Troy High School picked for student run TED-Ed talks on activism

TROY, Mich. (WJBK) - You have heard of TED Talks but you probably haven't seen anything like this.
     
Its motivational talks brought to you by TED - but it's high school students that are the talk of the town.

"Let's do a little more for our world, said Mahnoor Imran, a student. "March, protest, call our politicians, donate to organizations, participate in the political process. Attend town halls.  Vote."

Imran is in high school, schooling the world on how we should get off of our phones as keyboard warriors and actually take action on world issues that affect us all. 

"Social media has transformed activism and arguably for the worse," Imran said. "Posting a hashtag from the comfort of your own home, does not make you a 21st century revolutionary.  Nor does it make you the Twitter savvy reincarnation of Rosa Parks." 

Imran is prepping for a TED-Ed Talk.  Brought to you by the same people who bring world famous Ted talks.  
   
It is a club at Troy High School, one of several districts in Metro Detroit putting on student-run TED Talks. Clarkston and Westland are just a few other districts chosen to have a TED- Ed club in school. 

Molly Myers brought it to Troy High School when she had an idea.  

"To give speeches just like those given around the world as Tedx Talks, to see that that is something we could do here, that was super interesting to me," Myers said. 

And interesting to her teacher, Harriet Clark. But the process to become a Ted-Ed school is tough.  

"The next level was an interview that took place with people from Spain, people from California, people from all over where there was a Ted Rep who interviewed us where they asked our vision with the club, (and) did it meet their vision," Clark said.

The club in Troy started his year, the final speech is coming up this month. 
 
The topics – activism – and stepping out of your comfort zone as Anya Welborn teaches us, are often heavy.  But important ones.

“What does spending a week in Washington DC, jumping off a high dive and speaking here tonight have in common,” Welborn said, practicing her speech. “They are all things I did not want to do.”
   
The goal is to have The TedEd YouTube channel feature the winning speech from every school. 

“Between mass shootings, recurring injustice, and a hostile political climate, there is a wide range of things to be chattering about on Facebook,” Imran said.

"From TED Talks I hope people will be able to listen to different points of view," said Myers. "And not necessarily agree, but be able to respect what other people are saying." 

For more information on signing up your school to be a TedEd school, go to https://ed.ted.com/