become the degreed engineers. well, they got to engineer the boilers for food processing plant, calculate the roof trusses, power and water. yeah, that we know how to do. we know how to build bowling, but the stuff inside it where there's problems, we go to the next slide. so look at this book, visual thinking that she learner my verbal thinking coauthor really helped me with because i would do the first drafts by associating, by thinking to all associates, and then she would straighten out all thoughts. you say that's different kinds of minds working together now i often get asked, can you take betsy and turn her into a big visual thinker? no, no.

now you're not going to turn me into betsy and make the absolutely linear. yeah, some learning you can do. but the most valuable thing to do is realize that that thinking is different and collaborate and use the skills in a compliment manner. go to the next slide. so let's look at who builds a building. architects make it pretty creative big picture of esthetics. the engineers are going to make sure it doesn't fall down. the electrical systems are going to work right. the walls are enough functionality, you see. you need to have both well. i've got, you know, i've looked a lot inside the space station, it's functional so very pretty designed engineers where elon musk to making his stuff much prettier you know putting a little bit of architect side into it let's go to the next slide. 20% of the people i work with working on equipment i design,

which is out in all the big meatpacking plants, 20% of these people, skilled metal workers, people that laid out whole entire factories, really autistic dyslexic or adhd. yeah, we need their skills. some of these people owned metal companies, multiple parts. and i show these slides to business leaders and i impress upon you need these skills. i've talked to company computer companies, airlines, banks on pharmaceutical companies. it's all kinds of companies and. we need all these different skills. some of these different kinds of learners you need them like a steel mill, for example. how how old are your mechanics to keep that steel mill running? because problem is, the people i work with are retiring out and they're not getting there's a connection here between. that kid with the autism label playing video games in the basement and needing somebody to

fix elevators and escalators yeah, the next time you go to the airport or the big department, you see somebody fixing an elevator nashville i don't do that. let's see how old they because we're not getting enough people coming in to replace us seniors. i'm 75 right now and people ask me, what do you want to do? what's important to you? what's important to me right now is helping a young kids to think differently, get into great where they can do positive contribution. let's go to the next slide. i find grandparents, not me all the time they discover they're autistic. when the kids get diagnosed and they had good jobs i'm seen too many kids get label they get too overprotected they're not learning shopping they're not learning bank account. they're not learning laundry, just basic skills. they are not learning. let's go to the next slide now. the thing i want to ask you is

what would happen to some of the top innovators in educational system? what would happen to did they know language age three, he'd be an autism program? you could argue about whether or he's autistic, but he'd be on an autism and. where's he going to end up? we'll all need somebody to give a more advanced may have the work on to go to the next. michelangelo. grubby little kid dropped out of school at age 12, but he was running around all the churches, seeing great. that's exposure careers. start with exposure first and then mentoring and i just great members i had great when i was young that's my speech did you help me get speech age four. i had great third grade teacher. i had a great science teacher, got me motivated to study. that's a wonderful mentors. but i got into the cattle industry because i got exposed to it when i was a teenager.

well, michelangelo was exposed a great art, and he grew up with stone cutting tools. we got kids growing up today. i've never used a tool. so all the next slide that did a girl in my class year would never use the ruler or tape measure to measure anything. steve jobs was probably on the autism spectrum, bullied and teased in school einstein. they both had creative hobbies. he loved calligraphy and einstein do math problems while he was playing the violin. let's go to the next slide. thomas edison out of school, he probably had autism, but he learned how to work at a really young age. and he had mentoring. like i think of all the people i've worked with the guy that was different, the resident electrical genius in big factory he could fix anything. well, we need those people. let's go to the next slide. tesla. now he's come out i mean elon musk has come out and said he's on the autism spectrum.

he was bullied in school. he was shut down the stairs and his nose all smashed in and probably on the autism. see, this is the problem you've got with autism spectrum. you've got extreme talent on one end and then you've got people with very, very severe disabilities on the other that cannot dress themselves and cannot do normal activities. so next slide. but the verbal thinkers, all call it the same thing arts, foster, scientific success. that's another reason why we need to keep all the hands on classes in the schools. a nobel prize was 50% more likely to have an arts and crafts compared to other scientists. another reason for keeping all these clashes. we'll go to the next one. now let's give you some tips for working with minds are different. again, i've shown slideshow to a lot of business leaders. you need these tasks. don't stick that person on the mcdonald's takeout. don't stick them in a crazy chaotic store during the holidays because i absolutely cannot multitask.

