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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-02-09
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OkOQhXhsIE
everyone my name is Kate Simons and I'm seventeen upon hearing me say this or seeing the title of this talk I'm seventeen I'm sure you're thinking since she's on a stage he must have done something incredible that she can teach me about maybe she I don't know what she did to deserve it had talked she accidentally make millions from investing in a successful start up company
at age fifteen maybe she carried some disease accidentally while interning in a lab or maybe she received a perfect score on her as he teased at the age of seven did I do any of these things no I haven't done any of these things unfortunately so here's the reason why I am talking today when I took the stage you all assume that I'm some child genius
or some accredited creator because I'm seventeen I must've done something worthy of your attention that's the only qualification to being a tad speaker is to have an idea an idea you think is worth spreading and that's the problem because I'm seventeen and I'm on the stage you're only respecting me because I'm on the stage or maybe it's because you like my extremely high heels but I
don't think that's the reason why I should have he respects I don't think that I should prove to be a high school millionaire or to have cured an academic to be worth listening to I think that any idea should be respected no matter the age of who it comes from my boss has been disrespected what seems like hundreds of times I've been told by adults that
I'm not ready to vote even though I keep up with politics and share my beliefs I've been told to stop fighting for equality because I am a little voice and it won't fix anything the difference is no one would say those things to an adult any adult that fights for a cause like that would be deemed a courageous and dedicated hero but because I'm seventeen I
am naive and ignorant and I have years of experience of my voice not murdering and not being respected I'm even told according to a live science article from two thousand eight that because I'm a teenager I can't experience empathy which defined is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another now without any quantifiable data or scientific evidence I can prove that article wrong here's
how I did about a minute ago when I understood the assumptions you made when I took the stage now with empathy because I can relate to you I understand your hesitation as to my qualifications because when I was picked for this Ted talk I wondered the same thing I'm just a seventeen year old what what do I know what can I teach you about but by
this time I hope I have dangerous that I say games because unlike the other speakers I didn't have initially there was inherit paradigm of doubt and the surrounds all Tice's teacher didn't teachers students excuse me the reason I'm so so passionate about this is because of my work with a local nonprofit organization which is called one stone ones down is a student run official final one
C. three non profit and after joining as a sophomore in high school I learned how to create a budget how to render interview how to speak in front of large groups like this one and most importantly how to problem solve surrounded by high school students no one ever questions the validity of my thoughts and let me tell you we got stuff done but things would change
the second I leave the building I try talking to an adult about something I'd be working on my research or a project and they would ask me what do you know and all teams are asked this what do you know how could you know this you're only a teenager we are asked us when we talk about politics or education even with what we want to do
with our lives because we're too young to understand just because we have vertical driver's licenses and you all have horizontal driver's licenses apparently we don't know what love is we can't know what we should and shouldn't believe we don't get to deserve or we don't get to talk about education or politics because we don't live in the quote unquote real world we actually do not get
to speak for ourselves now at this point you may have noticed that I am not using slides part of the reason why is that I don't really need them but to be honest with you the real reason why is that this is a really unique chance for student like me to have your attention so I'm going to strategically direct one hundred percent of it myself this
problem is bigger than it sounds from my contrasting experiences that once down and with the help of the amazing teachers I've had I become fully aware of the constant belittling that occur is just invoices this problem is bed look at our education system estimates we have no say in what we learned or how we learn it yet were expected to absorb it all take it all
in and be able to run the world someday were expected to raise their hands to use the restroom then three months later be ready to go to college or have a full time job support ourselves and live on our own it's not logical my mom is an elementary school teacher and I always hear her and her colleagues talking about how kindergartners when asked a question I'm
thrilled to be raising their hands all of them yet as you increase the grade level fewer and fewer hands are raised each year now in my senior classes in high school it's comin back when asked a question no one raises their hands and the teacher has to call our names were roster I think this is because a students aren't confident in their own answers these students
have been made fun of for answering too many questions correctly wire seed their students are listening maybe they're texting in their lap or most likely just extremely disinterested and these are all three real bad problems students have lost sight of their educations value and therefore stopped learning because we're told you don't get it you're seventeen you don't deserve to have the control over what you learn
