Tedx students prepare for talks

Junior Ahnaf Taha practices his speech on minority leaders in the tech industry and how diversity cultivates success.

Junior Ahnaf Taha practices his speech on minority leaders in the tech industry and how diversity cultivates success.

Cedar Berrol Young, Managing Editor

As the May 20 Tedx deadline approaches, students giving speeches are working overtime to complete their presentations. The list of student speakers include: Tulay Akoglu, Sophie Brousset, Sam Coppola, Mao Inoue, Jared Foxhall, Jonas Kolker, Julia Mathis, Scout O’Donnell, Heather Smith, Ahnaf Taha, Kree Zhang and Amanda Taylor.

The speakers are lead by three advisors, Lisa Berrol, Brendon Barrios, and Zev Barnett, who aid them in the process. Each of the advisors has four students under them with whom they work weekly. Continuing into April and May, the group will start to meet twice a week, once as one big group on Tuesday and once splitting up into smaller groups on Sunday.

Junior Amanda Taylor is one of the presenters and feels very well-suited with the support she has gotten from her advisor, Barnett. “I think Mr. Barnett and the other advisors are very helpful and smart, they’re all really ready to tackle whatever I put forward.”

While May 20 is the declared day of presentations, the finalized speeches from students are due to each advisor on May 1. From that point forward the students will learn memorization and presentation techniques to insure that they are prepared for their talk. Each week students also watch a Tedx presentation on youtube and discuss the different components and public speaking skills that the presenter exemplifies.

“It’s really helpful to see the Ted Talks not only to help write our speech but to also understand some of the intricacies of public speaking,” senior Jared  Foxhall said. He is doing his talk on the use of nature in the classroom, something he spoke about briefly at the United Nations earlier this year.

The presenters practice writing with anecdotes and using certain public skills to help keep the audience engaged throughout their performances. The learning of these skills is essential since most students presenting have not spoken publicly, in this manner, for 10 minutes straight.

“This is really a great opportunity,” junior Ahnaf Taha said, who is giving his talk about diversity in the tech industry. “  I hope this will become an annual event at Masters and the students will really enjoy the topic.”