Theme: Continue the Conversation

TEDxSeisenInternationalSchool is a student-organized event aiming to offer the chance for Seisen International School community members to spread ideas worth sharing, as well as organizing and attending. Though this is our first year hosting our TEDx conference, we hope to establish TEDxSeisenInternationalSchool as an annual event.

Seisen International School
1 Chome-12-15 Yoga
Setagaya-ku, Tôkyô, 158-0097
Japan

Ashita Gulati

Student

How does one become more selfless? Ashita, a 17-year old student, is from India but has lived in Japan for the majority of her life. She often visited India during summer breaks and through this experience, witnessed the increasing number of people in poverty. She faced difficulty deciding whether to help people or not and at times, chose to go with the latter. However, with a simple shift in mindset, she started to recognize the importance of society’s role in helping those in poverty. In this talk, Ashita will be discussing the mindset she adopted in order to create more impact in society and help those in need.

Erika Egawa

Teacher

Ms. Erika is a Language and Literature teacher at Seisen International School in Tokyo, Japan. Born and raised in California to a white American father and a Japanese immigrant mother, she never felt comfortable in her own freckled, olive skin. She has long walked the fragile line of trying to embrace two cultures, but not feeling truly accepted by either side. Her talk continues the conversation on identity by highlighting how a linguistic approach not only helped her navigate that difficult space, but it also opened her eyes to the world around her. Written as a retrospective letter to her teenage self, it is aimed at those budding adults who are on their own journey of self-discovery and may also feel that they are caught between two or more worlds.

Hana Yamamoto

Student

Hana is a 17 year-old student born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Hana will be speaking about the ambiguity of nuances from her personal anecdote about the standard Japanese term "Osekkai” and how in retrospect can be changed in definition and modified into something positive. Megumi Takahashi, Hana’s grandmother who played a major role in her upbringing was a great source of information and wisdom who preached critical thinking beyond the conventional point of view. She hopes to inspire others from this and share what she has learned from her grandmother.

Katelyn Boyle

Teacher

Ms. Katelyn is a teacher at Seisen International School. Originally from New York, she’s spent the last eight years living in Japan and teaching at IB schools. This past year was her first time studying the Montessori Method and she noticed some similarities between it and the IB program. Her talk will address the core philosophy behind these two pedagogies and how they are connected to achieving the seemingly impossible dream of world peace.

Sairi Iida

Student

Sairi is a 17 year old girl and who has lived in Scarsdale New York, and Tokyo Japan, where she is a high school student today. She is passionate about public speaking and will be discussing a certain mindset that helped her to overcome difficulties and struggles throughout her childhood and her teenage years. This significant change in mindset enabled her to facilitate change in her life and identity to improve herself as a person. Sairi tells her story and explains how this mindset can potentially help others as well. She hopes to inspire others to seek their own “mindset” to help them enhance their quality of life and overcome obstacles.

Seoyoon Chang

Student

Passionate about two seemingly unrelated fields, science and art, Seoyoon Chang is a junior at Seisen International School who has experienced various hardships when observing how often the arts tend to be neglected when regarding the sciences. With her recent enrollment as an IB student, Seoyoon faced the difficult decision of undertaking double science courses, in turn sacrificing the arts. Yet still, her passion for the arts remains; Seoyoon firmly believes that no one should be told that they consider art as a mere hobby. In her talk, Seoyoon will address the need to acknowledge the potential of STEAM education and encourage young women to pursue STEAM-related fields fearlessly through advocacy for STEAMinism.

Victoria Migdalski

Student

From the classic art of Ghibli to the latest releases of Attack on Titan, 17-year-old Victoria considers herself a huge fan of anime. While current-day Victoria has watched a variety of shows and movies from a plethora of genres, she hasn’t always been the otaku she is today. Victoria grew up in Japan with the mentality of Western superiority. Despite being half Japanese, as a young child influenced by white superiority, she had always associated herself with her western side more than her Asian one. Because of this, even unconsciously, she distanced herself from Japanese culture and followed culturally western trends. However, as she began to watch anime, she gradually learned more about Japanese culture, slowly connecting with her Japanese roots. Victoria’s ted talk will address the significance of anime in helping her come to terms with her half-Japanese identity.