Many precious artifacts have been recovered within Egypt over the years. Many ancient Egyptian tombs found intact, untouched for millennia, still containing the valuable items left for their kings with the intention of their beloved pharaoh's use in their passage to the afterlife. And with the mountains of gold and glistening jewels which have captured the attention and the hearts of those who have explored these ancient archives, a lot of the most astounding relics go largely unnoticed. The solar boat could be seen as a particularly good example of this mass overlooking of the most interesting of things. At the foot of the Great Pyramid, once beneath several multitons precisely placed blocks of limestone lay the Khufu Ship, a full-sized ancient Egyptian vessel sealed into a pit over 4,000 years ago. Why is more not heard regarding this astonishing find? Strongly believed to have been built for Khufu, King Cheops, who is the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The ship is now preserved in the Giza Solar Boat Museum, built at the site in 1985. It is completely dedicated to the preservation of the boat, possessing state-of-the-art preservation technologies. Khufu Ship is one of the oldest, largest, and best preserved vessels from antiquity. It measures 44 meters long and 6 meters wide. It is also acknowledged as the world's oldest intact ship, and has been described by all in the know as a masterpiece of woodcraft. It could sail today if put into water. However, what is clearly the most amazing fact regarding the solar ship, the vessel was never intended to sail on water. The solar boat was built to sail through the air. It was built largely of Lebanon's cedar planking in the shell first construction technique, using unpegged tenons of Christ's thorn. The ship was built with a flat bottom composed of several planks, but no actual keel, with the planks and frames lashed together with half a grass. The boat was found complete, but in pieces across the lair's floor, laid in a logically disassembled order beneath the pyramid, subsequently reconstructed from the 1224 pieces which were laid out in order over 45 years prior. It took several years for the boat to be painstakingly reassembled, primarily by the Egyptian Department of Antiquity's chief restorer, Ahmed Yusuf Mustafa. Before reconstructing the boat, he had to gain enough experience on ancient Egyptian boat building. He studied the reliefs carved on walls and tombs, and many of the little wooden models of ships and boats found in tombs. Ahmed also visited the Nile boatyards of old Cairo and Mahadi, and went to Alexandria, where wooden river boats were still being made. It is now believed to have been known as a solar barge, a ritual vessel to carry the king with the sun-god Ra across the heavens. However, it bears some of the signs of having been used, a fact which has baffled many researchers, due to the ship's only purpose being that of floating in the sky. It is possible that the ship was either a funerary barge used to carry the king's embalmed body from Memphis to Giza, or even that Khufu himself used it as a pilgrimage ship to visit holy places, and that it was buried for him to use in the afterlife. Yet burning questions arise from such conclusions. Firstly, how would the ship fly? Secondly, if the ship was indeed intended to be used in King Khufu's afterlife, why was it resting in pieces beneath the pyramid? And why did it show wear from use within the king's life? Did this ship somehow once possessed the power of flight? Did ancient Egyptians? We have been covering a lot recently in regards to the compelling evidence left by the ancient Egyptians, revealing their advanced ability to traverse most of the earth prior to Columbus. Is the solar ship a piece of this puzzle? Kamal El-Malak, who somehow predicted the existence of the ship and has been attributed with its discovery in 1954 through his extensive personal research of the area over 14 years, initially found another pit also at the foot of the Great Pyramid. Unfortunately, it seems this layer had been robbed shortly before he found it. Archaeologists and Egyptologists alike rejected his claims of some sort of ship having been within this empty cavern, yet when the other pit was found, which did indeed contain a ship, his prior claim was vindicated. How did Kamal know? He would later claim that he believed something rather special was stolen from that first cavern. Could it have been the thing which made the ship work? Regardless of this other cavern's lost contents, the solar boat is certainly an amazing thing in its own right. While perusing the many perplexing sights we are yet to cover on our channel, we stumbled across something which could quite possibly be a massive clue, evidence left as to the method of construction of many ancient sites found all over Earth. Our channel has, for a long time, put forward the hypothesis that a highly advanced worldwide civilization once flourished here on our planet. We believe that many of the ancient sites which display unexplained architecture were left by this lost people, placed far within our distant past. And once one begins to investigate these ruins with this possibility in mind, you start to notice some compelling things regarding these amazing sites. For example, the metal clamps we have previously covered, often created using impressive mixes of alloys and somehow poured molten, could now be seen as earlier architectural examples less than the mortarless, mysteriously notched stonework, also found in similar areas all over the world, with the more precise and thus more impressive stonework, seen as a later, more sophisticated method of construction. What's more, although virtually all ancient sites have been dated to the most convenient suspects within known taut history, there also exists the numerous caves and temples, known from the solid bedrocks, carved with such accuracy and vision, they elude recreation even by