1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,240 Tell me about your vision. 2 00:00:03,620 --> 00:00:06,240 My vision is to make people aware 3 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:08,440 of the power of education, 4 00:00:08,440 --> 00:00:13,440 particularly when it is used with very young children 5 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:17,440 to influence society. 6 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:19,520 Of course, education is very empowering 7 00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:22,760 to an individual who wants to change their own lives 8 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:24,660 and to work towards goals, 9 00:00:24,660 --> 00:00:27,040 but it is also a powerful tool 10 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:29,000 in the hands of other people, 11 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:31,040 particularly when it's used with children 12 00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:33,460 that are very young and very influential. 13 00:00:33,460 --> 00:00:36,800 And it's important that parents be aware of this 14 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,280 and that they take time to make decisions 15 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:41,880 that will impact their children 16 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,540 and themselves in the future. 17 00:00:44,540 --> 00:00:45,840 Tell me more about that. 18 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,040 How has that impacted your life as well? 19 00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:55,560 And yeah. 20 00:00:55,560 --> 00:01:00,560 I was blessed in that I was able to use education 21 00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:05,600 to attain goals rather than perhaps being influenced 22 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:09,640 by people who wanted to change me away 23 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:11,920 from my parents' beliefs. 24 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:13,640 My parents were both teachers, perhaps. 25 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:15,360 I was blessed in that. 26 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:18,560 So they were very involved in my education, 27 00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:23,560 very involved in my childhood, my very early childhood. 28 00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:27,560 I sat on my mother's knee and listened to stories. 29 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:33,320 And so their culture and their beliefs were passed on to me 30 00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:37,320 before I even had time to think about it. 31 00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:40,680 They were just ingrained in me because I always heard them. 32 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:45,680 But as I got older, I began to see, 33 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:49,320 particularly in writing this book 34 00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:52,520 and doing the research around this book, 35 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:57,000 I began to see how much of an influence others could be 36 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:02,000 on the beliefs and values of children. 37 00:02:02,300 --> 00:02:06,000 The earlier you start influencing the children, 38 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,480 the more ingrained those beliefs become. 39 00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:12,120 For me, it's sort of like T-ball. 40 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,680 We might not have as many children who liked baseball 41 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,960 if they didn't start children at a very young age, 42 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:21,640 playing it, understanding about practice, 43 00:02:21,640 --> 00:02:23,760 going and committing the time it takes 44 00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:25,760 to get better and better at the skills. 45 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:31,120 We can use education in culture and values the same way 46 00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:33,200 that they use T-ball to influence you. 47 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:36,720 That is awesome. 48 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:39,000 I remember from my childhood, 49 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:41,560 I'm born and raised in India, by the way. 50 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:42,720 If you didn't know that. 51 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:44,600 I have not been brought here. 52 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:47,600 I moved to United States, I think, when I was 18. 53 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,400 My family still lives in India, most of my family anyway. 54 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:52,520 They visit when they want to, 55 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:56,360 but I've created a home for myself and my family here. 56 00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:01,360 And growing up, there were so many things 57 00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:07,280 in our education system that helped me, obviously, 58 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:09,800 along what I've come along and things I've learned. 59 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:13,680 There's so many of the things that boxed me 60 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:15,800 into a way of thinking. 61 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:20,080 Now, when I'm grown up and done my own research 62 00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:21,840 and realized for myself, I'm like, 63 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:24,400 wow, those things don't make sense. 64 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,880 And why are they in the textbook still? 65 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:29,560 And why are the people still teaching it? 66 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:31,800 And so I've gone through some of that. 67 00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:34,480 Clearly, I've not gone through the American education system 68 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:38,760 when it comes to like high school and below, 69 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:40,400 and early years. 70 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:42,800 But so tell me more about that. 71 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:43,760 Like what... 72 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,040 Well, as a teacher, I do remember, 73 00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:52,400 and it's sort of funny, but it's not funny. 74 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:56,960 It's certainly indicative of the impact, 75 00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:01,680 not to the good, that our willingness 76 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:03,320 to turn over our education, 77 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:05,360 the education of our children to others. 78 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:09,440 I was a science teacher when I first started. 79 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:13,440 And when the books were being adopted each year, 80 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:16,080 because books were adopted for certain grades, 81 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:17,480 certain things were taught, 82 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:19,640 third grade, fourth grade, seventh grade, 83 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:20,920 I was a middle school teacher. 84 00:04:20,920 --> 00:04:24,120 So I was in the group who was evaluating 85 00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:26,600 the middle school science books. 86 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:30,720 And as a science major myself, I had been in a lot of labs. 87 00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:32,520 I had seen a lot of things. 88 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:35,240 And I had lots of activities that my children could do 89 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:36,800 in the classroom. 90 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,960 But as we began to read over the books, 91 00:04:41,640 --> 00:04:45,000 some of us began to notice that not all of the experiments 92 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:47,880 in the books that were up for adoption worked. 