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- (Prince Ea) Albert Einstein once said everybody's a genius.
- I saw this.
- (Prince Ea) But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole live believing that it is stupid.
- That quote is written in my math class.
- (Price Ea) Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
today on trial we have modern day schooling.
Tell me, school, are you proud of the things you've done?
- Oh, I think I've seen of this guy's videos before.
- (Prince Ea) Turning millions of people into robots,
do you find that fun?
I call school to the stand and accuse him of killing creativity,
individuality, and being intellectually abusive.
- It's such a great message.
- That's the truth.
- (Prince) Here's a modern day phone.
Recognize it?
Here's a phone from 150 years ago. Big difference, right?
Stay with me. Here's a car from today,
and here's a car from 100-- - But we still use the same books, right?
- (Prince Ea) Well, get this, here's a classroom of today,
and here's a class we used 150 years ago.
- Damn.
- (Prince Ea) Now ain't that a shame?
In literally more than a century, nothing has changed.
- Yeah, nothing has changed.
- Nobody ever brings that to light, you know,
just how school hasn't changed.
- (Prince Ea) Do you prepare students for the future or the past?
- Everyone can't just be put in these classrooms
and expect them all to have the same results.
- (Price Ea) You were made to train people to work in factories,
which explains why you put students in straight rows, nice and neat,
tell 'em sit still, raise your hand if you're gonna speak,
give 'em a short break to eat... - It's like robots.
- (Prince Ea) For eight hours a day, you tell them what to think.
- Oh! That's-- I've never thought of it like that.
That's terrifying.
- (Prince Ea) See, every scientist will tell you that
no two brains are the same, and every parent
with two or more children will confirm that claim.
- Yes, that's my family.
- (Prince Ea) Teachers should earn just as much as doctors
because a doctor can do heart surgery and save the life of a kid,
but a great teacher can reach the heart of that kid--
- True, true.
- Teachers do so much for this society,
yet they are the lowest-paying job.
- (Prince Ea) And if we can customize health care,
cars, and Facebook pages, then it is our duty
to do the same for education, to upgrade and change it--
- He is, like, representing students.
- (Prince Ea) No more common core. - I hated common core.
- Yes, no more common core!
- (Prince Ea) Sure, math is important, but no more than art or dance.
- Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Art schools are good.
- (Prince Ea) But countries like Finland are doing impressive things--
- Right.
- (Prince Ea) They have shorter school days,
teachers make a decent wage, homework is non-existent,
and they focus on collaboration instead of competition.
- That is true. I completely support this.
- (Prince Ea) Their educational system
outperforms every other country in the world.
While students may be 20% of our population,
they are 100% of our future. - That's true.
- He's right on a lot of this.
- (Prince Ea) There's no telling what we can achieve.
This is a world in which I believe,
a world where fish are no longer forced to climb trees.
I rest my case.
- That was beautiful. That's very important.
Education is a right, not a privilege.
- There are a lot of people who are really smart,
but their grades just don't tell the same story.
There's just so much anxiety surrounding school now.
It's more intense than ever.
- I'm gonna go back to my high school, and every single one of my teachers,
I'm gonna put this on their front desk and I'm gonna be like, watch this.
I'm gonna tell my little brother to come to school on Monday,
and see if it's any different.
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- (FBE) So this video was made by the spoken word artist Prince Ea,
who makes content around issues to take a harder look at in society.
So what do you think was the message he was trying to get across
with this video?
- I think he was trying to encourage students
that kind of feel like failures at school.
- Stop putting our children in machines.
Stop taking the creativity out of school.
- Everyone's different in that we really need to push schools faster
because we're really stuck in a really stupid place.
- Although education is important, there are also other factors
like arts and stuff that help mold students,
as far as creativity goes.
- You expect to learn, you know, valuable information
that's gonna help prepare you for the real world,
but you don't learn any of, you know, how to pay taxes,
you know, finding a job.
- The education systems, in most of America,
are not working and are not geared for the children of today.
The same way they were taught 50, 60 years ago
is still how it is today.
- Traditional schooling is, like, you go to school, you study,
you get an A, and that's it.
People are being shaped to be, um, not how the future is moving.
- He was criticising school when he was pointing the finger--
not at teachers, not at schools individually,
but at the system as a whole.
- (FBE) So, being a teen yourself, and someone who is
currently enrolled in our schooling system,
what do you think about your current education,
and if it is preparing you for your life as an adult?
- I do not think it prepares us for our life as an adult.