don't burden with long strings of verbal information i cannot remember. give me a pilot checklist with some bullet points on what i am supposed to do. being doesn't work. can't say, well, you're not a team player. you need to say, well, when you criticized gm at the project meeting and call them stupid, that's not acceptable. see, i was brought up. you those social skills training. so let's say i stored my drink with my finger. mother didn't scream no. she'd say, use the spoon. other people think that's gross. when you do that. and she'd quietly give me the reason. let's go to the next slide. let's see all my goal. education. where's a student? ten years after high school. i was out doing the projects that were showing temple grandin hbo movie, which incidentally is available on amazon prime. go to the next slide. so when you week what learned ahead do i had a bypass the

conventional interview process and show people my. i learned how to my work rather than my self and a lot people on a spectrum that are very successful are self-employed. my steel working shops they range from small companies to big companies but they were self-employed. and then you have to get somebody to run the business side of the business. that was often the spouse or they'd hire somebody to do that because you're going have to have somebody with a nickname, a suit to keep things. somebody has to pay the bills. prices with vendors do all kinds of stuff like that. so the next slide now this is the drawing that i used to sell, cargill on having me design the end of every single cargill beef plant in america. i think doing pretty well for somebody they thought was retarded and wasn't going to melt anything. but the thing is showing this

drawing an h.r. department do any good. i got to it to the plant manager or show it to the engineering department. the people that are going to appreciate it. yeah. you got to show the work to the right person. but that's how i got jobs. let's go to the next slide and i'm just going to show you some of the photos that i stuck in the portfolio. what do you want a 32nd? well, so let's say you're a programmer. well, then you show off some of your best code. not a huge book, full code, one page of the very best code neatly presented. so can look at oh bad that used only like this much memory. that's really skill. the next slide. and they duplicated my project for the movie i actually built all my projects. the hbo movie shows very accurately how i think visually. let's go back to engineer's calculus. risk. i see risk. there's a whole chapter in visual thinking on disasters and the fukushima nuclear power

plant disaster would have been prevented it if it had had watertight. the mathematical engineers did a great job of making earthquake perfect. it worked. and then 20 minutes later, the tsunami came. the seawall flooded, the basement flooded, the electric cooling pump. it's not going to work underwater, watertight doors. something so simple. i can understand it because i see them. if they had had them, the fukushima accident not have happened. that's. you need people like me to say, hey, you better put watertight doors on this thing. let's go to the next slide and show my brochure. we go to the next today. you'd have it on your phone going to and on that flight and going to questions. and i'm pretty sure that we've got lots and lots of time now for doing questions and i'm. excellent. thank you so much.

yes, we do have a few questions. please see if you can put your questions in yet. do so now and perfect. so someone is asking about educate and talking about how if there are anything that you're you're excited about in our education system. well, there's a lot really dedicated teachers, but i'm concerned that we're getting so much into teaching for the test and we're getting so much emphasis on higher mathematics, on like just a veterinarian use calculus. you may be screening out some of the best veterinary because they could visualize. what is wrong with the animal and i'm especially concerned my of mind is getting visual are getting screened out. we've got a gigantic. okay, here's a question from linda in the question. i'm going to answer linda says, is everybody on the autism a visual thinker? no that was a mistake i made

when. i wrote thinking in pictures 25 years ago. everybody on the spectrum is not a visual thinker. everybody on the spectrum tends to be an extreme type of. think like maybe an extreme object. you also have people on the that are on extreme mathematicians and then cis h. just put up a thing about putting spaces in museums. i think that's absolutely wonderful. we need to be having maker spaces. and when i went to harvard to talk about visual thinking book, they had a makerspace in the physics lab. so here's this labeled physics lab. and in there with all the 3d printers, they had a sewing machine and crochet. yeah, they're realizing maybe they're going to get the hands on. but the thing i'm concerned about is a mathematically oriented physics program screams of visual thinkers. now, my kind of mind can go up to the industrial design

department, because that's the visual side of designing things on now. and i'm a big believer in maker spaces. we've got too many kids today growing up, never used a tool. they're totally removed from the world of practical and i get asked all the time, what's happened to? common sense. and i think part of the problem is, is is i think losing common common sense as visual thinking like let's say you're still on the water, the grocery store floor, they want to clean it up because they could see that somebody could slip on that. that would be simple visual thinking. and here's another question from joan how can you tell if an autistic person has, a visual thinker? well, you can't tell in three year olds, but by the time they're seven or eight visual thinkers are good at legos, but so are mathematical thinkers, then your word based autistic person? it doesn't that person doesn't care about legos. also, a lot of the visual have got a drawing and the

mathematical thinkers will be good at math and those kids need to move ahead into. higher math. that's something we need to be doing with we need to develop the skills that are good. i'm a big believer exposing kids to lots of different things, especially kids that learn differently and kind of see what they gravitate towards because that's that. here's janine asked about how do you visual thinkers connect with animals? well, first of all, they have to have a contact with animals. know there's been a lot of autistic kids that have benefited from dogs. but i did book signing years ago for my book, animals magazine and at a costco outside of denver, i was shocked to find out that about 25 or 30% of the families in of denver, there was no pet of any kind, not even a mouse or a double or parakeet or something like that.