in this statement and this mindset art toxic it's gotten to the point where we have begun to stop listening to ourselves sometimes I catch myself on a wild train of thought and stop myself thinking self so thinking about this you're only seventeen you don't know anything about psychology what are you what are you doing stop and this is me someone who totally believes in the validation
of everyone's ideas and is doing a Ted talk on the validations of everyone's ideas is discrediting my own because my thoughts don't come from until an adult night last spring my friend and I started a club both of us are very outspoken and we saw this as an opportunity to make a difference in our school now we anticipated that it might take some work to convince
the adults of our mission but we didn't realize that the real challenge would be convincing our classmates that we could make a change as students when we tried to stand up for something they criticized us they made fun of us for standing up for our beliefs and that's really really bad students aren't students the question the validity of their own thoughts because they don't come from
adult minds yet what really separates adults and teenagers intellectually is at an aids do we wake up on our twenty first birthdays with everlasting knowledge do we turn eighteen and suddenly have ideas that are worth listening to also this magical age of adulthood is different in countries all over the world and it hasn't seemed to work so far so who's right or maybe it's from attaining
a level of maturity which can come at any age but I know a lot of high school is in college students that are more mature than some adults I know so that's not logical either so I think that it doesn't come with age or experience a maturity there is a definite biological difference between the two but it comes instead with brain conformity researchers at Stanford tested
this awhile back and they looked in rural signalling differences in the two ages between adolescents and adults to see how brains were networked they ended up finding out that adult pathways were much more constant as if naps and then the younger subjects whose pathways were more scattered or spontaneous or dare I say creative it's no secret that society has a lot of problems that we just
can't quite seem to solve and the adults behind them have conditions attempts at solving them which is why we haven't made any progress in my government class my teacher has a really sarcastic poster that says if you think our problems are bad just wait and see see our solutions so maybe this problem is that we're not thinking about the solutions creatively teens all time are criticized
for having rambunctious Lee inventive ideas but instead of making fun of these teenagers may be the problem is that we should be harnessing these ideas we should be tapping into the spontaneous pay spontaneous brain pathways and using them to solve these problems so this is my idea worth spreading a world of creative collaboration between adults and students it's a world where adults listen and respect student
ideas and a world where students respect and listen to their own ideas the education system it will improve dramatically students care will care about learning because they know that their education matters in the current current status quo once you're educated past a certain point you've learned all about failure we're teaching our students right now to lose belief in possible change our perfection in other words we're
teaching them to stop thinking outside the box into except adequacy we're teaching them to conform to standards and to lose their creativity but before this happens students don't think of logistics or limitations their fearless think I'm a kindergarteners if we could harness this excited energy before they lose it and foster it throughout their entire education think of the creative ideas that could come of it possibly
even more so government could improve once don't students know that their voices matter they'll feel obligated to participate Duffield responsible for where policies are headed and with improved efficacy comes progress across the board now I'm not suggesting we extend suffrage to five year olds but I do think that we should encourage eighteen year olds to vote not discourage them that so happens frequently ask us about
social security ask us about environmental destruction status ask us about anything let us know that we matter because we do it's true that not all of us will understand these policies right away just because were teenagers doesn't mean we don't understand politics and similarly just because you're an adult doesn't mean that you do when you tell us that our votes don't matter that we're not ready
you lose to fewer and fewer people are voting each year that's a fax and with a loss of votes to be dramatic is a loss of democracy and if you're not old enough if you're seventeen like me sixteen fifteen thirteen you still matter to even though you can't legally vote and you are in college at society is you are still valuable to society okay if anyone
has fallen asleep or something or if you have found me completely disinterested wake up and listen to me now students students we been respectfully asking first invoice for years we've sat on representative seats at board meetings and we've protested standardized testing but it hasn't been enough look where we are we need to stop asking and we need to start demanding more than a student councils and
board meetings and clubs and representative seats we deserve to be trusted with more than setting up our parents iPads I DO as matter but unfortunately this will only work if it's a collaboration so adults I'm asking you to work with us give us your respect hold us accountable I'm not asking for blind eighth I'm asking for you to let us prove it you hold me accountable
for my education I can hold you accountable to environmental destruction national debt unjust policies social inequalities the list goes on and on we need to hold each other accountable for any progress to be made and I promise you it well I'm seventeen I haven't won a Nobel Peace Prize I haven't solved any quality I hadn't solved poverty I haven't done any of the cool things that
