An Amazing Day at Tedxİhlas

Well, I’d like to start describing the day by pointing out a strange fact, which is I could not have experienced any of what I’m going to write soon. Fortunately, my common sense led me the right way the moment I decided to play truant from my Arabic course. It gives me creeps to think I would have missed the greater part of the conference, just kidding, how can I know what I would miss only if I haven’t experienced it at first hand?

Yes,It was a TEDx event organized by “renowned” Ihlas College in Istanbul. I was a subscriber of the usual TED videos, a shameful one though for lately I do nothing but reading the titles of the videos missing the ‘ideas genuinely worth spreading’. Thanks to the magazines they put inside of our bags, I happened to learn what TED stands for: Technology, Entertainment, Design and ‘X’ is the sign that it’s an independently organized event, out of wherever the real videos are shot. I will not bore you with details, but one thing was interesting, that there should be no greeting, saying ‘hi,hello..’ in TED talks, you have to just dive into your speech immediately, however; this rule was broken by the sweetest anarchist ever,I’ll come to that 😉 A frank introduction to my description of the event is, I will not mention of the speakers who failed to grasp my attention, in fact they all did, but it was so that I wished they would carry on their conversation just somewhere else! 

So, the first ‘speaker worth mentioning’ Özgür Bolat is an incredibly successful person in education, and (yes,I’ll share that stupid detail but I’m unsatisfied for having not let it out!) he graduated from the same high school as me (a detail that can’t be found anywhere online). I’m not saying that because I’m proud for that or whatsoever, actually, it was just a stupid building with unbelievably few breathing livings who care about education, just as the schools he excellently described in his amazing talk. With a school without a single difference from a prison, so how come we can sustain the happiness of the children if we give them the wrong values to be proud of? The values like being accepted in society via a status, having excessive wealth etc. are not real causes of genuine happiness. He informed us with a strange fact, a lexicology of the word education, meaning to breathe out,where as the Turkish word for it means to bend, change the genes~ isn’t that too obvious? It inspired me even more although I have recently watched his same TED Talk in English. The grzeat idea I managed to get from the most popular speaker, The Wife of Turkish Prime Minister, was among her last few sentences, which was to raise beneficial people, just as the other word O. Sinanoğlu said there is no equivalent in English of these Turkish words. But simply I think her point was that the goal of education is not just to raise docs, engs, leaders or just people having a profession to make their own living. There is no extent to what they can achieve but what about morality? It’s not just about standing on your own feet in this world, but also helping others rose from the ground…

Because I follow the conference’s program, I will talk about the next amazing speakers,this time two of them in the stage, BUT I would like to save them for last, since they were THE BEST!
Of all the people with great ideas and dreams they were the most lively instance of having made their dreams come true. The fact they partly made my dream come true was surely what made it a marvelous presentation. They are known as TUK TUK Travels(ellers), two teachers from UK aiming to promote education all around the world, especially where it’s needed the most. They have that policy that is excellently modified, which keeps them going on their travel, that is “Every Child Matters,Everywhere.” Isn’t that just amazing? You give up from your own stable, comfortable life as a regular teacher and aspire to spread education to the 61 million children who are in substantial need of it. You find yourself at the far ends of the world, talking to the teachers  facing educational challenges and feed them with hope, for you’ll be the voice of them and seek for support while the leaders of the world turn a blind eye to all of these!!! I really hope, God willing, I can be part of something as such, holding hands to those children,cherishing as they cherish for they can find the means of being educated.They also shared an inspirational quote, striking a light in our hearts  with the idea that every single thing we do,however small it may seem also matters. 
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” Edmund Burke

There was this 1 hour lunch break but it was hard to pull myself together, couldn’t help but being over-inspired by the previous talk. Anyways, there was this famous cartoonist who tried to make us believe that the drawing was not much of a talent thing, which I found it awkward and resisted to confirm . However, he made a really good point, that even a spoken language sets boundaries in understanding other people, but drawing has no culture or whatsoever, it’s an universal language, you can connect anyone by it! Just as how he managed to propose her wife thanks to it lol.

Then there was this guy who is the rector of a university I hardly knew by the name, but surprisingly he had lots to tell, most of them being reliable facts not the statistics they mostly fool us with (I’m actually surprised at myself here, since I took a page-long note of what he said :O).What he  talked about was the importance of Entrepreneurship(had the conference been in English,I’d be happy to  finally pronounce the word correctly due to hearing too much!) in supporting the education as well as the development of the country. His speech was so motivating that at one moment I found myself considering to give a shot to be an entrepreneur, but I was devastated at the other moment when he confessed ‘university is too late for it’,as if I could be one haha.

In the continuum, there were two English teachers, guess they were the most theme/field related, having both outstanding ideas and practicing it in their classrooms. One was a Storysinger and the other Storyteller(the unruly speaker I mentioned earlier). I noticed some people during their talks who weren’t approving the ways they apply their ideas and I found them rather ‘not grasping the essence of the conference’. They just wanted to the break the tradition, to attract the students’ interest and most importantly they wished to touch their hearts and they proved that they made it real. 🙂 

At last, I want to share a quote of the speaker before the very last one. He was a man of thought, and he said the quotes of such men poets, authors, philosophers etc. are used by other people in their speech as if those sayings make up a dictionary that helps them complete their talks.It was not his exact words, but how I interpreted it,whatever.

My overall opinion of the whole event was that the theme “I Have a Dream (About Education)” was a little bit diverted by the appearance of some people unaware of the notion of education, they could perfectly fit in another conference, I cannot deny they made us have a nice time, but it was like “okay let’s watch someone who gives the real talk, and someone who does not” well I call it a ‘time-filler activities’.In the classroom, those activities are useful for the last few minutes.But the reality is this is a conference..Anyways to sum up the ideas, they were mostly realistic, touching upon countless flaws of the education system and how it dulls the imagination/wonder/creativity/fresh ideas of the young learners. 
As for my part and my friends’, as an audience,we were effective but when it comes to meeting with new people, we made it utmost three and done with that!
Anyways,that was another good old day with buddies.

For further reference of TUK TUK Travels;
 you can just click.

Finally this is my dream; for further understanding you are kindly requested to contact me in person 😀

So, What’s your dream?