After months of preparation, 13 students and one teacher at Uniondale’s Grand Avenue Elementary School, in Baldwin, stepped in front of an audience of parents, teachers and the Uniondale Board of Education on May 7 to deliver TED-Ed-style talks about ants, perseverance, favorite characters and their social lives.
The showcase, led by Paul Weiss, a pre-K STEAM teacher at Grand Avenue and a TED-Ed Student Talk facilitator, gave students the chance to transform personal passions into public presentations.
Students connected “16 Habits of Mind” to their own experiences, from school spirit and being a middle child of three to raising ants, showing how young speakers can use their voices to reflect on the world around them and inspire their classmates.
“Tonight isn’t about being perfect; it’s not about getting every word correct,” Weiss said. “It’s about being real; it’s about growing; it’s about students finding their voice and having the courage to use it.”
TED-Ed describes Student Talks as a program that gives educators customizable activities to help students identify, develop and share their ideas.
TED-Ed also provides facilitators with curriculum materials that help students discover ideas, develop their talks and share them with an audience. At Grand Avenue, students met weekly in the TED-Ed Club beginning in September, revising and practicing talks that ranged from about three to six minutes.
One of the students, fifth-grader Xili Romain, 11, centered her talk on the habit of mind “flexibility,” a topic she said she chose early in the program. While other students approached the concept in different ways, she said her perspective was shaped by personal experience.
In her talk, Xili described flexibility as the ability to adapt and stay calm when plans change. She used picture day as an example, recalling how her schedule became chaotic because she was involved in several clubs and had multiple photos to take.
“Flexibility isn’t about building your body; it’s about building your energy,” she said during her talk. “And every time you choose to adapt instead of explode, you’re building a superpower that will help you and last you a lifetime.”
Before the showcase, Xili also spoke about learning English after starting at Grand Avenue in kindergarten. She explained Creole was her first language and recalled that she came to the school with “zero English,” but classmates and teachers helped her adjust.
“I feel like it was kind of difficult, but I think I learned it fast,” she said. “Everybody was helping me — it’s a strong and fun community to be in.”
Besides preparing their talks, students also participated in virtual exchanges with classrooms in Italy, India and Turkey through TED-Ed’s global network.
Other students used personal interests and experiences to explore different habits of mind. Through an honest talk that made the audience laugh, 8-year-old Chase Shillingford used his interest in raising ants to explain interdependence, telling the audience that each ant has a job and that the whole colony depends on every ant doing its part. His goal was to remind the audience to be more like ants.
“Humans are all like ants. We all need each other,” Chase said during his talk. “If we only think about ourselves, we don’t get very far.
“But when we think about how we can help other people,” he continued, “and about how others can help us, amazing things happen.”
Malayah Shand focused on listening with understanding and empathy, asking adults to pay closer attention when children are upset or quiet. She told the audience that children do not always need adults to solve their problems, but they do need to feel heard.
Brandon Ward connected basketball to persistence, teamwork and mental toughness. He told the audience that lessons from the court can apply to school, homework and everyday challenges.
“Michael Jordan once said, ‘I’ve missed 9,000 shots in my career, and that’s why I succeed,’” Brandon said in his talk. “If he can miss thousands of shots and keep going, I can survive math homework.”
Sofia Palma Avelar brought a prop with her for her talk — a Stitch plush, from the Disney movie “Lilo & Stitch.” She explored how a favorite character can connect to all five senses using Stitch’s appearance, voice and comfort.
Sofia provided many reasons how people’s experience with joy an emotional connection through the things they love.
“Stitch will probably smell like space-age rubble, but my Stitch plushies smell like home, warm, and movie nights,” she said. “And taste? Well, every time I eat ice cream, I think of Lilo and Stitch, sharing their island adventure.”
Weiss explained that part of the process involved choosing students, who began with interviews and listening closely for the original ideas they shared in conversation. That is why at the end of the talk he presented pre-K student Abigail Jean-Francois with, “What adults can learn from me.”
She discussed how adults need to have more fun and imagination, such as owning a unicorn, dragon or fairy.
He said children often say profound things without realizing it, and his role was to help them recognize those thoughts and shape them into talks.
“All children will say profound things — the most profound things, especially when you’re giving them an opportunity to be profound,” Weiss said.
For Weiss, the showcase was a chance for Grand Avenue students to hear those ideas in their own voices — and for the audience to hear how much young students already have to say.
