good evening.

thank you all for joining us. i am with smithsonian associates and thrilled to welcome you to today's program on visual thinking with dr. temple. to our members, a sincere thank you. now more than ever is your support keeps us going. as many of you know, smithsonian associates is not federally funded and relies entirely on donations and membership support to bridge gap between program expenses and ticket to anyone who might be new to smithsonian associates. welcome. and i invite you to explore the wide range of programs that we offer and to consider becoming member to support our work in bringing you hundreds of trusted learning experiences every year, you can find out more about these events on our website, smithsonian associates org as well as on facebook and twitter. while supposed to link in the chat box. which brings me to my next item of business. i want to quickly mention a few features of zoom. so clear about how we run our

programs. first, look for the chat box at the top or bottom of your screen. we'll be posting relevant links and messages here throughout the program. there's also a q&a from which will try your questions for the q&a after the presentation. we encourage you to submit your questions throughout presentation and we'll get to as many as we can. you will also notice that tonight's program closed captioning, which you can choose to hide clicking the cc or closed caption icon on the toolbar. and finally, i'd like to let you know that there will be a survey when you exit the program that we encourage you to complete. we value and appreciate your feedback as we learn more about using this platform for. and 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 bestsellers animals and translation animals make us human the autistic brain and thinking pictures, which became an hbo starring claire danes. dr. grandin has been a pioneer in improving the welfare of farm animals, as well as an outspoken

advocate for the autism community. she resides in fort collins, colorado. dr. grandin's newest book, visual thinking the hidden gifts of people who think in pictures, patterns in abstraction, is out now and is available for purchase. our partner bookseller, politics and prose and a link is in the chat. and now further delay. please welcome dr. temple grandin. it's great to be here and talk to everybody tonight. zoom and really appreciate if you could get my slides up so i can see them and 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 the picture and when i was a little kid i was severely autistic. i was very lucky to get into very good 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. and the first thing is you have to realize different of thinking exist a lot of people are mixtures of different kinds thinking but there are some people that are really extreme one extreme visualizer if you saw the hbo movie about me, it exactly how i think now when i first started out my animal behavior work when i was in my twenties i everybody thought in pictures didn't know that verbal thinking exists. and then i was shocked when i discovered that there are a lot of people around don't think in pictures that was just a complete shock to me and being a visual thinker really helped me in my work with animal behavior. and we'll go to the next slide and it shows a shadow in a shoot. and i've done a lot of work on getting cattle handling to better cattle or afraid of a lot of. there's a shadow that's a picture of me taking a picture with camera on and i'm making a shadow that's scaring cattle. oftentimes people don't think to

look about those things, look at those things they don't think to look at what the animal is seeing because an animal lives in a sensory world. they don't live in a world based world we don't understand how an animal thinks, thinks sensory. we all know a dog's nose is really, really sensitive. but some new research has shown that the dog actually has a big internet trunk line go out the nose to the visual cortex, think about it, smell pictures, three dimensional smell pictures. that's really trippy. let's go to the next slide. now. the thing is, in looking at things, engineering, there's kind of different approaches engineering, math, medically inclined engineers calculate risk. visual thinkers could see that might be a risk. also, thinkers like me who are terrible algebra oftentimes can see just to fix something, too, because all my thoughts are pictures. so five years ago, i went to this launch pad, which now is a

rocket sitting on it and we are under the launch pad at 7:00 in the morning, five years ago. and i saw a little motion over on the stairway and i saw something in there. this should not be in there. and he's on the next slide. a raccoon waddled down the steps, and i got to thinking what a human chewing am. yeah, nobody. nobody was there. nobody knew that a raccoon was living the launch pad base. and they had fuel equipment inside that base with a raccoon in there. now, hopefully it didn't do anything to it, but nobody else knew that he was there. that seeing risk. let's go to the next slide now. we need thinkers in science. i review a lot of journal articles and we're getting to where there's more and more and mathematics. so we're going to do the most famous issues, all the fancy mathematical stuff on your data. but you see these two little devices right here for mixing samples. one has a little magnet in it

