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A tireless advocate for people who think differently, Grandin makes the case that we need the collaboration of all kinds of minds to solve problems, prevent disasters, and accomplish objectives. Diagnosed with autism and someone who “thinks in pictures”, Grandin sees the value in every individual’s ability to make a contribution. See complete bio and view all TEDxDU Talks at www.tedxdu.com.
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
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a lot of things to talk about very
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quickly cuz only have 12 minutes and
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they got this clock up here counting
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down and I know I’m not supposed to sell
00:15
things but the HBO movies available on
00:17
amazon.com and i9i weren’t able to they
00:21
actually wanted to buy it and give it
00:22
their buddy but they couldn’t figure out
00:24
how to order it from the Borg at the
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Time Warner building now where we got
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the really good radical collaboration
00:29
was with people that made the movie
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Emily Gerson Saenz the mother of a
00:33
mother of an autistic child Mick Jackson
00:35
a great visual thinker Christopher
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monger the writer a word thinker so it’s
00:39
visual thinker word think our work and
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together we got to think about different
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ways of thinking you know my work with
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animals you know you got to get away
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from language totally get away from
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language to understand it animals world
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is sensory based it’s not word based you
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know there’s been some brain scan
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research that showed that the normal
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mind drops out the details in my work
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with animals I had a look at details
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look at how that animals blocking at the
01:05
Sunbeam this place here they wanted to
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tear down this whole cattle handling
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facility you know what the cattle were
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scared of the flag sometimes the most
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obvious is the least obvious you’ve got
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the semis look for the most obvious so
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I’d get down the chutes see things like
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the shadows that would scare the animals
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like see pictures in my head and the
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movie showed exactly how my mind works
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because Nick Jackson the director was a
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total visual finger but visual thinkers
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are not good on organizations I’d have
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Christopher monger the writer he kept
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the organization going I realized my
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thinking was different when I was in my
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40s and asked people about church
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steeples and I was shocked to find out
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that most people generalized generic
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church steeple I only see specific ones
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and they just flash up like Google for
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Images just like this just like how the
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movie showed it and if you want some
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snow on it I can make it snow it’s like
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a thunderstorm or a wedding I can put
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that in there too and when I design
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equipment I can totally test run the
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equipment in my mind I thought everybody
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could test run equipment in their mind
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I didn’t know that most people didn’t
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have that kind of visual thinking and
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you know one you know really weird nerd
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nobody wants to talk to you so I learned
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they had to sell my work that’s the
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drawing starred in the HBO movie and
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they duplicated all my projects
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absolutely exactly and the nerd side of
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me really likes that and there’s they
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are drawing that they built the dip fat
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system off of now I’ve noticed some
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interesting things as the industry went
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from hand drawing to computers the old
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folks they went fine on the computers
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but some of the young people that have
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never worked by hand
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they’ve never pulled anything we’re
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making a lot of very strange mistakes on
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drawings like they didn’t know where the
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center of the circle was they were
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making 25-foot long gates they were
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making all kinds of stuff that wouldn’t
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work and I’m really concerned that the
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schools have taken out so many of the
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hands-on classes they teach practical
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problem-solving
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we need practical problem-solving I used
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to joke around that had huge internet
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connection in my brain deep into the
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visual cortex and this dtic
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imaging show that I did and I got a
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really big one up here and some more
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fancier imaging up in the University of
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Pittsburgh that was paid for by DARPA
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research that’s a a Defense Department
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for people with head injuries they found
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out that 26 persone Lee 26 percent of my
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language circuit was working you know
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they had to work on me really really
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hard to get that going I want to
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emphasize autism is a big spectrum at
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one end of the spectrum you got Einstein
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you know you take out a few social
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circuits you get geek circuits do kinds
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of creative things at the other end of
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the spectrum you may have somebody very
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severe with epilepsy and they’re
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nonverbal now I am a photorealistic
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visual thinker who thinks in pictures
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now this another kind of mind it’s the
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pattern thinker this is your programmer
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this is your mathematician this is a not
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my mind that praying mantis is made out
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of a single sheet of folded paper no
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cutting no scotch tape and what you see
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in the background that’s the folding
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pattern that’s not my mind now this is
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an important slide because I have found
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that there’s different kinds of thinkers
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there’s the photorealistic visual
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thinker like
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that absolutely cannot do algebra like
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that great long-term memory but I don’t
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have a very good short-term working
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memory and I’m seeing a lot of kids who
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cannot do algebra that need to be jumped
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right to geometry so how do me get
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through college I got to thank the math
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fads of the early 60s because I didn’t
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have to take algebra I had to take
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probability matrices and statistics then
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there’s the pattern thinker these are
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the kids when they’re in fourth grade
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may need to be five grades ahead math
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but they’re going to have trouble with
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reading then you’ve got the verbal
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thinkers these are not these guys are
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not good at drawing these are the guys
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that we need to keep the structure and
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the linear structure in two things being
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done by the visual thinkers then some
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people are auditory just to show you
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that there is two ways of solving
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mathematical formulas a squared plus B
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squared equals C squared okay that’s the
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verbal way and that’s the geometry way
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where it’s done in a diagram a visual
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thinking way and there’s some people
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that say that algebra is the
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prerequisite for geometry there’s one
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little problem
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geometry was invented before algebra
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little problem man now when different
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people collaborate when the different
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kinds of minds get together they
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complement each other I found that in my
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own work I’m good at the visual thinking
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things in my research you know we did
