High school students around the world participated in a TEDxYouth Day event Nov. 16 to support world-changing ideas to inspire curiosity, ignite new ideas and empower young leaders.

Salisbury High School is the first high school in the area participating in the event.

Ten students including Austin Watson, Makenna Lenover, Luke Chassard, Leandra Roelker, Carolyn Boulay, Daniel Walters, Asia Letlow, Michelle Dang, Sarah Kim and Collin Moyer, shared their ideas on a myriad of topics with the audience at SHS.

TED is a non-profit organization devoted to innovative ideas. It started as a four-day conference in California almost 30 years ago and has now grown to support multiple initiatives. Leading speakers such as Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Sir Richard Branson and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown are among the leading thinkers and doers to speak at the annual TED conferences.

The SHS theme this year was "Stages of Change."

Austin Watson: Change by Design...Inceptional Thinking

"If you can't change your thinking, you won't be able to change the world," Watson said. "We need to design and develop new ideas to improve our world and redesign our brains to say what am I capable of doing."

Luke Chassard: Rethinking Resiliency

Chassard likened his talk to the movie "Gravity" "when there is no hope in sight, the earth beneath our feet goes out, we feel trapped and where the world is flipped upside down. "One year ago, I was on top of the world. My family was the happiest on earth," Chassard said. "Two months ago with the passing of my mother, I wondered how our perfect family and lives could disappear. I am now in my moment of resiliency." Chassard said any event which has an impact on your life will forever change you and encouraged those dealing with similar situations to face them head on and embrace them. "Life is a series of decisions on how to react to these circumstances," Chassard said. He encouraged people to take a positive approach, better those around you, have faith and embrace the pain. "I'm looking forward to my future, with a wife and children and am greatly blessed because of the love and support I've received.

Makenna Lenover:

The Mindset Shift

Lenover talked about the mindset shift and how community service is not about looking good for colleges. She founded a non-profit organization "Little Known Help Zone" in 2011, which provides relief to poverty stricken areas in Central America. She encouraged the audience to realize the motivation for volunteering, reverse empathy and hopefully the motivation will be for the right reasons.

Leandra Roelker:

Is Negative

the New Positive

Roelker talked about positive reinforcement asking "Is Negative the New Positive?" She keyed in on how people overcome challenges and how negativity affects children. "As caretakers of our future, we have a responsibility to our children to build them up, not break their foundations."

Carolyn Boulay:

Cracks in the Walls that Surround Us

Telling the audience "no one is without flaws," Boulay's talk on cracks in the walls surrounding us referred to the walls of our society. Noting 6.4 million people are living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and two-thirds of those individuals are medicated, Boulay said "we just try to fix the cracks, we don't look for the deeper problem. We are always looking at the flaws instead of fixing our problems in society." Boulay gave several examples of how Steve Jobs and others used the "cracks in the walls" to creatively handle problems within our society and build tools to work together creatively.

Daniel

Walters:

The Art of Not

Caring

Walters believes students need to care less about grades and more about learning. "We can change our attitudes toward learning if we treat school like an opportunity to learn," Walters said. "Rather than suffering through the lectures, students have the opportunity to become a smarter, well-rounded person. "Students should spend more time experiencing life."

Sarah Kim: Smartphone Slaves

Kim told the audience we are "Smartphone Slaves." Challenging the role smartphones play in our lives, she asked, "What could you be doing with your time rather than playing a game on your cell phone?"

Kim said 85 percent of adults have cell phones, approximately 50 million adults. Twenty-five out of 35 of those surveyed said they would be unable to function without their cell phones. Saying humans are meant to be social, Kim suggests we need to take back control, take back our rest and try to think about answers rather than pulling out smartphones.

"The moments we have are precious; how are you spending them?" Kim asked.

Michelle Dang:

Bookmarking

Dang encouraged the audience to treat knowledge as a goal, not as a stepping stone. She quoted Plato who said, "Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent."

Dang suggested when the education foundation we use today was implemented, it was successful. However, Dang said, times have changed.

"It is time for our standards to change. The Internet has opened the use of our curriculum. We need to learn how to reach these opportunities and pay attention to the passions which lead to success. We need to value, explore and utilize the technology available."

Collin Moyer: The Inspiration Conspiracy

Moyer discussed the inspiration conspiracy, saying "we are moving in the wrong direction. We hear we can't be inspiring because we aren't celebrities. The reality is inspiration does not have to come from these high class figures. Moyer talked about his friend Tyler who is the most inspiring person in his life; a friend who looks up to everyday people for inspiration, all while inspiring those around him. "Put notes in your kid's lunches, say 'hi' to strangers," Moyer suggested. "You can make a change by inspiring someone today."

Asia Letlow: The Medium is the Message

Letlow told members of the audience how "we as people are mediums, it is how we share our message." She said it is up to us to discover the differences in each medium to improve how we communicate.

In the handout provided, the students hoped the TEDx talk left the audience with a set of tools to innovate lives, the community and, ultimately, society. "As we look to our past, live in the present and focus on our future, change is inevitable."