Why you need the growth mindset of a weed | Stephen Nobles

Stephen Nobles argues that curiosity is the foundational skill educators need to see students not just as they are but as they could become, and that when students feel seen, heard, and empowered, attendance improves and academic performance follows.

Nobles draws a precise distinction about poverty that he says most educators collapse: a child living in poverty is not poor themselves, their parents are poor and the child lives with them. He argues that data characteristics associated with poverty should be placed on the parents rather than the student, and that educators who ignore this distinction allow zip codes, living conditions, and family circumstances to cap their expectations, which blocks genuine engagement before it begins.

The episode title comes from a definition Nobles's mother gave him growing up in a small town in Georgia. She told him a weed is anything growing where it is not supposed to be, and that in a jungle a rose is a weed. She said she was raising him to be a weed, meaning someone who grows in environments where they are not expected to thrive. Nobles now teaches students to adopt this weed mindset and connects it directly to curiosity, which he describes as the fuel the mindset requires to sustain itself.

Nobles started a TED student talk program first at an elementary school and then expanded it to a middle school in his district. Before the program began he instructed adults not to judge students and to place no barriers on the topics students could choose. A student named Jordan, who had appeared disengaged, chose to speak about trash in space and the consequences if orbital debris were pulled into Earth's gravitational pull. No adult had anticipated that interest, and Nobles says the outcome was only possible because adults stayed curious rather than steering Jordan toward expected topics. Jordan felt seen through the experience and Nobles says he maintains a growing relationship with him into high school.

Nobles says the hardest part of building a curiosity culture is getting people to the entry point where they can see what is possible. Once the culture takes hold it sustains itself, creating what he describes as a recycling cycle in which leaders develop future leaders without needing to be pushed. He extends this logic to district leadership, arguing that leaders benefit from recognizing that some of their own growth comes from the people they lead rather than flowing only downward.

For non-educators, Nobles says the key takeaway is using data in everyday life to ask better questions and then ask the next question after that. He frames life not as a race but as a relay, with the expectation being to carry progress as far as possible and pass the baton to the next generation. The conversation was recorded at TED Next 2025 and conducted by Whitney Pennington Rogers.