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some pioneering work on cattle
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temperament and how that effects on
05:51
weight gain and the cattle that get all
05:53
excited and crazy they gain less weight
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when we did that 15 years ago that was
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looked at as totally a radical it’s now
06:00
been duplicated a bunch of times well my
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students are really good at the math
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part now you know Japanese nuclear power
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plant needed a visual thinker like me
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okay the mathematicians they know how to
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design a nuclear reactor but when I
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found out why this plant melted down I
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was shocked I was reading a lot of stuff
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we’ll you know the earthquake came tore
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down all the power lines emergency
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generators came on coolant pumps were
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running everything was cool everything
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was nice and then the tsunami came and
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drowned the generators see the problem
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is they had no backup for the seawall
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that’s not the kind of mistake I would
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make it would have walked around in that
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plant I don’t know I don’t know how the
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nuclear
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our plant part works but all I know is
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that the coolant pump stops you’re in a
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lot of trouble really fast I know how
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pumps work generators work and I could
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have seen the water either break in the
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wall or coming over the wall filling up
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the generator room electric panels are
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only this far off the floor they’re
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going to go nothing’s going to work and
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it’s going to get hot really really
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really quickly another kind of place
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where you need the engineering mind more
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the math mind in the visual thinker you
07:08
remember the whole disaster with airbags
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airbags are killing little babies I
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would have taken one look at those
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videos and would have gone wait a minute
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there’s no way this is going to work you
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see the engineering spec is that it had
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to hold in an adult man with no seat
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belt well you know he’d better put on
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his seat belt and we’re going to need to
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have an airbag it’s a little more gentle
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just doesn’t work because with a visual
07:30
thinker and the math thinker need to
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work together now the thing is I have
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all these pictures in my mind so how do
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i form categories and I find that a lot
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of normal people are not very good at
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categorizing problems like for example
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and the dog can do that when I’m on the
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leash I protect my owner when I’m off
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the leash I can go play and I find in my
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livestock work that people have a lot of
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problems
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categorizing a people problem versus an
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equipment problem and they want to get
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in there and rip down the equipment but
08:01
remember how I said the most obvious is
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the least obvious well that thing with a
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generator that was a little bit of the
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most obvious as far as I’m concerned now
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yeah BT had lots of safety rules there
08:12
was a really interesting article in
08:14
Fortune magazine about British Petroleum
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they were so proud of the fact that they
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had lowered their slips and Falls
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actions like if you visit a BP oil rig
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and you don’t put a lid on your coffee
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cup you might fall in the break room and
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you’re going to get written up for that
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and they had done a fantastic job of
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reducing these kinds of accidents but
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they forgot about process safety they
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forgot about the really important stuff
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like sloppy work and pushing pushing
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pushing and doing stuff too fast then
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there worked on those kind of projects
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that was a really big disaster but the
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different kinds of minds have got
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to work together I’m getting very
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concerned now that our educational
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system is sort of just forgetting about
09:00
the visual thinkers the mathematics
09:04
thinkers things are getting way too
09:05
verbal you know we us visual thinkers we
09:08
need the verbal guys because the movie
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would not have come out very good if we
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hadn’t had Christopher monger the writer
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keeping Nick in control on making the
09:16
sequence work he and the writer worked
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right together you know Mick didn’t
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change one thing in that script without
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consoling Christopher there’s a great
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scene in the movie where the cattle come
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down to the water’s edge showing how
09:28
they a ramp into the dip fat system
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should work and they ruined my design by
09:32
putting in a piece of metal people are
09:34
still doing that today I went to a plant
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two days ago and I have the same kind of
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inference on a thing called a center
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track restrainer system half the cattle
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in this country a processed on it they
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go down the same kind of little ramp
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non-slip little ramp and they cut off
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the ramp and they would jumpin the
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cattle in this is 35 years later you’ll
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have a hard time getting away from this
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idea for some the annum well I drew a
10:01
drawing how to fix it up right my mentor
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science teacher
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he was essential for me because I even
10:08
though I got a lot of work skills and we
10:10
need to be getting middle school kids
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exposed to interesting stuff you know
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maybe they need to find out that oil
10:16
rigs have joysticks and excavators have
10:18
joysticks I got to sit in an excavator
10:20
simulator it was fun except I didn’t do
10:22
very well the bucket hit the cab that’s
10:25
like really really bad but we need to be
10:28
showing middle school kids they’re just
10:31
interesting things out there because the
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lucky ones that are around these tech
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areas like around here come to events
10:37
like this turns them on and motivates
10:38
them but then I just got back from an
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autism meeting where I’m seeing some of
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the same kind of geeky nerdy kids and
10:44
the labeled Asperger’s or labeled ADHD
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or heavens forbid oppositional defiant
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that’s just absolutely the worst yeah
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they’re going to turn oppositional
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defiant they’re not done but not
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motivated I’m very concerned that our
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educational system is not stimulating
10:59
the visual and the pattern thinker and
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ten years ago this paper came out a
11:03
scientist ocation journal that visual
11:06
spatial thinking is getting overlooked
11:07
this
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fools don’t test for mathematical and
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they test for mathematical but they
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don’t test for mechanical aptitude the
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real visual kinds of thinking no bad
11:17
thing we need these people to shame so
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many of the schools have taken out the
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visual thinking and hands-on kind of
11:25
classes yes the Community College has
11:27
them but that’s too late for a lot of
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these kids we gotta get them turned on a
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lot younger we’ve got to do that
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hands-on things those are the things
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that saved me I’m also very concerned
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that a lot of our quirky nerdy kids
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these are the kids that are the
11:42
creativity for the future you know what
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having all these cutbacks on education
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and stuff like that I’m getting very
11:48
very concerned that maybe our country is
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eating its educational seed corn just
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want you to think about that I hope I
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have gotten you to thank and I hope that
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this conference is going to get some of
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the quirky nerdy kids turned on I have
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exactly 12 seconds left ten nine eight
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seven six five four three
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you
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