Adults, students and people in general tuned in to hear interesting engaging ideas expressed by teachers and students at this year’s Ted Talks at Eleanor Roosevelt High.

The event, held for the second time at the Mustang Theatre Tuesday evening of Feb. 28, was hosted by senior student David Rhee, who sought to bring back the well-known nationwide speaking event to his school – this time with a new theme that binded all the given speeches and presentations together: emerging people and ideas.

“I wanted a to host this event to spread exposure of new ideas & perspectives with people and share them so that we may consider them in harmony,” Rhee said in a short interview afterwards and touched upon with his introduction and later in his closing statement of the event. He spoke throughout the 2 hour event – from 6 to 8 p.m – to introduce the speakers, giving background to the topics with which his speakers will talk about.

Indeed, the 7 speakers of the night had ideas worth spreading and sharing as they are relevant in today’s current age. And the audience enjoyed the speakers, laughing at the funny moments, gasping at the shocking new ideas they’ve newly acquired, and clapping for the speakers as they entered and left the stage.

Macie Walker, a United States history teacher at Roosevelt, reflected on her Irish heritage and the experiences of the Irish immigrants in America in her presentation that showcases the nation’s complicated relationship with immigrants and throughout history, including the Chinese, Germans, South-Eastern Europeans, Japanese, and Mexican immigrants in addition to the Irish. But despite this, Mrs. Walker emphasized the importance of these immigrants for the nation and the contributions they made for a country that didn’t initially accept them.

Senior student Ryan Mitchell, meanwhile, took the stage to discuss the lack of fair representation and recognition  African-American music artists are receiving for their work, specifically when their achievements are left unrecognized and confined into a small specialized space created just for them at the annual Grammy Awards in past and recent years.

A guitar solo singing monologue kick-started senior Victoria Nguyen’s presentation in which she talked about the connection between the environment and feminism, as well as the importance of being aware of the mistreatment of the environment and its effects on society. She ties the lack of funding in families stemmed from detrimental environmental conditions to the marrying off of young girls to more privileged families.

Junior high school student Isaac Bi got the crowd rousing with laughter thanks to his humorous personality, using his comedy to talk about the serious topic of impoverished millennials, touching on several misconceptions people have about them. The social and economic aspects surrounding millennials are startling as Bi tries to explain what the millennial generation (born somewhere between 1985 to 2005) does to our nation.

History teacher Timothy Knight took the stage to explore the modern world’s fascination of real human connections through physical objects and items of the past. This fascination is evident with increasing sales of board games, vinyl records, and Polaroid cameras with actual film, as well as an increased usage of live musicians for albums by modern artists. Knight also connects that craving for real intimate human interactions with the philosophy that is existentialism, a school of thought relating to absurdity and what the meaning of life is on the perspective of the individual.

Because the world is heavily involved on the digital and technological front, with innovative appliances and the frequent usage of social media, Knight claims that while it is important that the world remains this way, the emotional and human connections are lost. That is why society today yearns for that connection again and look for them in tangible meaningful objects.

12th grader Allison Larsen utilized her time to give out a presentation about how we can manipulate our body language to try to better ourselves. She provides an anecdote about her personal experience being a 5″2 girl given the power to direct an entire band unit and her ability to overcome the physical aspects that may suggest weakness through the powerful and demanding body language.

And the final speaker of the night, Ivy Jiang, gave out a speech on the idea of groupthink, which emphasizes conformity over actuality. She puts this idea into the broader picture of human social interaction, given that “we are creatures of habit and we follow the norms of the majority.”

In the end, Rhee tells the audience that he hopes they get a taste of the “different perspectives expressed by the speakers so that they can improve themselves and leave with a good mindset.”