our modern-day technology. And while looking at an amazing rock-cut cave within the site of Mamala Puram, India, a site we are now convinced was left by this same civilization, a curious piece of evidence seemingly presented itself. Upon the roughly finished roof of this ancient cave is evidence left by the same technology used to not only cut the astonishingly huge Longyu caves, but also the abandoned Lang Shan quarry, both in China. This discovery, we believe, is only just the beginning of a realization that these telltale signatures are present at many other unexplained sites around the world. We have long stipulated that many of the ancient ruins claimed by our more modern-day ancestors are most likely not their actual creations. If the structure does date to this more recent age, they are usually found to be sitting upon the telltale remnants of a highly precise ancient foundation originally left by this elusive group. Who were these amazing people? When do they flourish here on earth? What happened to them? Why did they never record how they created such wonders? Although it is easy for skeptics to argue that the caves and architecture were merely created through excruciating hard labor, any practical demonstration of this has eluded us for many centuries. Furthermore, many of the extensive cave excavations found all over the world, presumably dating back to this bygone age, are all absent any waste, as if the machine task with creating these underground labyrinths turned stone to dust. And although the technology and or possible machinery tasked with the job has evaded modern archeology to this point, it is clearly another piece of evidence which takes us one step closer to unraveling the true history of our planet. One of our personal favorite ancient sites is the ancient fortress of Saxe Huaman. We believe this site was built an unimaginably long time ago, yet it would still be a daunting proposition for any invading party. One of the most impressive features of the site, and the reason why it is ranked as one of our favorites, is the inexplicably baffling stonework that makes up the fortress' maze of outer walls.  Although many other sites within Peru undoubtedly contain incredibly precise stonework, Saxe Huaman is the jewel in the crown when it comes to the evidence for a lost advanced civilization. The largest stones in this boundary being 28 feet high, regularly academically estimated to weigh over 120 tons, with more enthusiastic estimates placing the largest stones at around the 300 to 400 ton mark. Located on the outskirts of the ancient Inca capital of Cusco, it rests on an enormous artificially leveled plateau. It consists of three outer barriers, gargantuan walls, 1,500 feet long and 54 feet wide, created in a strategic zigzag shape.  As recently mentioned in another video, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest two phases of building was undertaken at certain sites within Peru. We feel that the constructors of Saxe Huaman are the same people who indeed built most of ancient Peru. This group were the ones who utilized the enigmatic protuberances even found upon the casing stones on the Great Pyramids. However, interestingly, there was another later phase, and although not as complex, still far more advanced than any academically studied ancestor who are currently claimed as the actual builders. This means that more than one ancient civilization must have called ancient Peru home. A later group re-inhabiting these sites, flourishing to a point where they were clearly inspired by the site's original builders, becoming highly capable stone builders themselves. How old is Saxe Huaman? Who could have possibly built it, and why did they not utilize the mysterious protuberances found on much of their other stonework throughout Peru?  And thanks to the incredible capabilities of its builders, it will remain standing for many more years to come. It is a site filled with inexplicable features, which we find incredibly compelling. In perusing the amazing archaeological sites within ancient Mexico, one will inevitably be confronted with a site called Cuiquilco. Just south of Mexico City's urban sprawl, a four-step round pyramid that, like all ancient structures, has secrets to tell, a secret like the Great Sphinx, which can reveal to us, all through overwhelmingly physical evidence, a true understanding of its true antiquity. The academic world, with its papers and books abundant, funded, researched, and massed published, supported by an institute of individuals who seek to destroy all things which disagree with them. These people would have you believe that Cuiquilco was constructed at the earliest in 300 B.C., however, nature would tend to disagree. Cuiquilco was hardly more than a small mound with some scraggly trees growing upon it back in 1922, before Brian Cummings received permission from the Mexican government to begin an excavation at the site. During initial excavations, Brian noted that the well-known Padegral lava flow had partially engulfed this ancient structure. He became increasingly interested in the site after learning that geologist George E. Hyde dated the Padegral lava flow at over 7,000 years ago. Additionally, when Brian's workers successfully cut deep trenches down into this ancient lava in an effort to locate the base of the pyramid, they not only passed through the bottom of this layer, but continued through several other areas of sediment, before finally reaching the high-quality paving at the original level of the structure. In fact, over 18 feet of ancient sediment lay below this 7,000-year-old volcanic activity, including two other previous lava flows, each separated by layers containing artifacts from no less than two other separate inhabitations of the area by civilizations of varying advancement. Also, evidence of a past submersion in no less than 6 feet of seawater, another ancient structure lending credence to the Great Flood. The pyramid