“We Are Next,” “Introspection,” and Other TED-Style Speeches from My College Classroom

The past week has been an eye-opening journey for me and my students.

For the first time ever, I incorporated short TED-style speeches into my course curriculum. The only real guidelines I gave my students were to follow the traditional style of TED speakers, and to simply “be awesome, have fun,” as Brene Brown had been told before her TEDx talk in Houston.

I was blown away by the outcome.

I had no idea what could happen if I let young, driven adults develop speeches based solely on inspiration and curiosity. To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect; I tried this on a whim to satisfy my own personal goal of attempting something completely different and risky (who knew what kind of topics they might come up with?) in my classroom.

I’ve never seen students do more research, take an assignment so seriously, show so much of themselves, and display such innate skill and speaking ability.

The titles students assigned to their speeches were inspiring and interesting all on their own:

“Our Dynamic Identity vs. Our Static Sense of Self”
“Introverts vs. Extroverts: Who Do You Think You Are?”
“Connect to Survive”
“Music Saves Lives”
“Dating in a Culture Where It’s Uncool to Care”
“The ‘What If?’”
“You Are Not Smart”
“Why Animals are Better Humans Than Humans”

I could go on and on. Each day I walked into the classroom eager to see the new titles written on the board, prepared to experience another 50 minutes of life-changing and awesome (in the word’s traditional sense) information.

I’ll post one or two more pieces about the experience of TED-style talks in the classroom, with more specifics about how exactly to do it, but for now I wanted to include my feelings about the whole experience.

I’m the Happy Professor, so yes, I adore being in the classroom and interacting with students. Since this is my last semester spending significant time on a physical campus for the next few years (my online teaching adventures await), I know I needed to go out with a bang. The hours of time I put into this assignment were well worth it, and I believe my students will leave this semester feeling just as inspired and changed as I know I will.

Happy teaching, learning, and living.