Kind: captions
Language: en
I want to go back to your learning
disabilities sure what what were they
how did you build confidence in yourself
could you tell I'm [ __ ] smart man
there's just some translation error I
was recognized for being decent as a
student to begin with okay and what
happened was that
that recognition translated to my being
skipped a grade even though I was
already Young from my grade so I was
like fairly advanced relative to the
American system you know other people
skipped two three four grades this was
just one grade but to then have my
handwriting and a lot of these sort of
executive functioning issues take over
you know like no matter how beautiful a
poem I could write I would always be
graded on punctuation and so it was just
this precipitous fall from educational
Grace
and that having had a memory like the
only remnant of my being
having been a good student was that I
was somehow weirdly young for this grade
given that I was screwing up everything
and I was at a really good school um
which was hard to get into that I had
gotten into before the superpower had
fallen away and so there was just this
like weird memory and of course in all
the Cinderella stories right Cinderella
is never really of lowly birth she's
always you know got something special so
that was my little something special and
then when I found that I couldn't do
music and I couldn't do math because you
had to rely so much on um calculation
and that required writing things down
and being very careful about it
everything melted away and I just became
convinced that I wouldn't be fenced out
of anything that I was just going to be
so aggressive that I was going to eat
the system that was trying to eat me and
I made education the enemy because
that's what they were they didn't
realize it necessarily but all these
people who prided themselves on being
Educators were just being incredibly
abusive to me year after year just
tearing me to shreds because it was
necessary for their fiction that the
good students were getting ahead and the
bad students were not putting in enough
work or didn't have a gift and you know
when I found out are you still in high
school at this point oh even through
college I mean I was determined that I I
figured I was going to drop out of
college there was a language requirement
I took French I was getting nowhere like
you were having a hard time learning it
an impossible time learning it because
it wouldn't
stick because the number of things I
could not figure out from the spellings
the accents the irregularities why is
everything gendered were you frustrated
with the nature of the language because
like so I'm I've heard you talk many
many times and dude your ability to
logic through something is is really
that's why I'm saying Indonesian is
special because Indonesian removes a lot
of
I'm even saying like logic your way
through like the following hey I want to
get a degree it'll be useful to me I'm
also by the way I've already done the
whole [ __ ] degree except for the
language thing so I'm just going to
Brute Force memorize this I was going to
do I was I was going I don't think any
anyone needs a ba to get a higher degree
so was part of it just the anger of the
school system is the enemy and so [ __ ]
these kids I'm not going to get a degree
if they're going to make me do something
that I think is dumb well I I I think
that there's an aspect to that which is
self-protective
emotionally this is done it's also
motivating can you imagine that you're
going to go up against the entire system
and win and you start envisioning your
victory over a system that does not want
you at the table yes I mean just try to
try to imagine like being the blackest
person possible at a KKK meeting and
getting everybody singing your Praises
by the end that's that's your goal right
you're just going to you are going to
inflict yourself upon the world and that
that was necessary to build strength of
character because when I you know I got
to Harvard in mathematics there was no
one remotely like me you know in their
approach to thebody won
competitions these were like the winners
of the comp you it was like a tournament
and people kept winning and so they kept
advancing you and every once in a while
I think you know I found out that Yo-Yo
Ma didn't win any competitions when he
was young that's interesting and I that
was really distinguished because in
general the way you got to be at yo-yo
Ma's
level was through a tournament model and
so what happened with me is I went to
like the Museum of Science and Industry
and I thought wow this is so cool uh I
want to figure out how to become a
scientist or a mathematician or an
engineer or something like that and then
when I found out that you had to be
really good at it I just thought well
that's unfair no literally like if the
if the universe is written in
differential geometry what are the odds
that I'm not going to learn the language
in which the cosmos was written there's
just no way you're going to fence me out
of
that so I [ __ ] love that mentality so
much you can't imagine but people don't
like it uh I think that what you have to
understand is is that like I'm sure that
when I was singing there are musicians
that are cringing you know and they've
got their hands over their ears and like
you wanted to hear where do you really
hear this difference
uh between even temperament and the
Pythagorean temperament um you know you
hear it in the blue third so the
difference
between
[Music]
like like that is the place in which the
maximum difference occurs that our third
is wildly off and so when I want to
teach people about music I've got this
problem always which is I've got this
these very exceptionally good people who
say you know you're teaching people
wrong you're giving them the wrong ideas
this isn't helpful and I have to say
screw you to all the people who's
playing I know is better than mine and
who whose stuff I love but I'm not a I'm
