It is almost a given to dismiss any passing thoughts or revelations a person has during their younger years as a passing phase, as jumping on a band wagon, a sign of developing maturity rather than the presence of a complex mindset, the ability to think critically and the beginnings of being able to gauge for oneself what they feel is right and wrong.
It is even more of a given and quite tragically, a theme for grown adults to dismiss passionate youth as over-emotional, too sensitive and wound up about the wrong things for their age. Given the contextual importance of giving the youth a voice, the TEDx event at our school, WSO, is of incredible significance.
Organized by the ever-passionate head girl, Shizah Kashif, the event provided an incredibly significant platform for our students to share their ideas, to inspire others, to challenge preconceived notions and to open multiple avenues of discussion. In a time where it is vital to give the younger generation a voice, Shizah was pivotal to organizing an event that brought many together to hear some brilliant ideas.
The event began at three p.m. and ended sometime around seven p.m., with guest speakers being Mashal Waqar, COO and co-founder of The Tempest and Afra Atiq, a UAE based spoken word poet, specifically chosen by Shizah herself. Our student speakers were Vedank Sapolia, Asli Gul, Soneni Banda, Shayaan Hashmi, Anoushka Gaur and Anmol Anoop.
Vedank Sapolia brought to the evening an interesting question of conscience and morality in the advancement of artificial intelligence and the lack of ethics in the vastly growing field, titling his talk, “Slavery in the 21st century”. Asli Gul, an avid musician, brought to the stage the influence of music on cognitive ability and learning with passion, titling hers, “Learn, but unconventionally”. With “Controlling your chapter” Soneni Banda delivered a greatly moving talk on the incredibly powerful nature of bad events in our lives and looking at them as chapters we must move on from, to not let them become the whole story. Shayaan Hashmi, bringing, “The power of words” maintained the energy of sentiment by raising awareness on the irreversible impact of words on people and recognizing that it is a power we must be cautious with. With “Life: A series of buttons” Anoushka Gaur discusses adversities and how the human psyche processes them—all through a series of buttons. Lastly, Anmol Anoop introduced the concept of a broad spectrum of intellect and ability and discussed deconstructing archaic views on academics and intelligence with “You’re all kinds of smart”.
As members of audience, there was a lot to take away from each talk given by our students. The insight and knowledge provided were unparalleled. However, out of curiosity for what it was like for the speakers, I reached out to Asli Gul to comment on her experience as a speaker.
What challenges did you face getting ready for this talk?
TEDx is a global, premium platform and I am quite thankful to GEMS Wellington, bringing this opportunity to us at TEDx Youth WSO. It was quite an exciting moment when I got the confirmation from Shizah. Since then, my task was to prepare a speech and presentation at the quality level of TEDx.
I started watching TEDx speeches on YouTube to have more idea about TEDx programs and took notes from several talks. We had a great team spirit when I was preparing my speech. At each phase, I had a chance to share with team and revise my speech through the notes/feedback I received.
Music lesson has lots of great benefits to learning and the school success. In order to present that, I decided to start my speech with a short piano performance, which made it more challenging and exciting for me. I went through several rehearsals, which helped me fine tune my talk and be ready for the speech.
What did you learn from this experience that you think will help you with your future career?
Having such an experience actually taught me couple points such as public speech, resilience for a challenging task, teamwork and project planning. It is not easy to go front of the public and give a speech with a piano performance. I had a great experience with TEDx and believe that this experience will help me in future in many aspects; in my lessons, in my other public speaking opportunities, in my future interviews, etc.
Resilience requires experience and till the last minute, I focused on my performance and believed that I would make a great job. With that high morale management, I did it and that was a great opportunity to try and get it done!
Teamwork was another important point, which helped me in my TEDx speech. Thanks to our leader, we had chances to communicate and check several points with the team. That cooperation helped me a lot to hear feedback and make my speech ready as per audience expectations.
Project planning is a must for every project and crucial for TEDx. Since the beginning of my preparation, I made a clear plan for every stage for speech planning, presentation and my piano performance. Based on my plan, I planned milestones for each week and that helped me to manage my TEDx preparation and my daily school tasks.
What do you hope the audience took away from your talk?
My message was clear, learning requires unconventional methods to make it efficient and I have tried a great way to make it. I shared several global research results as well as my personal experience.
They shouldn’t put their hobbies aside as they can help you with life just like how piano did to mine! Students and parents would have more interest in extra-curricular activities and that will assist them a lot in school success.
Piano acted almost like my Ctrl-Delete button where it cleared off any challenges or stress in my mind and helped me focus as much as I could. So, in my opinion, piano is your best friend when you’re studying fractions and dealing with the life challenges.
I was able to solve fractions with my piano and they can find their own piano too!
Given the impact of such TEDx Youth @ WSO, it is important that we have more events like it at school that give us the platform to express ourselves, our thoughts and ideas and really prove our potential and what we have to offer as next in line to run, well, everything.
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