then i also discovered when i did my children's book on getting kids out to make things. shameless book promoter. this is what the grandkids need to be getting get the outdoor calling all my projects for kids. i found out that 20% or so of kids in suburban denver had never made a paper airplane. i think there's a problem here. you know, we got to, you know, get them out, get exposed to lots of different things. then some people will say, well, been some studies that show that does it matter what kind of a mind somebody has? you know, you can they'll all can learn using the same teaching methods. well, for the people with the mixtures that probably true but you take the kid this extreme mathematician the kid to to stream object that's you're going to have to tailor how you teach them. now we've made some mistakes in education, and that's holland and italy and germany are making

a lot of stuff that we don't make, like a poultry processing plant example, chip making machine kind of important stuff. so we have another question from janet who's asking, do you know about what percentage of the us population object visual visualizer is spatial because visualize there's in verbal thinkers, nobody's any research on that but they have done some of the research has been done in occupations the object visualize a lot of them are in the arts you know the more mathematical minds real world engineering chemistry you know things of sort neil does kind of shake up like careers on little kids are much more visual thinkers than adults. that's one thing that is known and little kids language kind of start to override the visual thinking. i wish that hasn't happened to me. for me, words narrate the pictures that are in my mind.

so there's also another question talking about teachers. how does one teach teachers to recognize what type of thinking a child may possess. well, the first thing you have to do is you have to realize different thinking exists. this is the same thing i tell the business people. and where are you going to get the most extreme of the different kinds of thinkers is where you get special ed kids. you see a lot of smart kids are getting shunted in special ed because they want to do with me or put me in special ed sullivan. i won't mess up their algebra scores, the state tests. now state is different, so not all do that kind of stuff, but some states do. and i'm very, very concerned about skill loss because the visual the person that after stormers wrecked the water system and tore up the electric wires and stuff like that, many like me to put this stuff back together. see, this is where we got big skill a lot. and then.

the other problem, once a kid gets a label, the parents are getting so locked into that label. they can't imagine a kid can do anything. i've seen a situation where you got two parents in computer programs. they're in the tech industry. they got eight year old super smart in math and they don't think to teach their kid programing because of locked into the light. see, you get kids that get a label. skills tend to be uneven. good at one thing, terrible at something else. and we need to be building up the thing that they are good at because visual thinkers overgeneralize. you might talk about oh we got to all go to alternative energy. well, how are we actually going to do this? the other thing is those windmills and, those solar panels, all that stuff has to be maintained. right. and that often gets neglected. we just had a top a windmill fall off near where live hadn't been maintained. going back to trade, you talked about that for a second. elizabeth is asking, do you think electives like shop art

are falling away in the schools because verbal thinkers are dominate school administration? well, that's of the reason. and they took out these here in colorado, they took it out 20 years ago. so 20, 25 years ago, there were two things that happened. the shop class has disappeared. now some states are starting to put it back in texas. minnesota, for example. but they took out the shop classes. i was in the height for being out in the field on big construction projects. the mall repair fab shops going full blast and mom parts. the company still existed and then the monfort company no longer existed. and then on the next owner was not. jbs jbs not do this on your oh we can just farm the work out you see in the short run that makes money. but then when all the people i work with retire which is now you get bitten in the -- it it comes back to bite. so it made money in the short

run. but i've got a client right now, a beef client that i took one look at their shop. they build in their shop the simplest little hydraulic thing that i needed 20 years ago. we used to just go do that. well, that might be all the hydraulic things you need to keep the water system running. you know, this is where you need my kind of mind. that sucks at math. i know how to do that? i know how to do. yeah. and actually going off of my sort of montessori schools, someone is asking about if if they have more of the quote unquote right idea or an idea of of a possible style. they do a lot of hands on things. but i went back, i visited my old elementary school dedham country day school that a beautiful shop. and they admitted they were a throwback the fifties to get a program shop, sewing, cooking. and we got too many kids growing

up today that they're totally removed from the world. practical and they're going make policy about serious like electric power they that concerns me absolutely and we would tell business leaders that the first thing you have to realize is that we need the minds. let's look at how zoom got. the programing mathematicians did not invent the simple interface on zoom that was done by a guy worked for webex. webex wouldn't listen him, so he started zoom in about. webex. it's horrible. you see, in the simple interface is made by somebody like me and then the programmers have to make the thing work. steve jobs was an artist. that's why iphones are easy to use. mathematicians had to make it work work.

that actually makes complete sense. cathy has an interesting of are there any colleges or universities that you know of that developing programs to support alternate? well, there are programs, you know, give me some accommodations, extra time on tests, but on isn't things that are kind of scary. i did a book signing out in california thinking and for on visual thinking and they had it in a school and i talked to the headmaster of that school. he didn't know that visual thinking existed. he knew about mathematics thinking and word thing. and he kept asking me. well, how do you think about this? he didn't know it existed. and i go, who's going to keep the air conditioning on in your school in phenix, arizona right. yeah. there's a connection here. is amy actually sort of ties on that about dissemination of knowledge. she is asking, is there any movement to make textbooks cover multiple types of learning

within. each culture? the more thing is just then, some studies have shown know if you just the run of the mill school kids where you know a lot of mixtures of different kinds of thinking then, you can use different so-called styles of learning. it doesn't seem to matter. but where i think it really matters is you get the extremes. and i'm an extreme object. visualize, or you get somebody who's an extreme mathematician may also be an extreme music really good at music and the middle of the road kids, they can learn by phonics or they could learn whole word or they could learn the math way or learn the math some other way. but for me, bit too abstract. i don't understand it. and the thing you look at some of our real thought leaders in the past they were probably some of them were autistic or dyslexic. i'm also concerned verbal thinkers getting too theoretical because i stated some interesting places on the structure. they found it interesting who