not talking to the people that they're
going to reach I'm talking about the
people who are going to die never having
a relationship with music and this
coffee mug May rescue some of them so
that they will become the students of
those great
musicians but what I'm interested is I'm
interested in the losers I'm interested
in everyone who got left behind you know
if I had a gang sign it would be an L in
the middle of my forhead if I if I ever
make it to the Tonight Show I want them
to play me on with maybe even the losers
get lucky sometimes it's just this idea
of I will not be fenced out because of
your Hang-Ups as an educator there's no
way I'm going to accept the D or the F
or they you know Johnny can try
better or you know Arena needs to in her
homework more regularly no you're wrong
those kids are not failing for the
reasons you think they not think failing
because you think they don't care they
they do care they don't know how to do
the things that come naturally to the
kids you're calling the a students and
so I'm interested give me your F
students give me the kids with the bad
attitudes give me the kids with the
learning disabilities you want to put in
the corner and you want to hold back
because mostly you've Mis assessed those
people maybe I think 15 to 20% of our
country is filled with unbelievable
Learners who are being held back by
Educators and nobody wants to take to
the Educators uh those kids are with
me and you got to get away from them
because you're doing incalculable harm
and by the way any parent who's
listening to this who's got a kid who's
not living up to potential is sitting
there getting closer and closer to the
speaker what did he just
say and if I say these are gifts they're
not they're not dis abilities do not
overmedicate your
children Embrace entirely different ways
of educating your kids they can learn
anything one I want to know how it's a
gift and two are there actually places
right now that people can go that
specialize and educating people like
that well I think there's something
called The Summit Center in uh in Walnut
Creek in the East Bay um there's a book
called The dyslexic
Advantage I think there's something
called The Bridge Academy in LA but
there's an entire you know what I found
was is that there's a group of kids who
meet in Golden Gate Park in San
Francisco to do laring and I didn't know
anything about LARPing and the moms sit
around bitching about the schools that
their kids didn't get into and say you
know uh you know my son Arun uh is an
amazing computer programmer he started
his first business but we can't get into
the Swanky private schools because they
took one look at them and they don't
want them and I'm thinking thinking like
yeah they don't want him but all we have
to do is to make sure that this kid
doesn't develop some sort of wrong idea
about his his gifts and we have to
inflict our best people on the system
because the system doesn't want our best
people your beef with the system I find
particularly interesting there's
something about your um imagine god
let's if I can recapture the words you
used imagine taking on the whole system
knowing you're going to win it's not
quite right but that was certainly the
sentiment and that is that puts you in
in a rarified group most people are
they're really broken by nobody
believing in them and I always tell
people that the biggest gift anyone can
ever give you and it will never feel
like a gift but the biggest Gift Anyone
can give you is doubt the problem is it
breaks most of the people that it
touches so I liken it to the inner
cities the inner cities break virtually
everybody that go through it but the
people that survive it come out the
other side these extraordinarily driven
and um unbreakable people and it's it's
pretty extraordinary when you see it
happen but how do we begin to get those
people into a position where they can um
and maybe it's reading the books that
you listed or or going to the places but
I'm super curious if you know like what
is it about their method that they're
teaching or or maybe more easily what
did you realize what was the portal that
you went through that allowed you to
recognize your own struggles as an
actual gift or was it just that it
pissed you off enough that it made you
fight well for example
um like the first portal for me really
was music and it was specifically the
blues which it is for many people the
blues is some of the most emotional
music many people in my day didn't even
know that it was a codified art form in
large measure but um there was a 12 Bar
pattern it was a formula so there was
sort of on a piano it would be your left
hand secret which would be the
progression your right- hand secret
would be the scale that nobody taught
you right um it's not the major scale
and it ain't the minor scale and if you
think about um I always do this as a
descending scales the major scale
descending is Joy to the World the Lord
has come but the blue scale descending
sounds like the beginning to a song
called messing with the kid de de de de
D de de de de and once you learn that
scale you realize how much of the stuff
that you love was not in either the
major or the minor and you learn about
these Blue Blue Notes and you learn
about seventh chords and you learn about
how to put some grit and Distortion in
your guitar got an amp and it's an
alternate world so the the portal in
music that was a big breakthrough for
you in terms of Blues anyway was that
there are these leftand rightand secrets
um in in a very simple scale that once
you learn that you've sort of got I mean
maybe 80% isn't the real number but it's
like some big percent that you can very
quickly the Four Chord song unlocks that
and then you know for example there
because you realize how many songs you
love are actually only four chords right
and then there was this weird Vivaldi
piece which is classical you know
unapproachable classical music that went