93 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:51,680 And so the university, we're very near a university, 94 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:53,240 a major university. 95 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,280 So one of the professors there wrote a grant 96 00:04:56,280 --> 00:05:01,280 that set up a summer program where we took every book 97 00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:06,280 that was up for adoption in our state at that time. 98 00:05:06,280 --> 00:05:10,520 And we performed every single activity 99 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:15,520 that was provided in the book that our children might use. 100 00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:18,800 And while some of them didn't necessarily work 101 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:20,160 quite like you expected it, 102 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:22,640 or it wasn't necessarily exciting, 103 00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:24,880 there was one that actually exploded. 104 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:27,760 And so there we are downstairs 105 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:29,520 in the bottom of the chemistry building, 106 00:05:29,520 --> 00:05:31,520 and it exploded. 107 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:34,600 And we sent word very quickly to the professor 108 00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:36,920 who was over that particular section. 109 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:38,920 And he came running back, no, no, no, 110 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:40,440 y'all must have done something wrong. 111 00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:43,680 So he carried it back to another chemistry lab. 112 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:48,320 And he redid the experiment, 113 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:51,320 and it exploded again with him as well. 114 00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:54,760 And so for us in sitting around 115 00:05:54,760 --> 00:05:57,560 and talking about what we had seen, 116 00:05:57,560 --> 00:05:59,640 we began to realize that the people 117 00:05:59,640 --> 00:06:02,800 who put the books together were perhaps writers. 118 00:06:04,120 --> 00:06:06,680 Maybe they weren't necessarily scientists. 119 00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:10,680 So they were putting together ideas that sounded good, 120 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:13,160 and they might sound exciting enough 121 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:16,920 to be sold on the market for the public schools, 122 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:19,440 but they didn't have time or didn't take the time 123 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:21,400 to actually do the experiments. 124 00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:23,160 And this was truly hazardous. 125 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:28,160 And of course, reading again about our treatment 126 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:31,520 of the indigenous people over the years, 127 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:35,560 you began to see that perhaps we did some experiments 128 00:06:35,560 --> 00:06:38,760 there too without knowing full well 129 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:40,560 what the end result might be. 130 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:44,920 So for me, taking the time to study 131 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:47,560 and look at like you did, go back and say, 132 00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:50,600 that doesn't really make any sense and think about it. 133 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:54,600 And that takes a commitment of time on the part of parents 134 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:56,560 to take care of their children. 135 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:03,560 What would you say, Gwen, is your why about your vision? 136 00:07:04,360 --> 00:07:06,400 Like why do you do what you do? 137 00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:14,400 I just think it's important for our children 138 00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:18,880 to learn to think, to not be, 139 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:21,880 I guess the common term is dummy down, 140 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:26,880 to not be spoon fed what other people want them to believe 141 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:31,960 or want them to know, or what fits, what's easy. 142 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:37,960 I want all people, all people anywhere, 143 00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:40,640 to be able to think their way through things 144 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:42,520 that make them feel uncomfortable. 145 00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:44,400 Why does it make me feel uncomfortable? 146 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:45,720 What can I do? 147 00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:47,640 What are the possible outcomes? 148 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:49,920 What are the possible outcomes? 149 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:53,160 What are the consequences of each of those outcomes? 150 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:56,040 And so that thought process is very important. 151 00:07:56,040 --> 00:08:00,000 And if our children are not allowed to question things, 152 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:03,480 they won't grow up with that thinking process. 153 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,480 So for me, I truly believe that the future 154 00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:12,480 of free humanity is based in that critical thinking capacity. 155 00:08:12,480 --> 00:08:17,480 So what's the solution to this big mess? 156 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:20,000 Oh, wow. 157 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:24,680 That's more than a 15 minute answer for sure. 158 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:29,680 But I think that small groups, individuals, 159 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:34,600 must, they have to be aware, they have to take the time. 160 00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:37,520 Even if you start, even if we start with just one school, 161 00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:39,960 and I think it's started already, 162 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:42,560 they just need encouragement. 163 00:08:42,560 --> 00:08:45,600 Obviously your parents raised a free thinker, 164 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:48,000 someone who ventured out on his own, 165 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:50,800 looked at things, questioned what he saw. 166 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:54,200 That thinking process is very important 167 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:57,120 and we have to make sure that it's never squelched. 168 00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:00,560 And that's going to take a lot of people 169 00:09:00,560 --> 00:09:04,560 who accept and understand the consequences 170 00:09:04,560 --> 00:09:06,560 of not being free thinkers. 171 00:09:06,560 --> 00:09:11,560 I completely agree because I don't like talking 172 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:14,920 about negative things per se, 173 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:17,000 because I feel like inspiration is the way 174 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:22,000 to help people see the brighter side of things 175 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,160 instead of focusing on the negative. 