The Art of Dying Well
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
02/01/24
•19m
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The Greek philosopher, Epicurus, wrote “The art of living well and dying well are one.” However, most of us spend our lives desperately trying to avoid even thinking about dying, never mind preparing for it.
An exception is Dr. Christian Ntizimira, a Rwandan surgeon, who founded the African Center for Research on End-of-Life Care. He has thought long and hard about the social, psychological, cultural, and spiritual factors, as well as the physiological ones, that shape the final days of someone who is dying. Of course, it's not just the patient about whom he is thinking, but also family, friends, and community.
Admittedly, death is not one of those topics that make for a comfortable conversation or a comfortable listening experience. But as Shakespeare wrote for Julius Caesar, “Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” So listen to this episode of New Thinking for a New World and tell us if it helps you think a bit differently about your own inevitable demise.
Previous Episode
Teach the Children Well
January 25, 2024
•34m
One of the many challenges facing the United States today is an education system that seems to be rotting from the bottom: while graduate and professional schools are still world-class, elementary, middle and high schools are widely criticized for failing to prepare American kids for the future.
Consider:
- In recent international comparative testing, U.S. eighth graders produced their lowest scores ever in math. One-third of them scored in the lowest-performing category. Indeed, the United States had more students in the bottom group and fewer students in the top group than most other industrialized countries.
- Different tests, same result. Last year, about 40% of the country's high school seniors met none of the college readiness benchmarks for English, math, reading, or science. And 70% fell short of meeting the benchmarks for math.
- And although almost 90% of students graduate from high school, 45% of those same students say they feel unprepared for either college or the workforce—and it’s unlikely they are being overly self-critical.
What are the problems and can they be fixed? Is it culture, politics, unions, resources? Too little money, too few teachers, too much social media, all or none of the above?
Today’s episode of New Thinking for a New World looks for answers in the Bay area of San Francisco, California. Shawn Benjamin has been the principal of a charter school since 2007, where she and her team have produced student successes instead of student failures. What is their magic?
Listen and tell us what you think about how to provide children the education they deserve and that we need them to have.
Next Episode
SPOTLIGHT: Global Leadership
February 8, 2024
•6m
We live at a unique moment in human history. We—and, by “we” I mean practically all of civilization—have experienced roughly 70 years of widely shared prosperity, human development and even peace. Almost everyone alive today is better off than almost everyone who was alive in 1950, at the end of what essentially had been one devastating war that had started after the turn of the century.
Now, however, our prospects are less Great Expectations than maybe Bleak House to steal from Dickens. Accelerating climate change, disruptive technology, increasing conflict and war, massive numbers of displaced people seeking safety, the breakup of the post-war global order that framed and facilitated the great human advances of the past decades.
But there’s hope: human agency can change our course.
In this thought piece for New Thinking for a New World, Alan Stoga, Chairman of the Tällberg Foundation, shares exactly why and how the Tällberg Foundation supports global leadership through two initiatives: the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize and the Tällberg Leaders Mentoring Leaders program
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