itself once masterfully constructed using uncut chunks of lava. Amongst the first layer of erosion and decay resting just above the original foundations of the structure, it seems we're remnants of a primitive civilization that moved into the area shortly after apparent catastrophe. Is this proof of our civilization once being destroyed? Along with this initial primitive civilization is an extremely ancient lava flow, which is followed by a dramatically far more advanced civilization. Amazingly, Cummings successfully produced dates of over 10,000 years for the original sediments, more than 2,000 years before ancient Egypt was said to have been built, though we feel this was most probably just a re-inhabitation of these powerful pyramidal structures. And although he also found dates far older than 10,000 years, he reluctantly put them down to anomalies and did not record them. Under the details of this excruciating and highly efficient research was understood, Brian Cummings predictably experienced the cold shoulder of conspiracy. It seems mainstream archaeology, along with the well-known overpaid figures who partake in this limited public discussion, have successfully avoided the subject altogether. Indeed, it would require a dramatic rethinking of the largely accepted chronological development of man. It would also require an extremely tricky maneuver in verbal acrobatics to get away with explaining the presence of a highly complex, highly capable, highly advanced ancient civilization, building impossible structures well over 10,000 years ago. And although it seems that mainstream archaeology has successfully avoided having to make such a spectacle of their belief systems in their attempted denials of such evidence, it will continue to be something we would like to see.


If anyone else is coming then we welcome them if not we start the webinar in this nice little group we have now. This webinar about animation creation and learning tool. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Before we get started let me introduce my colleagues who are kindly offered to help me this afternoon in this webinar. My name is Madar. She is the Deputy Director General of Eden. And I am a researcher in the United States Education. I used to be the project manager of the Anim class project which was dealing with animation creation as a learning tool. Now can you ask all the participants to mute your microphones for the time you are not speaking so that we don't have any echo in the background. You can mute your microphone by clicking on the microphone icon in the top row of your screen. Okay it will happen soon. Until then may I ask you to say a couple of words about Eden and yourself. Thank you very much Krista. It's a pleasure and thank you for inviting me as well to introduce the organization. For those of you who don't know Eden the acronym stands for the European Distance and e-learning network. We are the widest European association of its kind that deals with distance education and e-learning registered in the UK since 1991. Our aim is to provide a platform for collaboration between professionals and to offer information exchange to our members and partners. Eden is open to all sectors and levels of education and training including K-12, higher education, vocational education and training. Even informal and non-formal learning is supported and encouraged by our association. We are organizing face-to-face events as well. Usually professional conferences twice or three times a year and recently we have started the delivery of webinars such as this, the animation creating webinar. And we also participate in EU funded projects in research and practice as well so that we can support our partners and members in these many ways. And now after this brief introduction I would like to give back the floor to our host Krista Mihai and let's get on with the fun stuff. Thank you very much Ilyko. Ilyko is here to help me with handling the chat and your questions and to have moderating the discussion. So thank you very much Ilyko for offering this and be careful what you write in the chat because Ilyko is watching. Now before we just get started I would like to ask Kata to say a couple of words about yourself, how you got involved with this animation stuff via you here. Can you think of how you are devoidable of your microphone? It's much better now. I am a researcher and I work as a e-learning developer at FF. My subject is adaptive learning and learning style and when I am here because I was coordinate the Leona Endo project called Animated Classwork which was the project of the coordinate university. Can you please mute your microphone? Thank you. So it's time for me to introduce myself in a couple of words which I missed at the beginning. My name is Krista Mihalyan working for Eden and in this webinar I am presenting my research and my best field of interest which is animation creation in learning. The aim of the webinar is to give you some insight in how animation creation can be used as a learning tool, not as a demonstrating tool. The difference is very important. We are not using animation creation for demonstrating but for learning a certain part of the curriculum. I would like to get you interested in this tool that can be used in K-12 mostly but also in higher education in teacher training. Before we get started I would like you to answer some questions that will appear in the right down corner on the screen. So I would like to invite you to just make some words and creating the question. I hope you can see the opportunities to answer now so please click one of the answers. Can you see the results? Can you all see the results on the screen? Please, may I have the participants to raise their hands if you can see the results on the screen because I cannot decide if you can see the results or not. