consider two questions I wanted to
listen and really think about them for
the few minutes I’m here speaking in
front of you and by the end of this talk
hopefully you will have figured out the
answer to them and maybe even changed
your initial answers number one where
are you from and why does it matter
pause and really think about it
hopefully for those of you who aren’t
sure I’ll be able to enlighten you
number two I want you to think about
someone you know who’s from somewhere
else than you maybe that’s another state
maybe just across town maybe across an
ocean now that you have that person in
your mind does knowing where that person
comes from change the way you see that
person
it shouldn’t or maybe it should because
if he or she grew up somewhere different
than you chances are he or she is
different from you but at the same time
you two know each other your lives are
intertwined you may have a lot more in
common than you may think
I’m here to talk today about what it
means to be a global citizen global
citizenship is the zeitgeist of today
more so than previous generations before
us perceive ourselves as global not
confined to one specific nation and not
defined by one specific place so what is
a global citizen I’ve learned a global
citizen is defined as many things it’s
someone who has an understanding of how
the world works so he respects and
values diversity someone who is willing
to act to make the world a more
equitable and sustainable place for me
being a global citizen means being a
worldly person someone who is
open-minded open to new ideas or other
ways of thinking some new concerns
himself with the events of the world
because of this feeling of being
interconnected having been in a place
only recently watching the people there
live their daily lives perfectly
normally one day then having a
catastrophic event of terror or a
natural disaster happened the next hurts
on a personal level for me this sense of
hurt came when I was in Nice just last
summer my half-sister lives not more
than 20 minutes from the city of nice in
the small village of Manto rue when my
family and I were staying
we dined at a restaurant and the same
port of nice just two nights before the
attack on the CEO dead when I heard the
news the morning after that there had
been an attack resulting in the deaths
of 86 innocent people of course I felt
upset I was even angry the nice terror
attack made me reflect on the world in
which we live today and my place in it
it made me realize the things that
happen in the world aren’t just abstract
things they’re real and they affect each
and every one of us the night of the
attack I sat at the dinner table with my
whole family begging and pleading my
parents to go to nice to watch the
fireworks and celebrate that steal dead
thankfully and lucky for me my parents
were too tired to go after being there
and seeing life moved the way it should
and then suddenly seeing those same
people crying and screaming and pain
it’s gut-wrenching and you feel
something perhaps it’s empathy but not
for yourself being lucky rather it’s the
feeling of understanding that some
family suffered a meaningless loss of
life that day and it could have just as
easily been my family being in the wrong
place at the wrong time that devastating
attack really struck a chord with me it
made me mull over how much is so very
wrong with the world in which we live
today yes this world is fraud but the
solution to these problems is to embrace
global citizenship to understand that
what happens in Nice can happen and does
happen elsewhere in the world on a much
lighter note my partners in researching
for this TEDx talk are Christian and
Daniel both of whom are proponents of
global citizenship there’s a three of us
three typical teenagers perhaps more
than typical truly stereotypical blonde
blue-eyed white privilege prep school
students but there’s more here than
meets the eye
we aren’t simply Americans we can pass
as the poster children of global
citizenship Christian Soderbergh grew up
in Brazil speaking Portuguese as his
first language he was brought up in a
tight-knit family with strong family
values behind him allowing him to see
himself but had through and through
native of Brazil but his christian began
traveling to new places and learning of
his father Swedish culture new
influences began to change his views of
himself and how he sees the world every
day
for Christian level citizenship means
absorbing different cultures wherever
you go going to new places and retaining
just a small piece of that culture is
how Christian finds himself identifying
as a citizen of the globe rather than
just a Brazilian on the complete other
side of the world is Daniel a citizen of
Russia who sees Russian culture as the
frame to his now American lenses
although he is forever open and
optimistic like Americans tend to be he
still adheres to the strict discipline
and learn loyalty that Russian parents
foster and their children so here we are
three amigos
born in different parts of the world we
share the same core beliefs that while
the United States may be our current
home we still feel a part of just one
other culture but of all the cultures