told me to stay at that. you get your key and it's some kid from the 1930s at the local college. and then you get to have a room that's full of his textbooks, 1930s electrical engineering book, much more applied, 1930s, western literature books. shakespeare, socrates, all the stuff we read today. but you should've seen the foreword that said there's been a lot of nonsense written about the greeks. and you got to remember that this stuff was written in the language they actually used real straightforward. then a green room. i got put in an office of a political science professor. i never such vague abstract stuff about politics. it wasn't right left. it didn't discuss issues. it was few that just absolutely did not understand. and i'm going person's going to be in charge of making a decision about whether we keep our coal fired power plant that is running my house now.

yeah, we've got serious things we have to think about. absolutely yeah. and what i'd like i can tell you what i'd like to do. i'd like to run at the lowest possible level. just keep in good order, keep the expertise, but maybe run it at 10%. however small i can run it, not mess it up. and i have to get i got to go talk to the thinkers to maintain it, to find that out. but i'm about shutting it completely off. i could i'd like to get it down to like 80% shut off, but shutting it completely off if we have an emergency. let's say an ice storm takes out the windmills kind of a visualize. yeah, it's a nice power station. too much, to take care of bison out on its property. so i know all about how many rail cars it uploads of coal. see, that's not abstract.

and i question complete. shutting it down. my approach would be what's the lowest i can run without hurting the planet and keep the rest out there? but not totally. if i turn it off, it hurts it. see, this is problem. quebec doesn't like being turned off off. no, that's the thing that a lot of people understand. now, i don't know how. slow. i can run it without messing it up. i'm to have to go talk to some guys in the man. they'll tell me we so barber is as asking about is a tutor in a sixth grade class in the school. how can teachers do you have any advice for or tutors to individual learning for visual learners while accomplishing required tasks? well, that's way too vague. let's talk about something. let's talk about something with me because that's too young when

was eight years old, i could not read. i was in third grade and even today, schools. they realize that if kids can't read in third grade, they really like to be in. they were using a whole word and -- jane books that did not work with me mother taught with phonics very simply you see you know your abc song you already have half the sentence so mother had me memorize the sounds. then she'd read something like the wizard of oz loud. it's all done out loud. and then i would slowly sound out words. she'd read a page and then i'd read five words that worked for me. now there's other kids. her whole words. the best way to teach them? no matter what the phonics. this was an autistic kid. it learned reading in a different way, you know, the important thing is learning to read. and in some schools use a blended approach. now algebra. i never could learn it now. specific form to do specific

things like sizing hydraulic cylinders. yeah, that i can do. and going to the 1930s electrical engineering book that was describing how generator worked and that it had the math there that you use for that particular problem. and actually we did get a question from patrice who was asking i think you mentioned a third grade teacher who really helped you. oh, i had a great third grade teacher. she was wonderful. and she wants she wanted to expand. what exactly did they do that that really helped you out was also meaningful? well, was in a small school and, you know, we were taught, you know, how to take turns. that's one of these i was taught when i was little turn taking very kind teacher. but she basically got my mother so we got to get temple reading and mother taught me at home and started with a book worth reading. -- and james not worth reading in wizard of oz is also she had a book about clara barton nurse.

i got a fifth or sixth grade level book and we'd work on just out words and by the end a semester of being tutored by my mother on, i went from no reading to sixth grade level reading really quickly. the other that we're not teaching students today is skills. graduate students have terrible skills. now, just write up the methods of the experiment and write it clearly so i can understand it and i'm not the only professor right now complaining about writing skills. well, the way i learned to write was my work was marked up and i had to correct it. and i'm finding that my students some of them smart students, never hardly wrote a term paper, never had anybody correct the grammar their papers. i tell them, now read your paper out loud. read your paper loud. that sounds really terrible. then, then you need to correct it. so we have actually quite a few

questions so it's hard to get through all of them. i'm so one question is one person is talking about writing and about how they really do encourage their their visual learners or thinkers to to write. is this something that well, i think shape for me visual. i narrate the scenes. okay. if i'm thinking about let's i was going to describe how to drive to the airport. okay now i'm seeing landmarks along way to the airport. that i would you know, i describe it or if i went and, i'm visited some interesting place. i tended see seen one really interesting things words the pictures that's how think.

