TED.com: High School Training Ground

The TED speaker I chose to focus on is spoken word artist, Malcolm London. I found his piece, “High School Training Ground” and it resonated with me. While this topic is far from my usual topic of fashion and celebrity events. I still thought it was important for me to feature such an amazing talent on my blog.

Malcom London is young poet and activist from Chicago. He gained his claim to fame when he won the Louder Than A Bomb award in his hometown. Outside of competing as a spoken word artist Malcolm is a member of UCAN’s Forum on Youth Violence Prevention and a educator with Young Chicago Authors. So, it makes sense that a lot of poems are on education and how it has changed, and what we have to do continue to build our young people up.

The poem, “High School Training Ground” that I found on TED was recorded at a TED talk on education. The poem is all about how Michael feels that hig-school is a social training ground. The high school is separated by social class, pretending to be levels of academia(i.e, Honors Vs. Regulars). London also went on to point out that the high school is the breeding ground for adolescent insecurities, whether they stem from school or at home.  The 3-minute performance spoke volumes to how Malcolm feels about the inner city education system. His point of view didn’t seem negative, he mentioned that the teacher’s are over-worked and underpaid but he followed with an outcry for change.

Malcolm London on the state of the education system, “I hear education systems are failing, but I believe they're succeeding at what they're built to do — to train you, to keep you on track, to track down an American dream that has failed so many of us all.” (TED.com)