TedEd Weekend 2020

What an incredible day Saturday, February 8, 2020 was! I had the honor of spending the day at the Ted-Ed Weekend in NYC  along with Heather Dvorak, Assistant Principal at Mineola High School and Lindsay Audiino and Bette Sloane, two teachers at Mineola High School and the Ted-Ed Advisors. This is TED’s only official event featuring an all-student audience and an all-student Speaker lineup!

Why were we there? Two Words... Jennifer Moglia. Jennifer was one of 12 students from 10 Countries representing one of only two students selected from the United States to speak at this International event. (Below is a description from the Ted-Ed Blog).

Jennifer Moglia is a 16-year-old high school junior from Mineola, New York. Jennifer’s Talk is about her experience of managing an anxiety disorder through sports. She’s most proud of her involvement in sports journalism, and was thrilled to cover the National Women’s Hockey League’s championship game in 2018! When she isn’t watching or writing about sports, Jennifer loves to play ukulele, go to concerts, participate in poetry slam events, make macaroni and cheese, and spend time with her cats and friends. ​

Jennifer kicked off the event with her talk that was amongst talks about space, residential schools, spirituality, menstruation, perfectionism, autism, second hand trauma, and more... including a talk about being kind to the blob fish :). 
Between “sets” the educators in attendance were treated to a dialogue with Angela Duckworth whose Ted Talk, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” has been viewed over 19 million times. Some key takeaways from our dialogue with her were:

• We need to combine empathy with high expectations
• Conditions where failure is honored are necessary 

• People do not become great at something that bores them
• Instead of comparing to others, we should be comparing our past self, to our current self, to our future self
• ... and; I should be attending the Educator Summit hosted by the Character Lab (www.characterlab.org) 

To sum up my time at Ted-Ed, I am always inspired by our students when we give them the opportunity to explore their passions. We must continue to amplify student voice and provide increased opportunities to provide choice in terms of learning.  Congratulations to Jennifer Moglia and thank you to Lindsay Audiino, Bette Sloane, and the entire Ted-Ed team for cultivating a rich student centered program that celebrates the power of our youth. As our hosts from Ted-Ed reminded us, “The youth are changing the world... now.”