All We Can Be

By Aidan J. Sproat-Clements, organiser of TEDxAlleyns School Youth:

Here at Alleyn’s we truly try to live by the motto All We Can Be. And we don’t just try to apply this to teaching and learning. It also entails that we should live and breathe our school values of Respect, Opportunity, Courage, Curiosity and Kindness and requires us to understand that, as a community of people who are all unique and different, it is precisely that difference which contributes to the greater sum of the school community.

So, when we took the decision to host a TEDx, the theme of All We Can Be seemed like a natural launchpad for us to both reflect who we are and to consider how we can take our aspiration to be All We Can Be out into the world beyond our school gates.

In curating our TEDx event, we wanted to ensure that the talks and speakers chosen represented a diverse range of responses to the theme as well as representing the diversity of our community. Democracy and equality of opportunity is always something we work towards and so we issued a call for speakers from our pupil body, staff, parents, alumni and wider community. Our coaches and Head Curator, Dorcas Maxwell, worked with the applicants to build a programme that is as entertaining as it is informative.

Throughout the process of working with my colleagues to develop the TEDx theme, to curate the programme and to mentor our speakers, I have been so impressed by the creativity and determination of our extraordinary speakers. The richness of their talks comes directly from the way they’ve striven to view the world in different ways and their desire to build upon and to share their own experiences. With speaking themes ranging from the Power of Asian Pop Culture, the Secret to Thriving in a Chaotic World to The Dangers of a Knowledge Hierarchy, our speakers share a commonality in their desire to reach a closer understanding of the influence of cultural, psychological and physical influences on the world around us.

Equally striking is our speakers’ intention to push boundaries forwards whilst not forgetting the lessons of the past. Some of the narratives they have developed include asking what Romanticism teaches us about Digital Creativity; The Way we Learn Now: how business events and education need to reflect societal change; and - very much on all our minds at the moment - Artificial Intelligence and Real Life: What does this mean for us? These are all useful opportunities to reflect and think about how we can build for the future.

TEDxAlleyns School Youth is a chance to explore new ways of thinking about society, the economy, science, healthcare, learning, culture and communication; it is a chance to dig into ourselves and push our understanding of the world further; and it is a chance to be All We Can Be as a community to help change the world for the better.