About Jacques
I am a…
Atheist, Educator/Teacher, Photographer, Writer/Editor
Bio
Born in Texas. Military-pilot father, meaning different house and new school every 2 years. Went to semi-snotty eastern boarding school + small, eastern liberal-arts college. Straight job for several years in direct marketing/catalog world at Horchow. Consulted in that field for about 25 years. Lucky to have Stanley Marcus and Roger Horchow as colleagues and mentors for a number of years. Then had heart attack and open heart surgery nearly 15 years ago; with lengthy, problematic rehab. Eventually found myself sick, poor, single. Started teaching, tutoring, listening, fantasizing about educational ideas for young kids. Curated TEDxRADED in Dallas, 2012. Now 1/2 retired. 2018: 1/4 working as professional photographer, 1/4 as substitute teacher. Trying to learn about GIS and drone-mapping software with and from TED/TEDActive/TEDx SMU friends at ESRI and HANGAR.
I'm passionate about
Educational possibilities; Strange loops; Zimbardo's good folks doing bad things; extensions of Helen Fisher's hormonal-archetype ideas, including thyroid levels; Archie Brownlee/Jesse Winchester.
An idea worth spreading
a) Children can learn much more complex material than is generally thought. Just not in schools.
Areas of expertise
Connecting people, Post-CABG cognitive changes
The TED story
20+ TEDxxx events. My then-wife encouraged me to sneak into the Mickey Hart drum circle on the beach at Monterey on Friday evening of TED2005. I did. They started requiring picture ID's after that. Too late, I was hooked. Three Monterey TED's, two Long Beach TEDs, three TEDActives, a TEDGlobal in Oxford, a TEDGlobal in Arusha, seven TEDxSMU's, four TEDxSMU/KIDS, one TEDxRADED, one TEDxCollegeMound. Lots of interactions with lots of TEDsters. Grateful to and for all.
Things you might not know
Brief responses, primarily because I am not.