After a year of planning, TEDxWestVancouverED became a reality on Saturday, September 27. At 8:30am three hundred educators, parents and members of the community began their day at the Kay Meek Theatre in West Vancouver, Canada to hear how our speakers were Rethinking Education.
We broke the day into four sessions with an incredible array of speakers:
Connecting to our Students
Kath Murdoch, Gia Da Roza, Arlene Anderson, Sandy Treagus
TED Video: Adora Svitak – What Adults Can Learn From Kids
The Whole Child
Adele Diamond, Candice Charlton, Heidi DeLasser, Silken Laumann
TED Video: Rita Pierson – Every Kid Needs a Champion
Changing Perspectives
Jesse Miller, Kris Magnusson, Wade Davis
TED Video: Derek Siver – Weird, or Just Different
A New Lens
Chief Ian Campbell, Punit Dhillon, Judy Halbert
TED Video: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – The Danger of a Single Story
An experimental format we introduced this year were 4 minute Talks interspersed throughout the day addressing the question, “What is Smart?”. In a time when we celebrate the diversity of our learners and their individual strengths, we asked 4 people to argue what “smart” meant to them in their lives. Our speakers spoke to the question from an array of backgrounds, and each argued very different points.
Chris Kennedy, Erica Nasby, Shannon Ozirny and Josh Blacker
Beyond creating a day of inspiration through the stories of our speakers, we mindfully created an environment for conversation. Through our Partners we created “conversation spots”, coffee stops, a remodelled school cafeteria designed for an idea sharing lunch and opportunities for people to share personally and electronically. Through our #TEDxWestVanEd (and the misspelled #TEDexWestVanED) hashtags as well as our Padlets, our Participants were able to share ideas worth spreading with one another and those around the world.
Curating TEDxWestVancouverED is an amazing experience. It is a year-long passion project that continues to inspire me as we dream up ideas, and those ideas eventually become reality. Through the words and ideas of our speakers, the generosity of our Partners and the work of our organizing team, we were able to create and host a day that focused on the power of learning and how we might tap into each and every child’s full potential.
See you next year!
TEDxWestVancouverED Organizing Committee
Craig Cantlie, Cari Wilson, Brooke Moore, Garth Thomson with Chris Parslow and Jo-Anne McKee
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