During Bill Gates Ted Talk, he argues that teachers need more feedback. Bill Gates is an American businessman best known for being the founder of microsoft. Bill Gates uses humor, relatability, and logical appeal to successfully argue that teachers need more feedback in order to be successful.
Bill Gates uses many rhetorical strategies in his Ted Talk. First, he uses a joke to engage the audience. He successfully does this by making the audience laugh. Second, he attempts to relate to the audience by mentioning he played bridge.
Bridge is simply a card game. Bill Gates then talks about his bridge coach. Bill Gates does this is to get the audience to understand the importance of having a coach in life. In doing so, he shows the importance of teachers.
Bill Gates appeals to the logic of the audience on a multitude of occasions. First, Bill Gates uses the statistic over 98% of teachers receive one word of feedback, satisfactory. Bill Gates then compares this to the feedback system of countries that perform better than the United States in math.
Out of these countries, 11 have an official teacher feedback system in place. Bill Gates does this to show how using a teacher feedback system can be beneficial. He then compares the United States system to the system of Shanghai, a province located in China. Shanghai ranks number one in math, reading, and science. Bill Gates explains how Shanghai teachers are required to observe other classes and give feedback to the teachers. Comparing the two systems shows how the United States has an inferior system. Bill Gates moves on and begins to talk about the ideal classroom.
Bill Gates introduces a video of a teacher and her classroom. The teacher teaches English in a high school located in Iowa. In the video, the teacher records and reviews her class sessions. By recording her class sessions she has the ability to review the footage and see where she can improve. Bill Gates says how he wants every classroom to look like this. Meaning, he wants every teacher to record and review their work so they can improve. Bill Gates explains how some teachers may be unwilling or uncomfortable with having a video camera in the class recording their sessions. Bill Gates counters this by stating that more teachers are willing and even eager to participate when they are given the opportunity to manage their own footage. This shows the audience that many teachers are willing to take the next step in order to improve.
In conclusion, Bill Gates called the audience to action in hopes the feedback system is changed. Bill Gates hopes that the improvement of the feedback system will lead to teachers becoming better. With teachers becoming better comes better educated students. This will ultimately improve our global standing in the academic atmosphere.