but the way one of the things that spurred me to write the visual thinking book is a skill loss issue. and of course, i was locked down with covid me and betsy both that nothing to and i had just gone to those four places and to the realization that i had a story of skill issue and i said write a book and i tell business leaders, the first thing you've got to realize is that people differently. let's look at how these skills can be complementary. absolutely. it and actually, for this. one, actually sort of continuing with your your your non-visual skills, but skills that are useful. you know, you mentioned that person who had never picked up a ruler in their that was last year. yeah. never had you want to measure anything take measure to measure

anything. someone is asking do you hat or glory is asking do you have any thoughts on teaching visual skills like taxes and insurance? yes, i think that there needs to be some business, math, household math. i how about to map out how run a business business? and i, i feel, you know, then people would be wrong about credit card debt and everything else. there's a furniture store that makes me angry every time i drive to the airport and now the sign up there no payments for three years so you supplement to buying these couches and then the going into debt. well, i was taught save money when i was eight. i got $0.50 a week for allowance. these lessons, i'm realizing how important they are, about $0.50 a week. mother didn't buy little trinkets like comics and little toy airplanes. and if i wanted a 69 cent airplane, i had to save for two weeks on, i'm realizing now how

important that was. and no, i think that the ones that are going to be on the tech track that need learn business, math, how you set up a corporation for i had a good really good friend who was a contractor and he helped me set up my business and things like just adding up all the expenses adding up the income taxes. but i knew how to do that kind of arithmetic we renee actually is sort of bringing a different, similar subject in to the limitations of of hands on skills such as we just with, you know, rulers and an ability to complete tasks. what about the visual and perhaps distraction in today's world? well, that you're seeing the thing that's happening we're getting is i'm seeing a lot of these kids of different end up on disability check playing video games day and they're not fabulous jobs in the video game industry if they were i wouldn't be criticizing it but i don't think all that stuff replaces

real thing. i heard about one kid he loved american and he got just to go to an actual game. he found that really cool. and the first time but something at the concession stand all by himself had done that before. you know kids like to do real things and they're not doing enough that now there are some benefits to you can learn from video games but on that's an hour of day of playing not 8 hours a day of playing whatever benefit you might get on motor skills training or whatever, it's one hour a day interest. and i'm not saying good outcomes and the kids most likely to get addicted. the visual thinkers like me, that ought to be out building things. now i'm spending a lot of my time going out doing talks. it really great to go visit my school and see beautiful shop on

because i need to get do real things so zoom doesn't quite totally do it. absolutely. i went to a beautiful dairy up in quebec, a great time. you know, it's really good to get out and see things. but on the other hand, there's a point where 85, 90% on the road, different hotel every night just starts to get too stressful. oh, absolutely. going back to your book, gail is asking could you talk a little bit about animal consciousness? i'll take your chapter visual thinking book. i discuss animal consciousness and i can't believe that people still discussing this. i can't imagine anybody a dog would think it's not. and i some of this gets down to visual versus verbal thinking. if a highway verbal think where, everything you think about is in words, you might have a hard time understanding. how a dog could think without

words. but is somebody who thinks in pictures easy for me to imagine how dog could think without words and yeah they don't have verbal language, but animals can plan for the future. think about the squirrel burying the nuts for the letter. think about the dog that. knows. like this car. ralph goes to the veterinarian. this car route goes the dog park and he's acting. you know that animals can solve problems under new novel conditions, like figure out how to make it too old to get a treat that's hidden down in a little glass tube. figure out a way to get it out. they can do that figure out a a way to get it . they can do that. and i think animals are conscious. ii don't think, i think you have to have certain amount of centralized nervous tissue where sensory information, memories, emotions can merge together sort

of like a big rotunda or like an airport hub. a hub airport. all networks form nodes. whether it's facebook or airports or i could remember they had hub airports. or the nervous system. they had to have a certain amount of association areas. i don't think clams got that. octopuses probably are. >> can can you continue with animals? elizabeth is asking regarding her consulting on animal welfare, do you observe animals and imagine how they view the world or is it some other process? >> i can imagine, trying to imagine how aun dog with its internet trunk line has its pictures. does three-dimensional smell pictures. i've also done a lot of thinking about, you know, where the cattle fit in? being attacked as climate records. i've got this paper.

grazing animals are an important part of a sustainable agricultural future, and grazing done right can improve climate. grazing does wrong rex climate. so does leaking oil field. so do swamps. you've got to use them right to use animals. but use them right, the grazing animals, you can't improve land. the other thing when people complain that the cattle and the sheep and theuc other grazers te up too much land, 20% of the earths surface cannot be cropped. it can only be grazed. it's too entered for cropping. not enough groundwater. water coming from the sky. >> absolutely. >> people don't think about that. >> no. we actually have, from carolyn who you mentionedto bison and he

wanted to thank you for your work you did years ago in yellowstone national park to make bison captured this was much better for animals. >> chase them him all aboue places, a lot of these animals you can just go feed them in corral some a day you just shut theah gate. >> yes. >> that's a lot easier than chasing them. something that i see that solution, it's something that i see. it's not abstract. you see this is where we need my kinds of my division lies ways to fix things. also, people talk about subway to abstract. all the powerbe plants froze in texas, couldn't leave all the nonsense they were talking about. nobody sat down and said, what folks, , what exact piece of equipment froze in each plant? what was it that froze? well, you have to know that if or we can make a rational decision

