Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University and award winning author, began her speech Thursday at the University of Idaho by asking the audience a simple question.
“What would happen to a lot of famous innovators in today’s education system?” asked Grandin.
According to her, they would be shunned and labeled as incompetent. They would be unable to meet the strict measurements by which society evaluates skill and intelligence.
They would be labeled as weird and different, just like Grandin was. She said that if it wasn’t for her mother, she would have let her teachers said to her dictate who she was.
“My mother stretched me and gave me choices. She made me do things,” Grandin said.
Grandin said this support was instrumental in how she revolutionized the beef industry and became one of the world’s most well-known autism advocates.
“When you’re weird and different, you have to let your work speak for you,” Grandin said.
Grandin said she sees herself as a visual thinker. Bad with numbers, the only way Grandin said she can understand the world is through observation. She talked at length about how that helped her changed the way cows were treated.
“I got in their pens and tried to see the world through their eyes,” said Grandin.
From there, she said she learned what the cows feared, what they enjoyed and what the best way to handle them was.
Grandin said she did this because that was the way her mind was programmed to think.
While everyone else was busy crunching numbers and looking at the issue from a mathematical perspective, she said her mind was occupied by what the world must look like from a cow’s perspective. She said this type of thinking is necessary in any occupation, and the one she used as an example was risk management.
“Mathematicians calculate risk, visual thinkers see risk,” Grandin said.
It is for this reason that Grandin said society should put more emphasis on encouraging those who think differently instead of trying to rewire them.
She said our education system needs to be changed from the bottom up to allow for the “geeks” to shine. She said the current system values verbal thinking too much and that that is causing a lot of smart kids who think visually to be drummed out.
“I’m getting worried that verbal thinkers are taking over,” Grandin said.
Grandin said there needs to be a balance between those who think verbally and those who think visually. She said that the best way to solve problems, big or small, is through collaboration between the visual and verbal thinkers.
It is this kind of collaboration that Grandin said she wants to see throughout society. She said people need to stop worrying about whatever weird quirks they think is holding them back and embrace their uniqueness. She said that people should then share that uniqueness with the rest of the world. She said this in important because without people expressing different ideas to solve a problem, nothing gets fixed.
“We need people who know how to fix things!” Grandin said.
Hunter Diehl can be reached at [email protected]