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you so much. I can see you see the results. Okay, so I think you can conclude that all of us have seen an animated movie. So let me have one other question. The question is do you know how an animated film, how animated films are created? Can we just see the results once more? Okay, can you all see the result on the screen? Please raise your hands if you can. Okay, so you can see that about one third of the participants know how animated films are created and the two terms I'm not sure or more or less know how animated films are created. Okay, so we can talk about animated films. So let me just show you a short animated movie which was created in the AnimQuest project so that we see something that we've been talking about. If I may, for those of you who are participant, you will see a little enlarger screen. If you see the small screen, there's a larger screen button with four arrows pointing outwards. If you click on that, you will be able to see the video in a bigger screen. It's in Hungarian, but it stops by so you can read the text if you don't understand Hungarian. Can you hear me now? So as you can see, Lily Gappel offered from the teacher to leave the school, leave the classroom. It happens to many students all over the world and it's one of the headline targets of the European Union. For example, I think it's a target all over the world, even in the US. The number of early school leaders increased the ratio of those who complete secondary education. What is very important for keeping children in the school is to motivate them. If you allow me now, I will share my screen with you, but a short presentation about this topic, how animation creation and motivating of children connect to each other. I will ask Erika Gappel to open the screen sharing option. Okay, thank you very much. I hope you can all see my screen now. So what I mentioned earlier is that the problem of early school living is a big question everywhere and it can aim to reduce the number. The headline target of the European Union is to reduce it under the rate of 10% by 2020. Most of the countries are trying to help this issue by finding educational tools to motivate, to increase the motivation of the learners. What is important for motivating the learners is to show them how what they do in the school relates to the world of work and what is expected by employers. It has been proved by research conducted on behalf of the European Union, but it's also highlighted in the Mackenzie report and CEDAFOP report that employers are looking for the 21st century skills of the young people, which is creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication, and of course digital skills. There are many more skills that can be grouped into 21st century skills or stock skills that are called, that are also called them, but these are the four more important ones that we can touch by using animation creation as a learning tool. Which is important, but it promotes faster learning, which is also important in the labour market, and it provides an opportunity for universal design for learning by which we can include the different types of students into the education process for the learning process. And they obviously promote the digital skills since we are using digital tools for structuring animated movies. The animation creation is a tool to help with the motivation process and to promote the students playing in this class by helping or developing the digital skills allowing for personalized learning and promoting the 21st century skills as I said. But how do I know this from? It's from research. And the research about creating animation in the classroom started very long back ago, about 10 years ago, our university initiated a project about teaching with animation, which was followed by another project called Animated Science. And then a project called Animated Learning. And in the meantime, the Coordination University helped do the best, the teacher training centre of Coordination University helped do the best part of the project about how to use animation creation in the vocational secondary schools. And I stopped sharing my screen and I will invite Kata, Kata Linkovic from the Coordination University of Budapest to talk about their experiences. This project was an innovation transfer project at Krista National. So, seven institutions participated in the project. And the project was to get the teachers this method to inform them how to teach with this method and to try in their schools. Two vocational schools participated in the project. The Danish part is to bring the idea into Hungary. And the Hungarian schools tried and implemented into Hungary. One of the vocational schools was very exhausted to participate in the project because the pupils really liked to participate in the project and lots of very good examples and animation films were created. So, in the Hungarian partners in Hungary, we prepared a teacher training module. We accredited it. So it means that now the university can offer this teacher training to other teachers. So, if Krista left, please show some animation that the pupils did. Thank you very much, Kata. Which one shall we select first? Shall we watch the ones created by the woodworkers, for example, or... Is that okay? Yes, thank you. Okay, then I will open that. Okay, thank you, Kata, for telling about your experience. Now I'm trying to open the video sharing, but probably it needs some time to show the playlist which we've seen before. And it's not appearing right at the moment. Yeah, I just asked my colleagues who are experts in Blacksmith to check if they can explore where the video disappeared. Okay, until the videos are loading in, I will try once more because it was really worth to watch them together. They are very valuable pieces. Unfortunately, this uploaded playlist doesn't show. So what we can do is that I copy in the YouTube link for you and share it with you in the chat box, and then you can watch it in your skin. Unfortunately, if I do it by screen sharing, you will