on the ones that would be easiest to fix, to winterize. nobody discussed that. see, that's so abstract they're not solving the problem. >> right. >> some of the equipment will be easy to winterize and some of might be impossible to winterize. but you have to know what froze first. and the people that are making decisions have to know what broke, what exact thing froze at how difficult it would be to winterize? >> absolutely. >> that never got discussed. i get scared and i look at the books when i saw in a professors office. somebody with all that verbal abstractness is going to make a decision aboutut power plants tt is the right decision? yes, we got to do things to reduce carbon. we've got to reduce coal use. >> absolutely. >> and i'd like, be nice if our

coal-fired power plant had less coal plug into it but at this point the question is shutting completely down. >> yeah. >> we could have a website saying we will reduce electricity, we put two less train cars coal in your each day. day. see, i see that. >> yeah. actually going to communication, and communicating. someonee is asking how can peope of different thinking types be help to communicate and interact better with others? >> you have to know the different thinking types exist there can have different approaches to problem solving. because you need verbal thinkers. youu know, verbal thinking enables us to have books and libraries, and made it possible to do things like fly to the moon. dogs are not going too do that anytime soon.

because it enables us to store knowledge. animals can't do that. >> someone else is asking come for those of us who are more visual, how well do you have to know the problem before you can visualize likely solution. >> was a visual thinker is a bottom-up thinker. so the more things i learned about, like in age 50 i thought i could think t better than they could at age 20 because i have more visual things, more visual pictures in my database. itge sort of like training and artificial intelligence system. you want to try and artificial intelligence system, for example, to diagnose melanoma cancer. you've got to show it all kinds of melanomas and the net to show every other kind of skin rash. and the better that data set is, you know, they okay, let's go back to theow power plant thing. i don't know what a coal car is. i wouldn't visualize it. so visual thinker gets wisdom

the more stuff that they read about and convert to graphic files, and stuff they see, and then you can associate it together. yeah, you have to have data in a database to associate.an you say figure how to design a piece of equipment, and it worked like, like something else, for example. >> the foundation, yeah. >> that's why the kids need to get up and see all kinds of stuff and then they can, they can think up all kinds of different ways to do things so that got a lot of information in the database. it's a bottom-upbo thinker. i think it takes a lot of data to make a bottom-up thinking work. >> absolutely. so moving on to employment, someone is asking, or have you talked talking aco's and the teams.

what kind ofem actions d.c. then take afterwards? >> the tech industry has done, in bringing people and have them like contests, programming workshops and things like this where people can come in and show off the work. you know, similar things might have makers basis and a people come in and show off stuff, but we're going to to change some of the interview processes to get some of the t best minds that ae different because your best mechanic, for example, is not going to interview well. maybe he needs to show the of the mechanics the custom car he built. that would be showing the work here and i find some companies are really, really flexible but the idea changing interview processes. other companies won't quite do it. the thing i try to impress upon them the subways my work with cattle handling is that one of the reasons that our cattle handling is it makes money,

better weight gain, less bruises and also cuts your workmen's comp. bill down. access to people. >> and continuing -- >> that so i sold stuff and convince them it wouldod be goo, cattle would make money. and we need some of these skills, and i didn't realize how bad the skill loss was entailed i went to the two workplace, chickenig plants and that was a big lightbulb moment and then i started researchinguf stuff and oh, electronic chipmaking machine? holland? you see, thises goes back to the educational system. they can go with tech, track and the hied in skilled trades is a place you don't need that a few places youp don't get a college education and you can end up with a corporate jet. but this is something that educators don't realize.

we need different kinds of thinkers, and especially now we've got all kinds of problems we got to solve the energy and things like this. we've got to do stuff that actually is going to work. >> right. >> you can get somebodyca who gets, the first up is reluctant different kind of thinkers exist a lot of people are mixtures, but usually one kind of thinker kind of predominates and julie get to talking about it. but some people are true mixtures but you get a ged with a label, they are going to be something extreme often. >> we've had a few comments tonight about how some individuals thought they were, or close to being fully visual thinkers but now havet realized that they are, it's that combination, that makes. >> people are, a lot of people

talk to our mixes, and so some of this research shows that thinking styles don't matter. you take your run of all the students, you know, for the mixtures it may not matter. you take somebody like me, abstract algebra, just pounding away at me. and because there's nothing visually for me toth relate that to. one of the problems, i cannot remember it. have to have it on on a graps out in order to remember something. but then on the other hand, what would happen to einstein today in today's educational system? i think that's a real worry, and some states do better. there's a lot of differences between states and some states are puttingng hands on classes back in. but the thing is we need to be exposing elementary school kids to a lot of different things. to wait until to mary college is almost too late. and then our community college

in colorado built a welding shop and they can't find anybody to teach the welding. that's right now. that was in september. that's right now. i was there. i was at a beast meeting and we were discussing it. they said we took away the requirement that of a college education. we can't find anybody to teach welding. >> someone is saying it makes so much sense to talk about exposing kids tools, hand on careers, et cetera -- >> theater, and music. i was exposed to musical instruments that didn't really work for me. have a good figure how this little flute. another kid takes off with it. but you don't know unless they are exposed. the big believer in exposing kids to a lot of different things, and, and see what they kind of gravity towards. because the thing that is as an autisticju person, social,

psychosocial more turns know. what shall be as having a career and having friends through shared interests. like, i'm thinking of this great airplane flight i had this year. set next toal a lady constructin manager. we talked about warehouse construction. that's a really good plane ride. see, that's shared interest. >> yes. >> or i talk to somebody about their cattle. that's shared interest. >> i love that. so someone is actually talking about standardized tests. you know, given that the standardized test like act are skewed towards verbal thinkers. do you speedy the thing, the other thing in this math requirements, they, , i rigidly wanted to go into engineering here i to drop my physics class.