that spins around the other little contraption sort of like a ferris wheel for test tubes and a very expensive cancer study, which ruined because one lab used a magnetic the other lab use the rotating thingamajig and it totally changed the results. these data matter that messed up millions of dollars worth of research. i'm not very good at doing the math, but i make sure that we vetoes and i'm repealing a paper right. and they don't. they haven't told me what's in the feed. more now. this is really, really important it matters when you're feeding animals to one of the next slide. now there's three basic different ways of thinking. and i'm an object. so let's just go to the first one. and a lot of people are mixtures. now, my kind of thinker thinks totally pictures. we're very good with mechanical things, very good, like fixing skilled trade. and you got some of these

autistic adults holed up in the basement playing video games. this is where we need to get a retired auto mechanic, get them out working on cars and going to find. that's more interesting than the video. and a lot of these people are getting staying in the basement doing this. they're not going into great careers in the video industry. so visual thinkers like me that are lousy at abstract are good with inventing mechanical equipment, graphic design, working animals because they don't think in words and photography. these are some of the things that we're good at, totally terrible in higher math and the visual thinker a similar name where needed solve a lot of practical problems you know let's keep the water systems the electrical systems working and we'll go on to the next slide. okay. now your mathematical thing, this would be the engineer that's got an engineering degree computer programing, engineering, chemistry, physics, music and math go together. art and mechanics go together. i know that sounds weird. and music and math go together. and i'm also going to show you

later on how the different kinds of minds, once you realize they exist, can be complementary. and many, many, many people are mixtures or of the different kinds of thinking. but then you get the kid to get the specialized label. they tend to be an extreme, an extreme mathematician, maybe an extreme mudd mechanical person to go the next slide and then you, your verbal thinkers, writers, sales, psychology, lawyer, teacher, people that think words and we go on to the next slide and there's research. and this research is outlined in a chapter in my visual thinking book. i'm going to hold it up right here in my visual thinking. it made the new york times bestseller list for one week number seven on hardback and number nine on the print and e-book. i really, really pleased about that, but research showed is there actually two different types, visual ones like me and the more mathematical ones that think in abstract patterns, go

to the next slide. so how do you figure what kind you are? a lot of people are mixtures, but the thing 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 slide. turns out i got a big visual trunk line in my brain for visual thinking. we'll go show another slide of that. and there's another picture of the big internet trunk line for visual thinking. and we'll go on to the next slide. now, let's look at how you prefer to take in information on an object. visualize your like if i'm trying to show you how water, for example, works, you'd rather look at the pictures, on the photographs of the diagrams the verbal thinker will look at the written, the mathematical visual, spatial mind. they tend to look at both both

the diagrams, the text. so the next slide. now let's look at how the different kinds of thinkers might design a planet. this is a very study done with high school students that were the specialist art school, specialist science high school or a humanities program would be very language based and the art students working in teams, they made fantastic planets with crystals and maybe made a native planets square with polar bears on it. really really imaginative science students tend to just draw a round planet, not very much imagery. describe its gravity and other factors. and the humanities students may just splashes of color and in the beginning they just used words and then they raised it because it was sort of an art project, not words, but go to the next slide. the thing that's interesting is verbal thinkers, where i taught down they tend to over.

i get questions all the time. how do you teach autistic kids? well, i need to know if we got a little at three years old and we got on a kid that's super good at math. maybe needs to be moved ahead in math. i need to more information and both the object visualizations and the mathematicians are bottom up. i get my concepts with specific examples and put them like on a spreadsheet sheet 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 maybe spitting the sidewalk, for example. then i can put them on, but i have to use specific examples to make concepts. let's go to the next slide now. when the patent office first started the, object visualize is like name the very, very mechanical people. they ruled making things like

