Let's Start a Label-Free School | Martha Fishburne | TEDxYouth@Ross
it's the first day of school I wake up at 6:45 get dressed eat breakfast brush my teeth and head out with all my school supplies a backpack a Chromebook a pencil some paper some binders and a label I can see that some of you have been out of middle school for quite a while but whether it's been one year or 50 you all probably still have some memory of being labeled well today I'm going to revive those memories to remind you all how it feels and why we need to end it some of the people in the front are looking at me like I'm crazy so I should probably explain what I mean by labeling there are many different kinds of labeling there's a kind you put on groceries so that you know what you're buying there's a kind you put on presents so you know who the gift is to and from but there's another kind a kind that happens in schools and in life this kind of labeling pushes people into a tiny box based on one small detail of who they are or who others think they are labels are flat and one-dimensional while people are more like those crazy 20-sided dice with many different SS to offer the world when we were in third grade we were all friends we could hang out with whoever we wanted we could be whoever we wanted but somewhere in the summer between third and fourth grade everything changed girls who I'd hung out with a week before school started now acted like I had never existed the girls I had made fairy houses with and had told ghost stories to were gone replaced by groups that wouldn't accept me I had suddenly been labeled goody goodie thanks to my rule following attitude I'd pretend to be okay with this but then I would go home and cry mourning my last friend don't get me wrong I did have a group and I did have a lot of friends that I liked but I still really missed my old ones I didn't enjoy the whole of fourth grade because I was so busy crying over this life I had lost and the goody goodie label stuck I started to wonder if other kids maybe felt the same way I did so I hatched the plan to find out I did some research and created a survey and had middle school students answer questions about whether they've been labeled and what their label was here are some of the ones I've heard from people nerd drama queen goody goodie dumb blonde weak Ginger dumb jock crybaby science stor weird loser freak when you came in you're given an envelope with a name tag on it that has one of these labels on it I want you to put that name tag on right now [Applause] [Applause] these labels are how middle school students and many other people old and young Define themselves and each other how does that feel being a random label that limits your beautifully complex multifaceted self to one word do you feel misunderstood do you feel limited do you feel angry do you feel embarrassed do you feel sad now you know how we feel every day at school luckily for you all when my talk ends and you guys have your break these labeles will come off hopefully not onto the floor but they will find their ways to trash cans and fold it up into pockets and stuck to the bottoms of people's shoes they will be left behind we middle school students aren't so lucky when school ends you get to go home be with our family relax take our labels off and enjoy being with ourselves being ourselves but then we have to go back again the next day when we're living down to our labels we're not living up to our fullest potential we're afraid to follow our passions because our label tells us we can't do those activities we're afraid to make the choices we want to make because our label tells us that's not what we should do we're afraid to make friends with people of different labels because that's not allowed any breaking out of this box we've been assigned is not allowed and so we never get to see what we're truly capable of so when did this happen when did our society start to rely so much on labels as with most problems we have to go back in time to find the answer we have to go back a few thousand years to when we were all part of tribes and people didn't really know who was part of their tribe and who was an enemy or something like that to do that we invented labeling to quickly and easily tell groups of people apart and the rest is history literally but we're not cave people anymore we have math and science and cell phones and most importantly we don't need labels that dictate who our friends are we know that people have many different sides to them and that people who are different in some ways can still be friends and have other things in common we know labels don't paint and complete picture so if we know it's not necessary or accurate why do we do it the answer is pretty simple because it's easy takes much less time and effort to use one adjective to describe someone than many but taking this lazy way out just becomes a habit and if you base your friends and interests on labels you won't have very many friends or interests because of my own experience of being labeled I now do my best to a not label and B not judge someone based on what label they already have if you think of everyone as either as either part of your tribe or not you won't have very many friends but if you think of everyone as a potential friend chances are they will be unless we stop living by labels the way our cavemen ancestors did we will be no better than those cavemen we will never evolve to match the progress of our technology and the ideals of our society we will all just keep being cavemen frightened threatened and miserable none of us will be able to live up to our fullest human potential and make the friendships inventions and discoveries that we are capable of whenever I have to solve a problem I always think of my big due and my little due the big do is solving the problem altogether the little do is that first step in this case the Big D starts with all of you it takes 21 days to break a habit if everybody at the RW School agreed for 21 days to stop using labels we would break our lazy habit and be label free imagine that a school where there are no labels people will be able to get to know each other for who they really are and make all kinds of different friends we could be ourselves without living having to live down to our labels we could Thrive schools have taken on bullying unhealthy lunches kids don't like to read and many other seemingly unsolvable problems we could be the first school to solve the problem of labeling let's start a revolution and show this school and the world that we can change okay remember how I said I had big you and a little do well here's a little do I'm going to give you all some homework I know I know I'm sorry but I promise it will be fun the little do is in the upcoming break try to find time between the free coffee and Candy to ask someone that you don't know what label they're given by us or in real life if you dare and how they are not that label once you see how inadequate labels are you want to leave into the cavemen Kid President once said life is a game and we're all on the same team don't you think it's time we started acting like it thank you [Music]