not be able to hear the sound of the video, which would be a big loss. Thank you for enjoying the video. So I just stopped this video box, unfortunately. So the uploaded video disappeared. So I'm opening it from the Anand class that's right. It's in Hungarian, but I think it's worth sharing that you are with me as well because many videos are uploaded, which can be watched from there. But now I'm going to select the one that I want to watch it through for sharing the video created by the group workers, the one with the subtitle is not on the left side. Maybe the technician colleague has helped us. Thank you very much. So now we can watch together the video in Adobe Corner. So these are two people by secondary vocational students who have to learn about the work safety and this was the way how they dealt with the topic. And probably you could see from the video that they took in a very humorous and very creative way. So it was much interesting for them than just reading the textbook. I want to see one more from this series, which was created by those students who were learning how to make pastry. And the next animation is about pastry making. It was created by vocational students. The special type of nods that they are making in this little video. And you could see they took some smile at the end to make it more exciting. Our participants now that you could see some animated movies and they've been talking about animation. What do you think we need to introduce this method into any kind of education, in higher education as well? What do you think we need for that? Anyone who would share your opinion with us, please feel free to raise your hand and then talk about what do we need to introduce this into the classroom, this method animation creation. We're volunteering to share your ideas with us. Does anyone have experience with animation creation? Have you ever created an animated movie?  Thank you for that Marci, Maria, Mathias. We've ever created an animated movie. I understand that it's your friends who have ever created an animated movie. Would you be willing to share with us your thoughts about it or what you think it's needed for introducing this method in the classroom? Just in few words. Again, you can type in the chat as well. Oh, okay, I can see Mathias saying that I took part at the seminar and did the best and I was surprised how easy it was. Okay, Mathias, so maybe you could share with us your experience. Yes, science is saying that it's the best means of motivating learners. Well, I don't know if it's the best, but I know it's a very good way of motivating learners. We could see that in a contest project in the vocational schools and also with the Danish colleagues in Denmark. So Mathias, can you say what you think it's needed to take it in the classroom? Or if you prefer to write, you can write it in the chat, of course. If you don't want to speak, I will not force you to speak. It's just an option, it's an opportunity that you can hear your voice. Ah, okay, I understand you have no microphone, no problem. So then maybe you can share with us in the writing. Yes, we need a webcam. That's quite important. Or if you don't have a webcam, you can also use a lot of these which has a webcam built in. So one of the smartphones and a lot of children even at the very end they have a smartphone. And I'm not surprised, yes. So a lot of those means a lot of kind of objects that we can use. But as you could see, we can create animations from basically anything. So we can use clay, we can use little items, but basically anything that we find. And really quite saying that we need a storyboard. That's quite important, yes, a storyboard. And this leads to competency development because when children or children are designing the storyboard in a group, they must talk to each other and they must think through what will be the beginning, what will be the end and what will happen in between which is putting together a sequence and so it's really single logic. And they have to use their creativity how to represent the base of their creation and how to represent it in a visual way. So yes, that storyboard is a very important part. Okay, I'm sharing my screen again. So can we please switch to that option with the screen sharing? Thank you very much. So you said that we need a webcam. We need some technical background. That's very important. But the other thing that I think we need for introducing animation creation in the classroom is the determination because the teachers are always very hesitant to introduce something that is new, something that they are afraid of and something that they think that it will be difficult for them to control the process. And it's very important that we trust our students because in our experience and I think that anyone who has ever seen a child in this country can be sure that kids are much better in handling this technique and we must trust them to use the technique and leave them to organize their own learning and the learning process should be organized in a way that the teacher becomes the facilitator in the process and doesn't want to control each moment of the lesson but let the students and the children to explore what they can do and how they can make mistakes and how they can learn from them mistakes. So it's very, very important to change the teaching and controlling the role of the facilitator. And of course the simple technique that we got back around is something that supports this process. And what is the result of using animation in the classroom? Well, as we heard from Kata, many happy students and happy teachers as well because all of the teachers have been doing animation they're very happy and very excited and they were very keen on introducing this method into their own classes and of course it's a big opportunity to introduce freedom into the classes and the freedom of thinking, creativity and to bring school and life closer to each other as I referred to at