Abraham Verghese and Denise Pope — How Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Sociology, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Arts, Culture, On Being, Society, Society & Culture, Science, Social Sciences

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2019

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today young people are trying to balance the question of “What do I want to do when I grow up?” with the question of “Who and how do I want to be in the world?” Physician and writer Abraham Verghese and education researcher Denise Pope argue that’s because the way we educate for success doesn’t support the creation of full, well-rounded humans. And they see the next generation challenging our cultural view of success by insisting that a deeply satisfying life is one filled with presence, vulnerability, and care for others. Abraham Verghese is a professor of medicine, vice chair of the Department of Medicine, and Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor at Stanford University. His books of fiction and non-fiction include “My Own Country,” “The Tennis Partner,” and the novel “Cutting for Stone.” He received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education and the co-founder of the non-profit organization Challenge Success. She’s the author of “Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students;” and a co-author of “Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for on-being with Christa Tippett comes from the Fetzer Institute, helping build
0:04.3	the spiritual foundation for a loving world.
0:07.1	Fetzer envisions a world that embraces love as a guiding principle and animating force
0:11.7	for our lives, a powerful love that helps us live in sacred relationship with ourselves,
0:17.2	others, and the natural world.
0:19.2	Learn more by visiting Fetzer.org.
0:23.4	I spent a good deal of time speaking on college campuses and hearing how new generations
0:28.6	want to balance the question they've grown up hearing.
0:31.7	What do they want to do when they grow up with the question of who and how they will be
0:36.5	in the world?
0:38.0	At Stanford University this year, I was part of a searching conversation about this.
0:42.5	I found faculty as well as students eager to join me.
0:46.4	How we educate for success is strangely at odds with what we're learning on our scientific
0:51.7	and medical frontiers about everything from the power of rest to the interactivity between
0:57.3	our minds and bodies and emotions to our need for others.
1:02.0	From where I sit, our view of success is also at odds with what we know of wisdom, of
1:07.4	social and moral capacities like friendship and courage, dignity and hospitality that make
1:13.7	for a deeply satisfying life.
1:16.9	I'm Christa Tippett and this is on-being.
1:23.0	To beloved Stanford educators, Abraham Verghese and Denise Pope joined me for a conversational
1:29.4	variation on the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor Lecture with a live audience of
1:35.3	students, faculty and local community members.
	...

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