Ted Dintersmith

A lot of parents act in the exact opposite way.

They just like, you know, I reconnected with my high school.

And so I went to a public high school in Northern Virginia.

I gave a very controversial graduation speech.

It was so controversial, I was booed by the audience.

And when I went to school the next day, they called the police to arrest me.

So that wasn't maybe my best moment in high school.

But they approached me.

I was giving a talk at a conference, and a bunch of people from that high school came up to me.

They had seen my work, my films, and read some of my books, and they brought me a framed picture of me from the yearbook.

kind of cool.

But I've gone back there.

And interestingly, one of the teachers had the kids watch, you know, my first film, Most Like to Succeed, and read some of my book, What School Could Be.

And then each of these kids gave talks to their classmates, to their teachers, to parents, and to the principal.

36 kids, not one said, school is a source of joy for me.

I mean, many were in tears.

And at the end, the principal said, like, I just have to ask, how do we let this happen?

And I say some things, so you have a sense of what I might say to that group.

I try not to, like, totally diss it, but I sort of say, like, we need to have schools of creativity and joy, not schools of drills and worksheets.

And this mother and dad come up with their daughter.