TED Talk honours students’ actions after mass shooting
For Parkland, Fla., high-school history teacher Diane Wolk-Rogers, it was never a question of being too soon to travel to Vancouver to deliver a TED Talk on gun control in the U.S. a mere eight weeks after enduring one of the worst school shootings in American history.
The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school that killed 17 just happened Feb. 14 and after the funerals and getting back to class, Wolk-Rogers brought a gripping message to the TED stage for its opening day.
“When I see the movement my students have created, how could I not?” Wolk-Rogers said in an interview.
Since the shooting, she has watched as those students have rallied around the cause of changing gun regulations in the U.S., and her determination to honour what they’re doing “in such a mature way.”
And, after their rallies, a townhall meeting on CNN and the March 24 March for our Lives protest in Washington, D.C., WolkRogers said she feels compelled to keep the discussion going.
“I feel obligated to continue that momentum and continue that dialogue in a space that they are creating,” Wolk-Rogers said.
“When I look toward my students, it’s not difficult at all (to make the trip to Vancouver).”
In her talk, she recounted how the moment on Feb. 14 still comes to her, hearing the pop-pop of gunfire and the fear on her students’ faces realizing they had to evacuate the school, and it wasn’t a drill.
Later, Wolk-Rogers’ students asked her the hard question, “How do we stop this senseless violence?” she said, and had to acknowledge, “I don’t know.”
She did her homework, though, and to the TED audience brought a presentation that was partly a history lesson about the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the one about having the right to keep and bear arms — and the National Rifle Association.
Wolk-Rogers said that in doing her research she’s learned that attitudes toward the Second Amendment and guns have changed, “which gives me hope they can change again.”
Wolk-Rogers’ invitation to TED came from a desire to tap into a sudden and very large movement, said Briar Goldberg, speaker-coach director for the group.
Goldberg said they were watching powerful and eloquent speakers emerge among students and teachers, wondering who they should approach.
Then they saw Wolk-Rogers stand up in the crowd at the CNN town hall and put a pointed, composed and passionate question to NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.
“We said, ‘Oh, her,’ ” Goldberg said. “It was just so clear,” and in early March extended Wolk-Rogers an invitation.
Goldberg also has a personal connection to the gun issue, having gone through the 1999 school shooting in Columbine, Colo., that saw 15 students killed, so she had some appreciation for what WolkRogers was going through.
“The fact she said OK blew my mind,” Goldberg said.
“There’s no way I would have been able to do what she just did so soon after.”
However, Goldberg said that for TED it was an important conversation to try and keep going with its audience.
“You watch (the) media cycles every time this happens in the U.S., there really is a lifespan to the conversation, then it stops and we all hold our breath until the next time,” Goldberg said.
The movement that has built out of the Parkland tragedy, though, gives Goldberg hope that this time it is different.
“This is the first time in 19 years (since the Columbine shooting) I’ve actually been hopeful that something might change,” Goldberg said.
For Wolk-Rogers, who’s a fan of the TED Ed videos, she’s hopeful that the talks’ platform will keep giving voice to the movement that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students have started.
“Hopefully (the TED community) will continue to support my students in Never Again, become engaged and have faith in the democratic process again,” WolkRogers said.
And as impressive as the student leaders, such as Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, who have emerged from the event might seem to outsiders, Wolk-Rogers said she’s known them long enough to know their potential.
“I’m proud of them,” WolkRogers said. “I’m proud of the way they ’ve used their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, and the way they ’ve used the media, which they’re very savvy in, to let older generations know they are a powerful voice.”