grain harvesting equipment, the sewing things that are mechanical devices. you know, now we've got a lot of people in tech and a lot of computer programmers, but even with tech like with zoom visual things can make the simple interface the more mathematically inclined have to programed. so we'll go to the next slide and the inventor of the 3d printer, you got to remember 3d is a mechanical device controlled by a computer. it's not our car not just a rolling computer. it's a mechanical device there's got a electronics in it that control it. let's go to the next slide now. i'm very concerned that we're screening out my kind of thinker an absolutely do algebra and done a lot of work on a large plants designing equipment and there were all kinds of people working out in the shop that barely graduated from high school and they may have taken a single welding class and they're

inventing patterning equipment. yeah, there's two parts of engineering. there's what i call the clever engineering department. and then the degreed engineer doing the more mathematical parts of engineering. we need to have both go to the next slide. now, i came to the realization 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 equient things, packaging, machineswhole 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 and. i think animals are conscious

and i don't think clients are conscious. i think you have to have certain amount of central nervous tissue where sensory information, memories emotions can merge together sort of like a big rotunda or the like airport hub a hub airport all networks for form nodes whether it's facebook or airports. i can remember before had hub airports or the nervous system that had a certain amount association areas. i don't think clients have got that octopuses probably are it and continuing with animals elizabeth is asking regarding your consulting on animal welfare how do you observe animals and then imagine they view the world or is it some other or can you i can imagine i'm trying to imagine a dog with this internet trunk line. it has pictures. it does free dimensional smell

pictures. i've also done a lot of thinking about, you know, where do cattle fit in are being attacked is climate. well, i've got this paper i've done grazing my hair. grazing animals are important part of a sustainable agricultural future and grazing done right can improve client grazing done wrong land. yes. they put up methane so the leaking oil fields so there's nothing tundra sort of swamps you've got to use a right you'll use animals wrong a reckless but you use them right the grazing animals you do can improve land. and the other thing and when people complain that the cattle and the sheep and the other graziers take up too much land, 20% of the earth's surface cannot be cropped. it can only be grazed. it's too arid for cropping, not enough groundwater, not enough water coming from the sky.

absolutely. well, people don't think about that. no, we actually have a comment from carolyn who's you mentioned bison and they wanted to thank you for your work. you did years ago in yellowstone national park make bison captured facilities better for the animals? well, why workers chase them all around those places you could lot of these animals can just feed them in corrals and then one day you just shut the gate. yeah, that's lot easier. and chasing them. add something that i see solution is something that i see. it's not. you see, this is where we need my kind of mind to visualize ways to fix things. also, people talk about subway to abstract when all is power plants frozen texas couldn't believe all nonsense that we're talking. nobody sat down and said what folks what exact piece of

equipment froze in each what was it that froze. well, you have to know that before you can make a rational decision on on the ones that would be easiest to fix to winterize. nobody discussed that. she that's so abstract. not solving a problem, right? all that equipment will be easy to winterize and solve. it might be impossible to winterize 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, and how difficult would it to win a race? absolutely. that never got discussed. and i get scared and i looked at the books that i saw in the political science office, somebody with all that verbal, abstract is going to make a decision about power plants that

is the right decision. yes. we've got to do things to reduce carbon. we've got to reduce coal use. and and i'd like the the nice of our coal fired power plant had what was called don't it. but at this point that question shutting it completely down. well it's yeah and i'm tell you this we could a website so we reduce electricity use we put to cars less coal here today see i see that yeah. so actually going to communication and communicating someone is asking meg is asking how can people of different thinking types held to communicate and interact with others. well you have to know the different thinking types exist and they have approaches to problem solving well because you need verbal thinkers, you know,

it's. you know, verbal thinking enable us to have books and libraries and made it possible do things and fly to the moon. dogs aren't going to do that any time soon because it enables us to store knowledge. animals can't their someone else's asking for those of us who are more visual how well do you have to know the problem before you can visualize likely solutions a visual thinker is a bottom up thinker, so the more things i learn about like it in age 50, i thought i could think better than i could today 20 because i have more visual things, more visual pictures in my database. it's sort of like training an artificial intelligence system. you want to train an artificial intelligence system, for example, to diagnose melanoma, you've got to show all kinds of melanomas and then you got to show every other kind of skin