something like I haven't played it
forever so I don't know if I'll remember
[Music]
and I thought that wasn't perfect it's
super Rusty but wait a minute I can play
that almost instantaneously I don't need
to wait maybe my technique is going to
suck maybe I'm never going to make it to
the Carnegie Hall stage I don't care
that song is beautiful and it makes me
feel good and there's no one who can
fence me out I have my grandfather um
that Brett and I both talk about to
thank me for because he gave me this
guitar and my mom was dead set against
it she said you give him that guitar
he's just going to give him an
inferiority complex and my grandfather
say oh all he needs to do is tune it if
he can learn how to tune it he never has
to play it and he was such he was such a
genius that he figured out how to get
this thing into my life and I tuned it
and then after you tune it you say well
I wonder if it's good for anything right
and then you start finding all of these
techniques and hacks and and The Craft
behind it and you realize you're behind
the radio it's like when you program a
computer you're on the other side of the
screen that the person who's just using
the apps is sitting you know they're
sitting in front of a halfs silvered
mirror and you're looking at them like
you're the FBI and they're just sitting
there you know typing away they don't
even know that their computer is a
computer they can't find the place where
you program the computer because now
it's hidden so there's just this entire
Hidden World of everything like when you
a language why don't you learn
Linguistics along with the language that
tells you why you know what is word
production and and and morphology and
and uh orthography and what's the
evolution of these things you know
nobody tells you there's a book called
the Cambridge Encyclopedia of language
or the loom of language and that these
books are like
Scrolls they have all this extra
information that people think well we
can't bother the students with it are
you kidding me that's that's the sugar
for people like me I'm going to get in
behind that I'm going to hack the hell
out of it I I wonder though so when I
think about and in fact maybe I can um
give you insight into what it is like to
be I'm guessing one of those
teachers the shortcuts and things that
you're talking about the portals the
ability to sort of understand the rules
of the game would you say that that's a
fair way to say that rules of the game
that once people understand that there
are a computer is coded it's not this
mythical box that there is a prompt line
somewhere that you can go in and once
you understand the rules and you can
begin to edit the code and so on and so
forth but you have to really understand
how it works is that fair uh I don't
know where you're going with it but I'll
play with that okay so if that's roughly
fair and trust me this isn't a trap but
I'm I'm thinking so cuz what the the
perspective I want to give you is
somebody who has has come to embrace
that realization as fervently as you
but far slower and with less um like
being hit with the awe and The Wonder of
like having this breakthrough moment
with a guitar or whatever so I'm
guessing the place the teachers are
coming from is they don't get that same
like big aha moment it doesn't feel like
a violent stumbling through a portal
what it feels like is an insecurity
trigger of this is another thing that I
have to learn and understand and be able
to convey and teach to people and I
think it speaks to um when I think about
the education system in mad love to
everybody that's out there teaching
because I used to teach it is [ __ ]
brutally difficult it is a Time suck of
all time sucks it is it will it will
test your limits as as an intellect
quite frankly and certainly as a um
leader of minions especially if you have
uh you know students at an age where
they can properly Rebel uh so it it
certainly isn't easy but it when you're
in there trying to make it happen and
you're realizing
like this is intimidating and it's scary
to try to put these lessons together I
went through school I used sort of Brute
Force I was good at learning they
probably did reasonably well in school
which is why they continue they got
decent grades they know how to play that
game and so their entire life is about
I've Gotten Good at this very finite
thing and people want to protect that
sense of ego and if their ego isn't that
of being the learner it's deeply more
troublingly that of being the teacher
who knows how many students are you
going to sa how many students do you get
do you have the right like what it's
interesting so you and I you and I um I
don't know if we see this exactly the
same and you are uh you have a righteous
indignation that I find intoxicating but
I don't have okay and so um I Heard Sam
Harris talk about this one time and he
said maybe something broke in my brain
when I was meditating and I so I don't
get this anger and remember I was
telling you before we started rolling
people love it when I get like enraged
about something but the only things I
can get enraged about are things that I
was doing myself in my own life and it
pisses me off about me no there's an
adap there's an Adaptive aspect to my
voice I am I am aware your frustration
you mean to the aggression there are
camera is rolling and I now have a
platform and I have the ability to go
back and save myself so that's who
you're talking to I'm talking to the
parents who are going to take their kid
and they're going to say where is your
algebra homework you forgot it at school
again you tore in a ripped piece of
paper did did you not read the
directions did where are your notes you
know I didn't know that I have this
issue called kinesthetic reinforcement
that when I take notes instead of
strengthening the pathway in the mind
it's so difficult for me to write that
it erases whatever notes I'm taking so I
wiped
out the fancy private school education