..ha and fortunately, i had a federal animal behavior class. my little tiny college, pierce college, will start up school for 170 students, retired professor taught animal retired harvard professor taught animal behavior. i was very lucky i had that class. that is an example of exposure. my it was my favorite class. it was just luck that that class was there. he was a retiree. he walked very slowly with a cane and he introduced me to animal behavior. that is exposure. >> host: someone is saying even

if exposure doesn't lead to a new scale, it can increase appreciation and understanding. >> guest: that is right. it is important for people to say i tried this, i hate it. i think it is also important for students to find that out. like a lot of parents want their kids to be a doctor, i can't stand working for 15 minutes, to see each patient. this is just terrible, that is not for me. >> host: a question about the book, it is about the understanding, putting it together. was there anything you wanted to include that you are not able to include? >> we include a lot of stuff. it was wonderful working with betsy. the thing is i learned more than you think. the only way, this is of concern to policymakers, that

betsy can understand the physics process, betsy and i were on third grade children school websites on leverage, and she could only understand -- take the screwdriver and pry the lid off, that is leverage. then she understood. she had to relate it to something she had done. let's say we have a verbal thinker, the practical, they have to make serious decisions about energy. that is very scary. to be removed from the world of practical. also, talking to betsy about her dog. before she had one, i don't think she imagined thinking more when you take your dog out and let it off the leash and let it run, watch what it smells.

you see, having that experience opened the big door for her. something i learned in working with someone who is a secure thinker. i'm not saying betsy should go and do that. she's a book agent. but let's say going into policy, i am very concerned they are removed from the world. we need different minds. people working with me to improve my writing, they took a red pen and marked up my work and i thank them for that. i thank them. >> host: someone is asking if you have any advice for someone, autistic young adults or someone diagnosed later who might be struggling to figure

out dealing with adulthood. >> one of the problems is making the transition to the world of work. a lot of situations where autistic students do really well, we need to start the transition to work before they graduate from high school, starting with volunteer jobs on schedule outside the home like 11 years old, real jobs before they are legal of age, and let's say you have an adult not out of the house, playing video games, my kind of thinker, let's introduce car mechanics, one of the few things that has successfully gotten across. one of them now in the railroad, they love him. give them some choices. i was scared to try new things. my mother had a sense how much to stretch me to do new things.

we need to be working on the transition to work, and parents over protect their kids. and they are not learning shopping or laundry or basic skills. they are overprotected. what you don't want to do is check them into a chaotic take out, that is where you don't want them. that is a slight effect, too much multitasking and i don't have the processor speed to handle that multiprocessing. >> host: another person asking about what education to be good citizens in a democracy. >> guest: let's teach basic be kind to others, golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated. returning to the airport, treating others how you want to be treated.

being nice. now i am seeing at the airport, all of these things, you see, i always have to relate it back to we need to teach kids. what i learned to do is there are some issues where i can have a friend but we can disagree on certain issues but we have shared interests in other things. we just brought up, what is a good person? not mean to other people. these are basic things. treat others the way you want to be treated, that is the golden rule written in plain language. every religious tradition has

it. it treat others the way you want to be treated. do unto others as you would have them do unto you. that can be taught, one specific example at a time. i am seeing a man rolling around on an x-ray table, i grabbed it. i gave it to the tsa officer to make an announcement, credit cards and stuff, and they did. he was grateful to get credit cards back. okay. and other time in a ladies bathroom, i took it to the information desk and she got it back. it took extra time to do that. there are specific examples. i help the guy with alzheimer's navigate minneapolis airport. he was on a flight by himself,

a complicated connection in minneapolis. >> host: one question that i love, from doing this research, is there anything that makes you optimistic about the future, or something you are excited about? >> guest: i am excited, what makes me really happy, my kids fixing trains for the railroad. i get excited about -- my kids working for a computer company. your book helped that kid get to that goal. i want to help the kids that are different get into good careers. we also need to be doing things that help the world. when i was a young child they had a tradition in church where every christmas, they give plenty of toys away, give them to a senior.

we collect money. it is pictures that come up when i think about this. too much greed. you know what i learned very early on? when i first started in my 20s. i found out the hot airplane of the 70s, a couple barons in your hanger, another hot airplane, does not buy happiness. i learned that with some very rich clients. jets don't buy happiness. one of the happiest people i know lived next to my aunt's ranch, kind of rundown come

beautiful part of the world, he was really happy. everybody loved him, he was an x-ray technician at the army base. he had health insurance, you got to have your basics. that he had. at the army base. he was the happiest, nicest person. and he had a very bad leg prosthesis and i realized he could barely walk, that is why the horse was tight on the outside. couldn't take the truck, he would have to ride the horse. he had a prosthetic leg and it was not a good one. even with that, he could fix anybody's car. the water pump broke.