As soon as common core hit, it was like health was gone,
sex ed was gone, which we really need now.
- They are teaching us a lot of important things, obviously,
but I don't know how to pay bills and stuff,
and I need to know that.
- All my classes, like, I'm not getting anything out of them,
just to be honest.
I'm sort of doing the work so I can get that piece of paper
that says I graduated.
- My school's projected based, so we learn about a topic
and then we make a project off of it, and that's how we learn.
It prepares us for life, my school,
but it doesn't prepare us for college,
and so a lot of kids struggle going from our high school to a college.
- Where do you learn how to be on your own, you know?
It's just like, do you expect us to learn on our own
because there's a lot of stuff that we can't learn by ourselves,
you know, and it's just like when you go to school,
you can't find that in school either
because school just teaches you what X equals.
- (FBE) Well, there been recent thoughts around this area
by a new customized learning initiative called ESA,
or Education Savings Account.
Is this something that you've heard of before?
- No.
- I haven't heard of Education Savings Acccount.
- (FBE) So there's a program that is available in some states,
and if you can get access to it, it provides funding not just for college,
but even earlier for things like private schools
or individualized courses, or programs for a child's education,
almost like customizing parts of education.
If something like this worked and was able to roll out in a larger way,
what do you think the impact might be?
- I think it'll help students more because I know a lot of people,
they will be struggling in classes because they don't learn
the same way the teacher teaches, but don't have the money
to actually get tutors.
- People might be happier.
Courses will kind of be fit to them and their specific interests.
- People who train in the craft they want to train in
will be even more adequate.
That's what I think.
I think they would spend most of their time on that,
and not have to worry about other things they'd have to get good grades in.
- It would make it much more personalized, in a much better way
because the important thing is to talk to your child.
They're not just this blank slate that you can push
into exactly what happened to you.
They have their own thoughts and opinions and feelings.
- That still doesn't fix it.
Money is really-- it is an issue, but it's not the big issue.
The big issue is just these principals and these people
that make all the legislation are so anti-technology.
Why can't you use your smartphone in school?
As a college student, I honestly cannot live without my smartphone.
I have all my lectures on it. I have all my slides on it.
I take pictures of everything I need.
It's better for both me, and my teacher.
- (FBE) So if a parent does set up an ESA,
kids have input on what type of classes
or programs they want to take part in,
but, ultimately, how it's spent is the parent or guardian's decision.
As a student yourself, do you think that's fair?
- See, that's difficult because I want to say
that it should be totally up the students,
but, in a sense, that wouldn't work.
When you're young, you know, you don't know exactly what you're doing.
- I think it should be almost half and half.
There's always times when your parent actually knows more than you think.
- Obviously, I'm gonna say I want to be in charge of it
because I know what's best for me, blah, blah, blah,
but then it's like, oh teenagers think they know what's best for them,
but they really don't.
So I think that there should be a distribution,
like half parents, half kids.
- I can definitely see how, in some situations,
you know, oh, everyone in this family has been a doctor.
That's what you're gonna do.
The majority of parents who, you know, really love their kids,
they let, you know, the kid have their input
because, you know, it's your life.
- It should be completely up to the student, actually,
because it's your education, it's what you want to do,
it's what you want to do in life, possibly,
so it should be your journey, not a path shaped for you.
- There's something to be said for having to persevere
through a subject that you really hate.
For someone who's not good at math, it's important to still
attempt to do math.
It might not be easy for everyone, and everyone might not like it,
but I think that is kind of preparing for the real world.
- (FBE) So, finally, we asked this to the adults
when we covered another of Prince Ea's videos,
so we'll as you as well: what do you think is the impact
of videos and art created by people like him
that get shared on social media in this way is for these important issues,
compared to when you hear it from, let's say,
like a politician.
- Sadly, temporary.
We're only going to talk about this for two weeks,
and then we're all just going to brush it aside.
- Politicians and that sort of whole group,
they just seem like a puppet to most of the country.
Seeing these people, like Prince Ea or whatever,
he just seems like, you know, he seems like a person.
He's there and the way he talks, like, it really gets to you.
- It's coming from someone that's just like you.
Like, if someone has a camera, they have a voice in this media,
and they can say whatever they want and have their own opinion,
and this person doesn't have an agenda to push
to help him run for an office.
He's just trying to get a message across,
and it's very, very pure and innocent.
- Thanks for watching this episode of Teens React.
- Let us know what issue you'd like us to react to
and discuss in a future episode.
- Bye, guys.
- Bye, everyone.
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