Speaker Series I

The Beginning

In year two, our campaign started later than usual.  We were all still exhausted from our first year of the campaign, so it it took us a little longer to find our theme to focus on.  We had a big discussion with our student committee, and they wanted to work on seeing the bigger picture.  They spoke about how students like them often get caught up in the moment, stuck on something that they can't fix or control.  Maybe its doing poorly in a class, experiencing a break-up, bullying on social media, or something in their home environment. It can be difficult for all of us, at times, to remember that there are beautiful things in all of our lives if we only pause to look for them. If we remember why we are here and what drives us to keep going, it can help us remember that we'll get through it.  How many of us know why we do what we do? How we each choose to keep going? Do they know their "why?"

So we asked them, "What is your Why?".


Since we're in education, we know that modeling is key.  So we decided to have a series of assemblies in a "Ted Talk" style that focused on teachers explaining their "Why's" and how they came to them.  If we were going to ask students to be vulnerable, to really look inside and find something bigger than high school.... We needed to show them that we could do it too.
Our goal was to talk to them as people, not students.