the beginning that 21st century skin development is needed for the labor market and in this way learning is just a side effect. Of course it's a challenge because it's an untraditional learning and it implies for new teachers to relationship. All right, so that's basically it what I wanted to tell you about this method and if you can go back to the discussion set up we can see each other again I would like to show some more videos which were created in a teacher training after the white teachers not by students so that you can see that it's not only young children not just the students who get excited about creating movies but also teachers in teacher training get excited about it and I'm having the same problem that the player does not appear so if you just give up so for this technical problem somehow the video disappears so the player does not appear I asked my colleague to find them again the way she found them previously so the one I'm showing now was prepared by teachers and they were primary school teachers and they just created a little animation for teaching math another one is coming about math again and now I must admit that I'm a teacher of mathematics so that's why I'm very fond of this topic and I was very happy to see that primary school teachers used animation to teach math like this video in stock sharing okay, then try another one okay the next one I'm going to share with you was created for history for learning history I like this one very much because we can see that how creativity can be invited in using this method and that whatever you find on the table the board can be used for creating an animated movie and I think it's a very big value of the method okay, I'm not showing you any other animations now so thank you for your attention and before you leave I would like to ask one last question in the four books if you can share answers with us I would be very grateful because I'm very curious what you are thinking about animation creation now after this webinar I hope you got some motivation I hope you can see the questions now with make a vote can everybody make a vote? can I also make a vote again because she is appearing okay, so I would say most of you would like Israeli to make an animated movie and the others are a bit hesitant but if you need more encouragement then we invite you to visit the AnimCross website and also the website of the Danish the Danish project about the animation creation and I'm sharing the animated science website video this is where you can read material in English this animated science website has a lot of movies about how to animation creation style, education and it is available in English and Danish but if you just want to see some more animated movies and get some more ideas then you can watch the AnimCross website where you can find a lot of videos without understanding the language you can watch too and the question about the AnimCross website guide the visitors to the animation creation process and my answer is yes it runs but it's in Hungarian because they visit us to animation creation process in Hungarian but the other website is also the animated science it goes through the visitor in English so English speakers are invited to visit the animated science website thank you very much for the word Christa, I was fascinated by the videos because you could see how simple yet informative were and me having a 13 year old daughter I can relate those moments when she felt the achievement by creating something like that and to me at least now it feels like I really would like to give it a try so I have a few small questions like how long do you think the creation of any one of the animations you showed us today these short ones if you have all the props the phone and the little toys how long does it take to create an animation like that and my second question is what tools or software do you use to make these animations thank you very much for the question it was very important and I think that Matthias who participated in the event conference in the summer and who was telling us and I was very happy to read that he was fascinated how easy it is to do it I think we can say also how fast it is to do it because the event trading in the annual conference all together two hours and within that two hours the group were creating several animated movies and we started the whole process from the very beginning so that was the first time 20 minutes for 2-3 minutes long animated movie maybe it's a bit underestimating the time you can use the 25 minutes but it's really not that time consuming as we think it is and to your second question if you want to use the laptop under that kind of scenario or that setup we usually use a free software called Monkey Town I shared a link in the chat box with you in a moment it can be freely downloaded from the internet and it's a very easy to use software that anyone can learn in like 5 minutes too so it's a free software for PCs and for the mobile application on an Android platform I always use Peek Pack I probably can show it on my phone and at least the icon which can be downloaded from from Google Play for the Android and for iOS I must track the online class website because I'm not an iPhone user but on the online class website we collected all these applications that can be used in different platforms so yes on iOS I stopped motion studio that's the free software that can be used on Windows 1 easy 3D camera but without knowing the language you can take a look at this page and you can see the icon of the application that we can use on mobile did I answer all the questions thank you so to all participants for spending this time with us I hope you enjoyed it and I hope it was useful and of course if you have any further questions after the webinar then you are welcome to write to me you can find my email address on evens website or you can just contact the secretary at email box and they'll be happy to have you so thank you very much you stand also cut up for your time I know we are all very busy in this period and all the participants who just spared this one hour to stay with us apologies about the technical issues but I hope I can speak on behalf of everybody and I hope it was enjoyable of an experience thank you very much have a nice day for those of you who are starting the day now in the US and have a nice evening for those of you who have joined us from Europe and coming to close


