Six years ago, English teacher Ken George started something called FHC Inspires.
FHC Inspires is where 30 of the sophomore class’s best TED Talk speakers put on one performance. The TED Talks are meant to inspire people with 30 different topics and 30 different opinions. This year the performance will be at the Fine Arts Center and is on Tuesday, May 28th at 7:00. People will be able to come watch in person or access it on a live stream on the Fine Arts Center website.
George is proud of his students and hopes those who attend are changed by the messages.
“When I was the age of these high school students, I don’t think I was like this,” George said. “I just hope that high school students think about the future, what they want, and what to do to get there. I just hope that they’re living an examined life and not just scrolling through their lives. If they are living an examined life, and thinking about who they are and what they want, then this will be a great night to support those thoughts.”
Last year, George added spoken poetry to the show and he will continue this trend with two students performing their own poems.
Junior Rowan Szpieg was the first person to do spoken poetry at last year’s show. At the beginning, she went up to Mr George with an entirely different idea. She has high hopes for this year’s show.
“[I hope this year’s students] don’t just do any of them at half value,” Rowan said. “If you’re going to do something, then go all out. There’s no point in just doing it halfway. [When I did my TED Talk], I knew I didn’t want to just do it for the grade. I knew I wanted to try to do something meaningful, not do something where people were counting down the seconds until I was done talking.”
One of this year’s students, sophomore Emmy Norton, also wanted a strong way to get her point across, so she also chose to do spoken poetry. During the poetry unit in class, Emmy really enjoyed writing poems and reading them aloud. Because she found an interest in poetry, it made her want to do her TED Talk on that. While doing her TED Talk, she became very passionate about what she was saying. Because people seemed to be impacted by it, she chose to do it for the show.
“My poem is mainly about the pressures of school,” Emmy said. “It’s kind of how it impacts students, so I want students to not feel isolated or alone because I think a lot of students feel the pressures of school. I also want parents and families to know how they can support their students.”
The topic that Emmy was most passionate about was the pressures of school because it’s something she has trouble with a lot, and she feels like other students would relate to that. Her hope for her TED Talk is to help teachers and parents to become more aware, and help other students not feel as alone. Another student, sophomore Max Reinhardt, felt very passionate about the topic of hyperfixation.
My whole [TED talk] is that you don’t have to work so hard and you can give yourself a break”
— Max Reinhardt
“[Hyperfixation] is something that happens to me all the time,” Max said. “It’s really not a good thing when it happens, so I figured that for other people who also have to deal with it, it would be good to find some ways to kind of overcome it. My whole [TED talk] is that you don’t have to work so hard and you can give yourself a break. Studying for hours with no breaks is really detrimental and it’s bad for you, so I’m trying to teach ways to deal with that.”
Since Max deals with hyperfixation, he wants to help other students not feel alone. His hope is that the audience will know that other people deal with it and that they’ll learn how to deal with it. He’s looking forward to the opportunity to teach them about that.
“[Being a part of FHC Inspires] is pretty exciting,” Max said. “I love public speaking and I love presentations. Being accepted into Inspires feels good to know that all of the public speaking I’ve done has actually led up to this.”
Another one of the students who’s really looking forward to the opportunity is sophomore Rosary Wever. She’s particularly passionate about her topic because it came from one of her favorite shows, Grey’s Anatomy. She was watching one of the episodes and was thinking about one of the life lessons it showed. She realized she didn’t really know that much about life and fate, so she thought it would be a good topic to learn and then teach about. That’s when she decided to do her topic on fate.
“I hope to teach [the audience] a little bit about myself, and a little bit about fate,” Rosary said. “I just want to leave them kind of thinking about their lives and fate, and if everything was meant to be in their lives.”
One of her favorite things about preparing for Inspires is getting to know her classmates. When they all get together in a huge group to prepare, they get to know each other quite quickly. She does enjoy speaking in front of big groups, but she isn’t the only one in that group. Another student who enjoys public speaking is sophomore Mady Scarlato.
Mady’s TED talk is about how hard it is to live up to expectations. Because she plays a lot of sports, not only herself but also her coaches put a lot of pressure and high expectations on her. It’s hard for her to live up to them, and sometimes she tends to feel alone in that. She’s doing her TED talk about that to show that she’s not alone, and neither is anybody else.
Mady truly hopes that there’s a large audience that night, so not only can she teach them about her topic, but so can the 29 other students. They’re all hoping to learn something new from each other, and the hope is that everyone else does too.
“I think people should come to watch Inspires because there are 30 people that have worked really hard,” Mady said. “They’re all going to tell a different story or teach a different lesson to the audience. Everybody can take a little bit of wisdom when they hear all of the talks and walk away with a different perspective.”