by taking the notes that were illegible
and I didn't remember what was going on
in class and I only found this out when
I was in graduate school at
Harvard by the most precarious
circumstance as possible I mean my my
view is is that my PhD belongs to every
learning disabled family in the country
because so so far as I'm concerned the
difficulty of getting through the system
and surviving it is is that you're
constantly causing a problem for every
educator and so I am compassionate with
the problem right up to a particular
point and that is the point where you
say you know what I don't have time for
this [ __ ] and I'm sorry but you're
getting a c and I some something in me
knows that I'm doing you wrong but I'm
not allowed to do you right I can't
figure out why I'm allowed to give you
an A in this class because you turned in
some other project that I was not
expecting because you showed Brilliance
you you showed something else and
somehow because of my needs for my job I
have to give you and your family the bad
news that you're taking it for the team
and so my righteous indignation is
intended to start a blaze if there was
one thing I would love to do is to
liberate the families that are going
through this nightmare of looking at
their kids and saying wow you're really
just you're not getting it don't worry
there'll be something in life for you
like why are you giving up on your kids
if those kids are smart like this race
and IQ thing I can not stand this race
and IQ thing I I understand the idea
that IQ is somewhat predictive I
understand that you can correlate it
with various
things IQ is such a crude measure of all
of the things that we really deeply care
about and I can't help you know my
friend Nim taleb is brutal on this topic
he is not a nice person when it comes to
this issue but my energy is with
him how many people are we gon to throw
in the dummy pile you know I think about
Louie Armstrong a lot and I think about
Louis Armstrong and the fact that we
white Americans remember him as a
novelty singer like hello
darlly and that's not what he is he is
the he is the singular genius who wrote
Our National classical music and he
invented for my money modern Jazz as we
understand it
more or less single-handedly as an
orphan out of New
Orleans now we can't acknowledge his
genius we can't acknowledge that this is
an actual straight up American genius
like none other I mean like I don't know
maybe Art Tatum and Charlie Parker and a
tiny number of people who are just
completely out
there but we are so wrapped up in this
nonsense about what makes a good student
and what makes a first class mind we
don't see like let me just give the
simplest one that I give a lot people
call me colorblind and I say oh do you
feel bad because you're contrast blind
and they say what I said well I don't
think you see contrast as well so if we
ever need to depend on camouflage and
spotting the enemy you're going to
really need me around that's why my
trait is retained in the gene pool and I
understand that color is something that
gives you an advantage a lot of the time
but don't think that we couldn't have
driven my color blindness out of the
system if it didn't confer an advantage
and you don't have that advantage and
you don't even know that you don't have
that Advantage well the same thing is
true for most learning disabilities the
learning disability portion of the gift
is the price paid and you're not letting
me use the other part like I understand
that a Bugatti is pretty noisy and it
guzzles gas but it does go rather fast
if you know how to drive it and you're
telling me that I have to drive it in a
school zone for 25 M an hour and that it
has to be under a certain deci level and
that it can't guzzle gas because it's
too expensive and bad for the
environment screw you I want those
learning disabled kids racing around the
track at 300 miles an hour and now you
try to catch them this is a this is an
epidemic
mischaracterization of a giant portion
of the population from whom you will get
vaccines and new
Industries these are the people who will
write your
scripts that you you'll be riveted must
see TV from the future and right now
what you're telling them is that they're
a bunch of
morons so yeah there's a little bit of
righteous indignation oh man I love it I
think that um I mean it's interesting so
not having lived through that not having
had that as my challenge is something
that I will say that I've just never
really thought a lot about the way that
people learn differently but you hear
stories like you making it all the way
to Harvard getting a degree in
mathematics um and yet also being
learning disabled you hear people talk
about how Einstein when he was young
people supposedly told him that he
wasn't that bright and you know you you
hear enough stories like that and you
start to think okay maybe there are some
people that are just so far outside of
the box um your Bugatti analogy I think
is is really spoton it's uh yeah well
the great thing about it is that all
those learning disabled kids really
appreciate their their straight A
friends cuz you know you guys helped us
out of our Gams you let us crib not not
uh you very often got us through school
and don't look at me I was a kid
cheating like like a fiend all right but
what I'm trying to get at is I don't see
the learning disabled
students wanting to extinguish
neurotypicals I see the
neurotypicals neurotypicals freaked out
of their
minds that the kid who they think should
be you know in the dummy pile might have
some super talents and if you think
about a lot of the energy in Silicon
Valley a friend of mine uh said
something which I thought was very wise
and she said if only we could harness
the energy of the billionaires who
aren't still trying to prove to their
middle school cafeteria table that they
belong with the cool kids this show is
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