What is my breakthrough? Quite honestly, before TEDxYouth@Hewitt 2011, I would have told you my breakthrough was finishing a cross-country race, being allowed to take 3 APs, or moving to New York. While yes, those are three obstacles that I’ve had to overcome, those can no longer be considered my breakthrough.
Starting November 19th, my breakthrough is TEDxYouth@Hewitt. When co-curator for the event, Sofia Stafford `13, welcomed the audience to what I already knew would be an awe-inspiring day, she said, “By being here, you are part of a worldwide movement.” At the moment, I didn’t realize that Sofia was right. Then I saw the twitter wall at break filled with missives from TEDxYouth Day events happening this weekend around the globe.
I was greeted in the morning by a group of students on E. 75th Street, all around my age, signing their names with chalk on the sidewalk. For some reason, I found this amazing, as if we were leaving something behind as a remembrance of the day that we were about to experience. Even though the chalk has probably already been wiped off, the spot on which we all wrote our names will always hold that memory.
Every single speaker and performer was able to captivate the audience in a way that I had yet to see before. During the first break, students swarmed around all the speakers and performers to express their gratitude and talk about their stories and breakthroughs. One particular stand out from Slate One was Marc Elliot, who ended his mind-blowing speech by encouraging us to “live and let live,” to tolerate others and to never let ourselves take action on our assumptions.
Before the event, I wondered how the organizers thought they were going to keep an audience full of teenagers engaged and interested for a full five hours. However, once I was there, I realized that it was the speakers’ inspiring words that kept this lively group interested. When they weren’t introducing themselves to fellow audience members or speakers (or eating some of FLIK’s delicious chocolate chip cookies), students could be seen writing their thoughts on one of the boards that the ACTION club had set out.
I was amazed when I saw these boards and what had been written on them. When asked, “What is your breakthrough?”, some students wrote: “Realizing perfection is highly overrated,” “Helping others, which in turn helps me,” and “Quitting gymnastics.”
When Slate Three ended, I walked around the auditorium looking for someone who could sum up her experience of the day in 140 characters. Not surprisingly, no one was able to accomplish the task. When I asked a student from the St. Luke’s School, she was silent for two minutes, trying to draw all her thoughts from the day into a cohesive sentence. Once she did that, she quite simply told me, “I need a lot more than 140 characters to truly express how this day has inspired me.” I told her not to worry, because I felt the same way. However, here I am, having typed up 2741 characters and knowing that I could go on for 2741 more.
I left TEDxYouth@Hewitt motivated for the future, ready to embrace my failures, more tolerant and willing to “live and let live,” wanting to change the world (because yes, it is a sexy idea), knowing that age is but a number, accepting myself exactly as I am, excited to doodle in class on Monday… The list could go on and on and on. TEDxYouth@Hewitt stimulated my mind in a way that I had never experienced before.
Congratulations to Ms. Burgess, Sofia, Lizzie, and the ACTION club! Your hard work really showed!
If you missed the event, make sure to check out the official twitter stream! The archives of the videos will be available soon!