176 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:25,000 Yes. 177 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,160 But in my life, I've seen so many examples 178 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:33,160 where family members would suppress their negative thoughts 179 00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:37,600 and family members would suppress their own family members 180 00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:39,080 knowingly or unknowingly, 181 00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:43,640 and they would botch the spirit of thinking down, 182 00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:46,080 or the spirit of the person down in a way 183 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:47,800 that they would not think outside the box. 184 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,600 They would do the norm instead of maybe 185 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:53,600 what they were meant to do, maybe what they would excel at, 186 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:58,600 maybe what their strong traits, their skills were. 187 00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:01,960 So I think you're absolutely right 188 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:04,920 that when it comes to education, 189 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:08,280 what we put inside us and what we put inside our kids 190 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:10,440 is very important because they are going 191 00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:11,720 to be shaping the future. 192 00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:15,240 I'm almost 30 now, and according to dad, 193 00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:17,840 I probably lived almost half my life. 194 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:21,760 So I got like maybe 30, 40, 50 years to live. 195 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:25,480 And there's other generation moving up. 196 00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:28,560 They're learning what needs to happen in the future. 197 00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:33,320 And they'll be the ones deciding what else happens 198 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:36,480 and how people are, what do we do? 199 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:39,720 Do we improve people's life for the better, 200 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:42,040 or do we make it worse? 201 00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:46,280 So I think it's very important what we teach our kids. 202 00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:48,560 It's funny to me, one of the things is, 203 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:53,480 a lot of times in friends and family 204 00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:56,800 where kids go to high school, 205 00:10:56,800 --> 00:11:00,200 they spend eight hours of their day in that high school 206 00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:04,000 and they come back and then the kids are irrational, 207 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:07,680 rowdy, and they're angry, and they do stupid stuff, 208 00:11:07,680 --> 00:11:09,120 and the parents are like, 209 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:12,120 I wonder what went wrong with my kid? 210 00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:15,320 I'm like, you don't have any idea, eight hours a kid, 211 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:17,520 what he does and who he learns from. 212 00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:20,960 No idea, you don't know what the heck is gonna happen 213 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,120 when he comes home and he comes in a controlled environment 214 00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:26,760 instead of someone you have no idea who's teaching your kid 215 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:28,200 what they're teaching your kid, 216 00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,400 and not even what they're saying to your kid, 217 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:33,880 how are they acting in front of your kid? 218 00:11:33,880 --> 00:11:35,400 Like what's their body language, 219 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:37,680 what is your kid actually picking up? 220 00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:40,320 What kind of people is your kid hanging out with? 221 00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:43,840 Have you even checked his backpack, what he has in there? 222 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:47,520 You have no idea, and you wanna answer the question, 223 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:49,040 what's wrong with my kid? 224 00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:50,640 How about everything? 225 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:52,120 And how about nothing? 226 00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:53,760 It really starts, I think for me, 227 00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:58,760 that was the part of the research of the book 228 00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:04,240 that was so clear to me that it begins so much earlier, 229 00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:10,240 the influence, and it takes so much less influence, 230 00:12:10,560 --> 00:12:15,560 the younger the child, the less influence it takes to actually 231 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:19,080 or the less action it takes to bring about the influence 232 00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,280 that someone might be trying to do on your child. 233 00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:24,240 Because yes, for those children, 234 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:29,160 an eight hour day in school, that's a portion of their life. 235 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:31,560 It's not just a portion of their day. 236 00:12:31,560 --> 00:12:34,080 And so that influence stays with them, 237 00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:35,920 particularly if they come home, 238 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:39,800 and the parents are busy, and I know that parents are busy, 239 00:12:39,800 --> 00:12:41,440 they have jobs, they have lives. 240 00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:47,240 And I like what you said as well about the positive, 241 00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:49,280 there's so much negativity in the world, 242 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,480 and so it's easy to come home and collapse 243 00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:54,800 from a busy day or a hard day, 244 00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:57,480 and just simply sink into that negativity 245 00:12:57,480 --> 00:13:00,400 because it sort of goes along with how you already feel. 246 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:03,520 It takes effort to be positive. 247 00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:08,520 It takes commitment to think or define something that's good 248 00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:11,840 that you can then share with another person 249 00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:16,840 or give to another person that is what they need 250 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:21,840 then to keep on with what you're trying to get them away from 251 00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:24,920 if what they are in is negative. 252 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:28,240 And so that commitment of time, 253 00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:31,000 if the influence has been bad, 254 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:36,000 your commitment and positivity about how good something can be 255 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:38,520 just makes all the difference in the world 256 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:39,920 for those young people. 257 00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:41,240 Thank you for being here today. 258 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:43,680 I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. 259 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:46,280 I'm looking forward to seeing your reaction 260 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:48,480 as these episodes continue to move forward. 261 00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:50,200 This is gonna get more and more fun. 262 00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:52,080 We'll have more and more engagement as well. 263 00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:54,160 We'll invite people to participate in the show 264 00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:56,560 and thank you for giving us your time and attention. 265 00:13:56,560 --> 00:13:59,280 Have an excellent time building out your vision 266 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:18,280 and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.