he had the basics, he had health insurance, had a steady job as an x-ray technician, and reliable health insurance for the things he had. he didn't have to worry about that. he didn't have a fancy house. the old cars, he had to keep them running. you have to have your basics. some very rich people and having all those airplanes in the hangar did not buy happiness. i learned that in my 20s. >> host: it is a good lesson. >> guest: the idiot and a mudhole, i told him not to do it. that is where he put them. he stiffed me out of a $200 fee.

>> host: another valuable lesson. >> guest: it was a good lesson. stuff doesn't buy happiness. you need the basics. you don't worry about a health problem. or get it. i think about these things, specific examples, it is not abstract. but than the more pictures i get into my mind, the better you are able to think. when google first started there wasn't much in it. in altavista -- what was on cattle breach. got to tell the database. things i experienced.

you teach kids to do good things, do something constructive. >> host: we have a few more minutes. make sure you have an opportunity to say anything about the book you might have a you might want to talk about or anything in particular about writing this. >> guest: i did the rough drafts, straightened them all out, some people said where is the science? a giant reference source in this book for the science, different kinds of thinking really do exist. i've got this bunch of studies. to find the studies yourself you have to use keywords optic

visualizer and visual spatial. if you use visual thinking, you won't find the papers. you have to use the term object equalizer. then you will find them. but i worked with all kinds of people who graduated high school, big copulated stuff, i was out on these jobs. let me tell you, none of them failed. even the guy with the corporate jet, he grew up on algebra. he is flying around in a corporate jet. these are complicated jobs. during the 90s, those construction projects. staying in really crappy motels too. >> host: it built character.

>> guest: they didn't have the fairfields and the hamptons. before that time, the thing i learned is places where the truckers stayed, they didn't rip you off on the tv, you would get free cable. >> host: that's all the time we have. >> guest: hope we got a lot of people thinking and i recommend getting the book, get you to think about things differently. what we do to change the schools, need to start in the neighborhoods, a car repair question, a place where we have an art studio for kids, a theater for kids. these are things, my mother did theater in the summertime for the neighborhood. these things were not expensive

things to do. i talked to a teacher, they were messy. kids need to be doing those kinds of things. get these things going in the neighborhood. 4 h is a good program. you get that to the county extension service, they raise chickens in the back. all kinds of things you could do. >> host: this conversation hopefully for this change and dissemination. >> guest: there's a lot of retirees who might find teaching some kids autumn mechanics is more interesting than golf is or bridge or some other thing.

i could never figure bridge out. it's too abstract for me. >> host: i don't think you are the only one. >> guest: mathematical, extract pattern thing. think about things you could do in the neighborhood. my mother had a great time with this. we had a little fair at our school and she got the kids together and they put on the show, the wizard of our. i remember the wizard's head was made of a green hat box. not really expensive stuff. what you make out of all the amazon bosses, they are numbered, tape them together and you will figure out how to use them. >> host: perfect backdrop.

>> guest: you could paint them, do it outside. i went to a baker space onetime and third-grade kids were ignoring the electronics and cutting up washing machine boxes with hacksaw blades that had been taped, one end taped, makes a sob at a young child could cut and box with it, safe. taped hacksaw blades, tons of tape on it, that's the handle and they cut the heavy cardboard with it. they would have the greatest time. i am seeing that. stuff we do in the neighborhood. one teacher took her kindergartners out on a field trip to learn about parking meters and how people have to pay for parking.

just fabulous to learn about that. more creative about teaching in the city. and in my outdoor science book, we live in the city. how about pictures? to and if a gram on it. that costs nothing. absorb animal behavior. there are all kinds of things you can do in the neighborhood. >> host: as you mentioned earlier, theater, other activities. >> guest: cooking, sewing, woodworking, knitting, raising chickens. may be selling in animal. art, music. they collect musical instruments for low income schools.

there are all kinds of things to be done in the neighborhood. the other thing, get these kids headed down the path, they need to be role models. my science teacher got me on the right track. and then i got motivated, good good grades and all the other classes. >> host: thank you, temple grandin, for a wonderful conversation, that is all the time we have. a bunch of thank yous. wonderful to see you and hear from you in the chat. a reminder, there is a politics and prose link in the chat as well as a discount code.

if you enjoyed today's program, consider becoming a member. thank you for a wonderful time. >> guest: thank you very very much. it was absolutely great being here by zoom, and thank you all for coming. >> if you are enjoying booktv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen. to receive the schedule of upcoming programs, art or discussions, book festivals and more, booktv every sunday on c-span2 and anytime online, booktv.org, television for serious readers. booktv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing the lest nonfiction books. at 9:15 eastern in his book hold the line, former wainon dc metropolitan police officer michael phenotes

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