rash. and the better that data set is is, you know, they okay, let's go back to the powerpoint things. i don't know what a coal car is i wouldn't visualize. so a visual thinker gets wisdom. the more stuff that they read about and convert to graphics files and stuff. they see. and then you can associate. yeah, you have to have data in a database to associate and you say, well, okay, figured out how to design a piece of equipment and i'm it worked like i like something. for example, the foundation yeah you have to deal. that's why the kids need to get to see all kinds of stuff and then they can, they can think up all kinds of different ways to do things because they got a lot of information in the database. it's a bottom up thinker. i think it takes a lot of data to make a bottom thinking work.

absolutely. so moving on to employment is asking, are you talked with many ceos and their teams? what kind of actions do you see them take afterwards? do you the tech industry has done is in bring in people and have like contests, programing, workshops and things like this where people can come in and show off their work and, you know, similar things might have makerspace and have people come in and show off stuff on but we're going to have to change some of the interview process to get some of the best minds that are different because your best mechanic, for example is not going to interview, will. maybe he needs to show the other mechanics, the custom he got that be showing the work and i find some companies are really really flexible about idea of changing interview process and then i can't really but the thing i try to impress upon the

same way in my work with cattle handling is that one of the reasons for that are cattle handling is that makes money better weight, less bruises and also cuts your workman's comp build down access to people love that. yeah and considering that's how i sold because i convinced them that could be good cattle would make money and we know we need some of these skills i didn't realize how bad the skill loss was until i went to the to bought chicken plant and steve jobs there and that was a big light bulb moment and then started researching stuff and electronic chip making from holland you see and this goes back to their system. they can go tech and you know this the high end skilled trades is the only place you don't need a few place, don't need a college education and you end up

with the corporate jet. but this is something that that educators don't realize. yeah and we need we need kinds of thinkers and and especially now we've all kinds of problems we're going to solve energy and things like this and we've got to do stuff that actually is going to work from built. you can get somebody gets a. and the first step is realizing different kinds of thinkers exist and a lot of people are mixtures but usually one kind of thinker kind of predominate and you really you're talking it but some people are true mixtures but you get a kid with the label they're going to be something often term we have had a few comments tonight about how some individuals thought they were,

you know, fully close to being fully visual thinkers. but now have realized that they are you know, it's that combination, that mix. yeah, people are deaf, but there are a lot of people talked to that are mixes and and so some is research shows that thinking styles don't matter you take your run you know just a run all the students you know for the mixtures may not matter. but then you take somebody like me and abstract algebra just pounding away at me and because there's nothing visually for me to relate that to, i can wall problems, i cannot remember it i on a graphics file in order to remember something but then on the other hand what, what happen to einstein today in today's educational system system? i think that's a real worry and some states do better. there's a lot of differences between states and states are putting hands on classes in.

but the thing is we need to be exposed, the elementary school kids to a lot of different things to wait until the community college is almost too late and then our community college is drawing colorado build, a built in welding shop and they can't find to teach the welding. that's right. now, that was in september, right? that's right now i was there. i was at a beef meeting. we were discussing it. and they said we took away the required a bit of a college education. you can't find a way to teach welding. someone will someone saying it makes so much sense to hear you talk about exposing kids tools, hands on careers, theater and music now i was exposed to a musical instrument that didn't really, for me, never could figure out how to play this little flute. not another kid takes off with it. but you don't know unless they're exposed. so a big believer in exposing kids to a whole lot different things and and see what they

kind of gravitate towards. because the thing that is an autistic person is, you know, just social but psychosocial doesn't really turn me on. what's helped me is a really interesting career and having friends through shared interests like for i'm thinking that's great they're flight i had this year sat next to a lady manager and we talked about tilt up warehouse construction and concrete farming systems. now that's a really plane ride. so that shared interest. yes. or talked to somebody about their cattle that shared interest interest. i that so someone is actually talking about standardized. you know given that the standardized tests like s.a.t. and a.c.t. are in prison cliques skewed towards verbal fingers, what do

