Speaker: Diana Nyad
TEDWomen 2013
Date: December 2013
Location: San Francisco, California
Description from TED website:
In the pitch-black night, stung by jellyfish, choking on saltwater, singing to herself, hallucinating … Diana Nyad just kept on swimming. And that’s how she finally achieved her lifetime goal as an athlete: an extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida — at age 64. Hear her story.
My Review / Notes / Thoughts
This is an amazing story of the power of resilience and persistence. The first person, ever, to swim from Cuba to Florida … and at the age of 64! This is an amazing story!
I can see this talk used as a great way to teach about the power of persistence. This could be used at nearly any age. I don’t have experience teaching children, so I’m not sure what the minimum age would be for showing this video … but I suspect it could be used at least with middle-schoolers and up.
I think this would be a great talk to show students and then have a group discussion on… I can certainly see coaches leveraging this video with their athletes! However, I think there is more to this than sports. I believe that this talk could be a great way to help teach young people about the power of persistence in any effort.
I can really see this as a great assignment for those studying psychology. A great way to start a talk on the power of persistence and/or resilience. It would be great for discussions, but also papers, especially reflection papers. How powerful would it be for students to watch this and then reflect on their own endeavors?
What about using it for a project with grads students? They could observe people as they watch the video, and then interview them. That might make for an interesting learning experience for those students. It would certainly give them some interesting interview experience.
What do you think? How can you see leveraging this powerful story? Would you use it in the education realm? Or perhaps use it in the public/private sector to inspire employees? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Until next time … live long, life-learner!