More than 100 students gathered on February 13 at Gill St. Bernard’s for the fourth-annual collaborative TEDx conference. Seven students, including five from Blair Academy, shared talks on a range of topics. TedX is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks and Blair’s involvement in this event has been organized by history department chair Jason Beck since 2015.

Cleary Waldo ’19 shared thoughts on prejudice in the United States in her talk, “How Far We Haven’t Come: Combating Prejudices We Didn’t Know We Had.” Liv Kreider ’21 addressed mental health in "Please Don't Say Relax," while Tanner Humphrey ’19 shared with attendees his personal journey in "From Tragedy to Triumph." Abby Morris ’20 and Madina Shabazz ’20, on the other hand, teamed up to address the issue of vaping and its health implications in "Vaping: A Teen Epidemic.”

Throughout the conference, Mr. Beck was impressed by students' presentations and, looking forward, he hopes participants will continue to share their ideas, while also being open to learning from others.

“The students developed ideas on their own and, together, we worked as a group to develop their presentations prior to the conference,” he said. “The point of the conference itself is to provide students with an opportunity to explore issues they are passionate about in a forum outside the classroom, one that wants to hear what they have to say. I hope to see more students participate in 2020.”

Please check back for a video of the TedX conference soon.