you see? the thing see in the other thing, these math requirements, right. they i originally wanted to and engineering i had to drop a physics class. i had to a biomedical engineering class. i had majored in psychology to get away from the math. 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 behavior. i was very lucky i had that class. you see that? an example of exposure. who's my favorite class. it was just luck that class was there and he was a retiree and he'd had and he had walked very slowly with a pain and he introduced me to animal

behavior. she that situation. yeah we have someone who's saying even if exposure doesn't to a new skill it can increase increase appreciation in an understanding. well that's right and the other thing i think important for people to say, yeah, i tried this, i hate it. i think it's also important for for students to find that out. like a lot of parents want their kid to be a doctor. the kid shadows a doctor and says, i just can't stand working in fracture. i got 15 minutes to see each patient and this just terrible. and that's not for me. we have a question about the book and it's about the understand putting it together. was there anything that you wanted to include in it, that you weren't able to include or anything, that you weren't included? a lot of stuff in it. yeah. and it was really wonderful working with betsy and the thing is i more about how betsy thinks

and the only way then i think this is a concern to policymakers that betsy can understand a physics process say leverage. so betsy and i were on third grade children's school websites on leverage, and she could only understand it when i say, betsy, have you ever taken a screwdriver and pried the lid off a painting that's leverage. then she understood it. she had related back something she had actually done. now let's say have a verbal thinker that's been totally removed. the world, the practical. and they have to make some very serious decisions about energy that's very scary to me if they've totally been from the world. the practical also i remember talking to betsy, her dog and you know, before she had one.

i don't think imagined them thinking. and then said to her, now when you take your dog out and you can let it off, let it run, watch what it smells and watch what it does. you see now that having that real experience opened up the door for her, is it something i learned in working with someone who was a pure verbal thinker? i'm not saying that betsy should go. skilled trades, not. she's the author and a book agent. she's to verbal field. but let's say the terrible verbal fingers going on policy might be very concerned if they were totally removed from the world of practical. apps. it's we need all different touch might and then of course i had good people working with me to improve my writing and they took a red pen and they marked up my work and i them for that. i thank them right. we have someone who's asking if you're giving advice to, someone

who are just autistic young adults or someone who is diagnosed later in life who might be struggling to figure out dealing with adulthood. well one of the big problems is making the transition to the world of work. i'm seeing a lot of situation where autistic students do really well. then they lose it in the workplace and. we need to start the transition to work before they graduate high school, starting with chores for little kids, volunteer jobs on a schedule outside. the home like 11 years old, real jobs before you know an illegal of age and you know let's say you have an adult that's not getting of the house playing a video games it's my kind of thinker let's introduce car mechanics that's been one of the few things that has successfully them off the video games and there's one of them now he's fixing trains, the railroad and they love but, you know you know

give them some choices. i was scared to try new things. my mother a very good sense of just how much to stretch me to do new things. but we need to be working on the transition to work and way too many parents way too much over protect their kids and they're not shopping and learn laundry they're not learning skills because they're overprotected now by what you don't want to do is chuck them into a chaotic takeout window that's where you don't put them that's likely to fail because there's too much multitasking. and i don't have the process or speed that handle that multitasking. so another person asking about what kind of education do you think children and young adults need order to be good citizens in a democracy? well, let's just basic, you know, be kind to others the golden rule on treat the way you

want to be treated. i'm thinking about warlight set of returned at the airport. okay that's treating others how you'd want to be treated. you're being nice now i'm seeing a little boutique booth that's at the denver airport and you can buy all these hats and shirts. just say, be kind. you see, i always have to relate it back to we need to teach kids. be polite on. you know what learned to do is that i've learned that there's some issues where i can learn that i can have a friend, but we disagree on certain issues, but we'll have shared interests and other things on. we're just brought up one. what is a good person? a good person will crash around wreck stuff, a good person not mean to other people. i mean, these are real basic. you know, treat others the way

