Igniting fire

Fantastic, impassioned short talk on overcoming vs embracing adversity, specifically in relation to children, by Aimee Mullins: athlete, model, actor, Olympic record-breaker and all-round activist, who was born without shin bones.

Mullins starts with a thesaurus entry on 'disabled', which points to some of the word's underlying ideology (something that's been famously done with 'black' and 'woman'). It's a startling moment, where you can literally sense the limitations being heaved into place.



Her central point is straightforward: unless repeatedly told otherwise, a child will achieve. Along the way, Aimee quotes a 6-month UK study where A students (and their teachers) were told they were in fact D students; and D students were told they were the school's brightest and best. By the end of the study, they had grown into their expected roles.

Anyhoo, it's a great talk, and important in cultivating the idea that adversity is 'just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet'.