Good afternoon, I'm going to go ahead and get it started. I know people are still getting settled, but by the time I finish my intros, hopefully everyone will have a seat. It's great to see such an excellent turnout this afternoon for this conversation. My name is Uwista Yub. I'm director of the Fellows Program here at New America. It's always an exciting opportunity for us to welcome back fellows once their books are published. And so we're delighted to welcome Thomas back and obviously to welcome two other speakers with you today. But first congratulations on the book coming out last week. I know you've had amazing reviews in the New York Times and on a really impressive publicity tour. So congratulations. And we're really excited that we can be one stop along your long and impressive tour. The most important stuff, yes. And I'll tell you why shortly when I read his bio. So this conversation is part of our 20th anniversary speaker series. For those who might not know, New America was founded 20 years ago as a radical and progressive think tank, really thinking of new ways to reach audiences outside the Beltway. And early on, we brought on fellows who published books. And what now is a pretty common sense idea for what we've done 20 years later at the time was not. And since that date, we've helped publish 116 books. Thomas's is number 116. It's also our ninth book this year. So it's an impressive number, I think, in any given year to have that many. And we look forward to next year, hopefully welcoming many new fellows or former fellows with their new books as well. We've also helped produce nine films. And so we've also branched out to different forms and won many awards. Many of our fellows have been shortlisted for awards, won awards. We've won our first Pulitzer this year too. So it's quite an amazing feat 20 years later to be able to kind of share those achievements. Today, we're here because of Thomas as he's published Self-Portrait in Black and White on Learning Race. And it's an opportunity for us to kind of pause, reflect, learn more about his work and really to engage in a really dynamic conversation with three excellent speakers that are joining us this afternoon. So for quickly, before I get into the introductions and turn the conversation over to Ted, a few housekeeping things. This is an on-the-record live event and conversation. We do have people watching via live stream.  And these are meant less so for the in-room audience than it is for the live audience watching online. So if you do ask a question, when we segue to that part, please just turn your microphone on.  But when we do shift to the conversation and the Q&A, please just keep that in mind. And most importantly, we have books on sale. So at the end of the event, if you want to purchase a book outside, our bookselling partner, Solid State Books is here, and we strongly encourage you to buy one because then Thomas will sign it for you. So with that, I will go ahead and introduce our three excellent speakers. Thomas Chattern Williams is a class of 2019 Eric and Wendy Schmitz fellow here at New America. And he's the author, as I said, of Self-Fortune in Black and White, his latest book, the second book that he's published today. He's a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor at the American Scholar. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Harper's and elsewhere, and he has been collected and has been collected in the American, the best American essay and the best American travel writing. He's received support from Yaddo McDowell and the American Academy in Berlin. Joining him today is Ted Johnson, who he is a 2017 Eric and Wendy Schmitz fellow as well. His book is coming out hopefully in 2021, but he did submit his manuscript just a few weeks ago. And his work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Review and Political, among many other publications. He teaches law and public policy to masters and doctoral students and is currently working on his book about national solidarity and race relations, which hopefully you'll all be able to join us for that event in two years. But he is also a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. And lastly, joining them is David Srodlik. He's an assistant editor for the Washington Post Outlook section and a CNN political commentator. He was an associate editor and a longtime writer for The Root. Please join me in welcoming them and I will transition the conversation over to Ted from there. Excellent. Thank you all for being here. I think this is gonna be a conversation about race, unlike probably any that most of us have had in this room, not for a shortage of concern about race. All of the stats show that racial tensions are growing or people feel less comfortable with race. Books about race are coming out, but they're focusing mostly on experiences with racism or ways to combat it. And your approach is altogether different. Instead of combating racism at The Root, your book begins even before then and talking about just the categories of race itself. So could you walk us through your book, the premise, the big ideas behind it and the memoir pieces of it that sort of help us understand how you've come to the argument you're sharing. Hi and thank you all for coming in the middle of a day, in the middle of a Thursday. It's a pleasure to be here.  My father was born in 1937, grew up in the 40s and 50s and really lived into adulthood prior to civil rights. And my mother is a...