we’ve come across through our travels
and here we find ourselves in Fort
Lauderdale so our paths have crossed at
this very school with students from such
diverse backgrounds where all we need to
do in order to reach beyond our spheres
of knowledge and understanding is to
have a conversation a real conversation
about life experiences which is the
first step towards embracing global
citizenship now you may be wondering why
does an 18 year old high school student
concern himself with global citizenship
I’m aware of how fortunate I’ve been in
my life and I say that with a sense of
responsibility as the saying goes to
whom much is given much is expected
I’ve been fortunate enough to have
traveled to 17 different countries and
be fully exposed to the richness and
diversity of each of these societies for
me traveling when I’m not at school is
the life I’m accustomed to and I know
that may not be the norm for others for
some traveling beyond our borders isn’t
an option for others traveling beyond
isn’t given much thought now more than
ever the need for reaching Beyond
Borders has become urgent the need to
reach out to understand other points of
view has become an existential matter
from as young as I can remember I’ve
always considered myself English I
wasn’t born there but I’ve such close
ties with the small town of pag in which
I grew up in that besides my eyes
slightly odd British accent at the time
but is if I’d lived there my whole life
in fact pagan was so small it doesn’t
even appear on a zoomed-in map the
southern portion of England it shows the
nearest city ought to Regis regardless
of size the feeling of being a part of
something bigger
rather than
the outsider was the same impact as it
would be when I returned to Boca Raton
the population is almost 15 times larger
that transition from England to Florida
was extremely noticeable on the journey
from one place to the other my accident
would simply change on the journey home
I would be totally and utterly
Americanized by the time you reach the
gate simply because of the people and
the stories I was surrounded by on the
flight there a specific time that I can
recall this happening is around the age
of four my mom and I arrived at Miami
International Airport and when we got to
passport control the customs officer
asked how old are you young man with my
most perfect British act and I said I’m
four and a half the next day we then
left Miami and flew to Atlanta and
someone asked me a similar question at
the gate there once again being the
proud little four year old I was I
replied I’m four and a half but this
time in the southern accent you can
possibly imagine this story may seem
slightly off topic but it’s very
relevant to the point I made earlier it
shows that just from travelling across a
border line and hearing a new accent my
brain shifted into a totally different
dialect in a way of behaving simply
because I knew even at four that these
were too drastically different cultures
that I had already been assimilated to
understand and replicate without even
realizing psychology behind this
phenomenon is called code switching code
switching is when you were able to
suddenly shift from one language to
another in conversation consciously or
subconsciously but this means
essentially is that while talking to you
right now if I was as long as I used to
be I can start talking without even
realizing something a certain word or
thought I provoked me to slip into a
British accent and we have speech which
I’m sure most of you would find rather
entertaining this is just one example of
my personal experiences however as time
passes by many more of these cross
culture phenomena are starting to occur
more frequently and on a much bigger
scale just the other night I was lying
in my bed listening to music and John
Lennon’s Imagine started playing and for
the first time I listened to the song
and really took it to heart this song is
one of the most instantly recognizable
songs of all time and even after
listening to it over a hundred times I
finally fully understood the meaning of
the lyrics and vision John Lennon was
trying to convey the one verse that
stuck in my mind was the following
imagine there’s no countries it isn’t
hard to do nothing to kill or die for
and no religion too imagine all the
people living life in peace
well this verse is from 1971 it speaks
to exactly what I’m trying to get across
in this talk as well as directly to some
of the conflicts we’re still
encountering in today’s world if there
were more people who weren’t concerned
about where someone was from and instead
we’re concerned with what pieces of
their cultures they bring with them
there would be nothing to kill for and
everyone would live in peace after
hearing all of this the solution to my
question posed or posed earlier should
seem pretty simple now were you or your
friend or one of the thousands of people
you’ll encounter in your lifetime
i–from does matter because it makes
each single human on earth different
than the next but these differences are
what we should be admiring and sharing
with each other not what we should be
fighting over thank you
[Applause] Oh