(above) Grade 8, Warren Middle School students: Angela Zhang, Cynthia Ming, Evelyn Logan and Emma Leung.
TED, an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design is a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading ideas globally in the form of short, powerful talks. TED Talks are generally between 5 to 18 minutes in length and cover topics related to any discipline, genre, culture, self-motivation strategies, etc. Often times those delivering Ted Talks are experts within their field.
Prior to the start of the 2018 school year, Mrs. Christine Cirrotti, Warren Middle School (WMS) Language Arts Teacher collaborated with Dr. Susan Cooper, WMS E2 Teacher about the idea of bringing TED-Ed, a program for students, to WMS. Cirrotti met with Mr. George Villar, WMS Principal and Mr. William Kimmick, WMS Curriculum Director, to propose the idea of adding TED-Ed as a grade 8 elective. The new elective would follow a progression of already-established classes that Cirrotti teaches: Public Speaking for grade 7 students and Information Technology for grade 6 students.
TED-Ed supports students in identifying their passion, encourages public speaking, connects a global network of classrooms and shares student ideas in the form of short, Ted-style talks. Cirrotti felt that students having the ability to create their own Ted Talks would really be the culminating point of the progression of electives. Villar and Kimmick approved the idea and Cirrotti was off to the races.
During the summer of 2018, Cirrotti applied and became a TED-Ed club leader, a club dedicated to spark and celebrate the ideas of every young person in the word. Cirrotti worked throughout the summer to create a curriculum that leads students through the steps of creating ideas, researching, writing, revising, adding visuals, practicing and finally presenting the Ted Talk.
In September 2018, the first 6 week cycle of TED-Ed was completed and students greatly excelled in the class. Within a month and half, students were able to develop an idea worth sharing, research and gather data, create a presentation and deliver that presentation while being video recorded.
As the program grew stronger, Cirrotti, with the help of Mrs. Cynthia Cassidy, WMS Library Media Specialist, decided to take things a step further. During the week of February 25, 2019, the first WMS TED-Ed Live was delivered by five grade 8 students in front of an audience of their peers, teachers, parents and various visitors.
These five students were extremely poised, articulate, well prepared and passionate about their presentations. Within 45 minutes the audience learned about the art of cursive writing, the importance of learning to code, the Affirmative Action policy and related controversy, how to be a friend to someone suffering from depression and the effects of bullying, and lastly creative writing.
Cirrotti was extremely proud of the five students who volunteered to present their Ted talk in front of a live audience. As the presentation came to a close, Cirrotti spoke directly to the students in the audience encouraging them to consider signing up for TED-Ed in the future.
Photo by Warren Township Schools