you want to be treated. that's a golden rule written plainly, which is every religious tradition. it treat others the way you want to be treated, do unto others as they do unto you is old fashioned way of saying. but that can be taught once specific example at a time. i'm seeing a man's money clip right rolling around on x ray table with his credit card license on it. i grabbed it and i gave it to the tsa officer, said you need to make an announcement, guys. some credit cards and stuff like here. and they did. i'm sure that guy was very grateful to get credit cards. this license back. okay. and another time i found wallet in the lady's bathroom and i took it to the information desk and she got it back. and that took some extra time to do that. absolutely there are things that are specific examples helped the

guy through alzheimer's navigate minneapolis airport one time and he was on a flight by himself which you should have never been like your complicated connection in minneapolis. and one question that i love is from doing this research from writing this book is there anything that really makes you optimistic about the or something that you really excited about, potentially excited, you know, makes me really happy when your parent my kids fixing trains for the railroad you see i get excited about about concrete things are my kids are working for a computer company and their work and your book helped that kid to that goal i think that's main thing. i want to help the kids that are different get into good careers and we also need to be doing things to help the world. like when i was a young child, i had a tradition in our church

where every christmas you had to give one of your toys away to a poor kid and a big manger for presents. and they said, it's better to give than to receive. you know, we collected money for unicef when i was a little kid, i you see we see my it's pictures that come up when i think about this being way too much greed. now, what i learned very early on when i first started my twenties, i had some very rich that i designed crowns. i found out that we are jet that was the hot airplane in the seventies. and a couple of barons in your are just another hot airplane from the seventies just my happiness i learned that was in my twenties working from very, very rich clients designing corals. hot jets don't buy happiness.

and one of the happiest people i know, the guy named bird lived in lived next to my aunt's ranch in a kind of rundown house in a beautiful part of the world. he was really happy. and he was everybody loved him. he was an x-ray technician at the base. so he had health insurance. you've got to have your basics that he had from the fort. what you the army base. and he was the happiest, nicest person. and he had a very bad leg prostheses. and i realized bird could barely walk and that's why the horse was always tied up outside, because if he couldn't take the truck, he'd have to ride the horse. well. and he really had he had a prosthetic leg and it not a good one, but even with that he'd fix anybody's car, fix your washing

machine was up broke at the like the water pump broke but it was their fiction that. you know, he had the basics she had the basics she had health insurance had a steady job as an x-ray technician. you got to have known he had reliable health insurance. one of the things she had, he didn't have to worry about that, but he didn't have a fancy house. nobody had old cars. they just fixed up and used. but he could keep them running right, you know. so you have to have your basics. but i worked for some very rich people and having all those airplanes in hangar did not buy happiness. i learned that in my twenties maybe that's good that i learned that. it's a good lesson. yeah also that idiot went and done those crawls in the mud hole and i told him not to do

them and he did anyway. and it was a mudhole. that's where he his grills and he stiffed on a $200 fee. yeah. to. another valuable lesson. yeah it was an it was a good lesson that stuff doesn't happiness but you to get the basics where you're not worrying about you get some health problem the mobility pay for it or get it don't it was but you see i think about things in sports civic examples it's not abstract. but then the more pictures i get into my mind, the better able to think, because it's sort of like when google first started, when the internet first started, there wasn't much in it. i can remember you type in cattle to alta vista and i was ten webpages that was it, right? one was on cattle brakes on the universities. put that up. well that's the way the visual

thinkers got to fill the database. i can fill with things i read things, i experience not what just need to teach kids to do good things, do something that's constructive. okay. so what need to be doing. it is it is. and we have a few more minutes and so i want to make sure you have an opportunity to, you know, say anything about the book that you might have you might want to talk about or anything in particular about about writing this. well, i did the the rough drafts. they kind of associational kind of disorganized. that's you straighten them all out. and, you know, some people said, where's the science? let me take a giant list in this book for the science and the different kinds of thinking really do exist, though.