On average, students spend around 2,000 hours a year outside of school, and for many of that, time is spent home alone. The shop, a youth-defined space in Brainerd, offers teenagers a place where they can feel comfortable and welcome when not at school. With this week's in focus reporter Rachel Johnson has more. Located on Washington Avenue in Brainerd is a unique green building called the shop. The shop is a drop-in youth center for teenagers and young adults, and every day is a little bit different around here. The shop was established in the summer of 2010 and provides a home for area teenagers where they can feel welcome and safe during their time spent out of school. The youth awareness initiative got together with all the youth serving organizations and said, you know, there really isn't a place for young people in our community. The shop was originally located in downtown Brainerd, but moved to Washington Avenue to be more convenient and easy to find. Besides being a safe space to hang out, the shop provides a variety of programs. We do a lot of activities, crafts. Like just in the past week, we made candles and blankets.  We are involved in service to community projects, and those are projects where we go out and do stuff in the community. One of their programs is called Rainbow Road, which meets once a week and offers a safe space for members or allies of the LGBTQ community. We do like movie nights and different things like that for the LGBTQ youth in our community, just for those who like don't have the support system at home. It helps me like be in a more of a safer place like where I can be myself instead of having to be hidden. The shop provides a much needed service in the Brainerd Lakes area, which does not have a Boys and Girls Club or typical youth center. We are unique in the Brainerd community in that we are a space where loitering is a welcome activity. So kids can come in, teenagers, young adults can come in, and we can help them with different things. We can be their guides. We can be their mentors. A lot of youth in smaller towns don't have much to do, and they can get involved in bad things if they don't have that sense of community. So with the shop and through Rainbow Road, they can find those people to connect to and talk to. The shop is a simple concept, but it has made a great impact on the kids at a tent. To see young people come through the program and not talk to anybody, sit in the corner, and after they're here for like a year or so, all of a sudden they're taking part, they're becoming engaged. It's a good place to get out like who you are and make friends and stuff because it life is a lot better with friends. Reporting from Brainerd with This Week's In Focus, Rachel Johnson, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


well. Does he have tattoos too? My husband does not have any tattoos. I'm the tattooed one. Yeah. I have enough tattoos for the both of us. I'm going to have to check this channel more since YouTube hadn't notified me till now. Oh, of course. Yeah. If you turn on notifications, but you don't select like all notifications, it doesn't ever notify you. That's like what I'm hearing from people, so it's a little bit weird. One thing that I've noticed that like works, and this is totally a shameless plug to help me in the algorithm too, is try to get in the habit of liking videos because if you like a video, YouTube will usually recommend you that channel more frequently. So like the channels that I watch, I try to get in the habit like, like, like, like, because that definitely does make a difference. And YouTube, the algorithm sees that as, oh, okay, you're interested in this. You like this. So then it continues to like notify you and whatnot. So it's a way to help out the creator and also it makes the algorithm better. I think anyways, at least that's what I heard. But who knows? Who knows? Oh, that's a good point. Please set your Twitch dashboard to only allow verified users in chat. It helps to stop hate raids. You know, I might have to resort to that if Twitch doesn't do anything. I mean, I haven't gotten hate raided yet, and I do want to give people the ability to participate if they like aren't necessarily a viewer of mine on the regular. So it's something that I will consider if it becomes an issue. Thank you for the recommendation, though. Let's see, anti-vax protest in Europe. No, I have not. I mean, I've seen some, but, um... Oh, militants. Oh my God, Ash. I'm not surprised. Yeah, I have to check on the regular, otherwise I get late notifications. Yeah, yeah. It's really frustrating. Yeah, another person saying I almost never get notified of live streams from any channel I follow. Yeah, it's really, really frustrating. It's really frustrating. I mean, for me, if I'm subscribed to a channel, I feel like that's just... It should be assumed that I want to see what the channel puts out. So the fact that, you know, you have to then select notifications, and then you select which type of notifications. It's just so convoluted and overly complex. And it doesn't have to be like that. So I don't get it, but yeah. I try. I try, Dieter. Sometimes I fail, but I try not to. I just, honestly, there's so much online leftist infighting that I'm burnt out. I don't even care anymore. Like, I genuinely don't care. That's just where I'm at. Like, I'm so over. Like, I don't... Like, all these squabbles that are so petty, it doesn't matter.   When I say that, sometimes I engage, right? But I try not to. I'm just sick of it. I could tell other people are too. Hey, Mike, would you mind making a video about Larry Elder? California is at risk right now. Actually, have good news. I filmed a video about the situation in California. It's basically, from the perspective of Tucker Carlson lying about the recall race, but I do get into it because I haven't talked about this on YouTube. We have covered this on one of the Twitch streams, but I do talk about this and I dedicate some time to Larry Elder. So definitely check that out. I can't remember when it's going up, but the video is dropping soon. I think sometime this week, my step-grandparents got COVID and are very immunocomparable. Oh, no. Got the antibody transfusion instantly and only had mild symptoms. That's good. Okay. Okay. That's if that saved them. That's good. That's really good. Hopefully they were vaccinated as well. Really good. Okay. I think I'm tired. I will see you all next week for the season finale. I hope that you will tune in, folks. Take care. It's nice chatting with everyone. Yeah. I'll see you. I'll see you all later, folks.