i've got bunch of studies on this and to find studies yourself you have to use keywords object visualizer and visual spatial. if you use visual thinking looking on the scientific databases. you don't find the papers on you have to use the term object visualizer. and then you'll find them. but i worked with all kinds of people that barely graduate from high school going big, complicated cargill plants, tyson plants. i was on these jobs and let me tell you they were brilliant and i couldn't do that. none of them could do algebra. even the guy with the corporate jet, he collected algebra. he's flying around in a corporate jet, building stuff. these were complicated jobs. i was out on those projects. i mean, during the night i was living at a construction project

right. and staying in really crappy motels to build. yeah, well then had the fairfield's in the hamptons because of my construction works for that time. the thing i learned is that the places where the truckers stay, they didn't rip you off on the tv, you'd get free cable expensive hotels, rip you off on the beach, all right? well, i think that's about all the time that we have. thank you. so i hope i got a lot of people thinking and i'm. yeah, i recommend the book and we'll you to think about things differently and with the other thing on the schools people. so what would i do to change the schools they would need to start in the neighborhoods, a car repair place, make our spaces a place where. an art studio for kids are featured are for kids.

these are things that used to be style. and they were my mother did theater in the summertime for the neighborhood. and these things were not expensive things to do. and i talked to a teacher. she was really frustrated because this wouldn't let her kid paint because they were messy. now, now kids need to be doing those kind of and we need just get these things going in the neighborhood for it is a great program and you get that to the county extension service you know they raise some chickens in the backyard it's just all of things that you could do. i love them and i think it this conversation hopefully is an impetus for it for this change and for. to survive. we need jobs. we need to lose a lot of retirees out there and. they might find that teaching some kids automatic cash is a

lot more interesting than golf is or summer or bridge or some other thing. i know i never could figure a bridge out. that's too abstract for me. absolutely never can figure out play bridge. i yes. i don't think you're the one it is that one out of that or the or mathematical abstract pattern thinkers. but think about things you could just do in the neighborhood. my mother had a great time having the kids do plays know we had a little a little ferret. our school, she got the kids together. they put on that show the wizard of oz. but of oz, a classic. and she i remember the wizards head now hat fox. it was not real expensive stuff that you could make out of all the amazon boxes. oh, absolutely. i mean are numbered.

get enough of them. take them together. you'll figure how you can use the most giant legos. oh, absolutely. a perfect backdrop for a set. and you can paint them and you could paint them that would not be fun. do it outside. get a mess. it's stuff. i want to make a space one time and, third grade kids were ignoring the electronics and they were over cutting up washing machine boxes with hacksaw blades that been taped with one end tape and a lot of tape. and it makes a little sign that a young child had cut box with that safe just taped hacksaw blades you tape one a ton of tape on that's the handle and they cut that heavy cardboard with it they were having a great time. i'm seeing now that costs nothing boxes of free stuff like that we just doing the neighborhood watch.

one teacher took her kindergartners for a field trip to learn about parking meters meters and how people have to pay for parking. the kids thought that was fabulous to learn about that. that's just going to create up about teaching in the city. you go out and in my outdoor scientist book, let's go out, we live in the city about watch the pigeons, take out a pigeon and doing it. the grandma. that costs nothing to learn how to observe animal behavior. there's all kinds of things you can just do in. the neighborhood. what as in, as you mentioned earlier, a list as well theater, other activities theater, you know cooking, sewing, woodworking, knitting, raising chickens or maybe showing animal

art, music. you know, those like here in colorado, they collect used musical instruments for, low income schools. there's just all kinds of things you can be done in the neighborhood. exactly. and and the other thing and get some of these kids you're going to get some kids headed down a bad path they need responsible in the neighborhood to be role models. today more than i science teacher was a fabulous mentor that got me on the right track. you gave interesting projects to do and then i, i motivated to study. i still couldn't do algebra, but i got good grades and all the other classes. well, thank you, temple, for a wonderful presentation conversation that is about all the time that we have. okay. we are getting a bunch of thank you's. it was so wonderful to you and hear from you in the

chat. and a reminder there is a politics and prose link for the book in the chat as well as a discount code. if you enjoy today's program, consider becoming a member and thank again for a wonderful, wonderful time. okay, thank you. library much. and it was absolutely great being here by