Mountain Brook Student Picked For TED-Ed Talk In NYC

MOUNTAIN BROOK, AL - Being an adolescent is hard enough - balancing school, social life, your changing body, peer pressure, parents - but add to that taking on the problems of a friend, and you have what may seem to be an insurmountable hurdle to jump.

That is where Mountain Brook's Elaine Russell found herself, and that is the subject of a TEDx talk she gave that has now placed her among very elite company, being one of only 13 TED-Ed speakers selected (out of more than 60,000 applicants from all over the world) to speak in New York November 17.

Russell was in 7th grade when she took on the weight of a friend’s heavy burden. With no one to turn to, what do you do when a friend needs help but won’t let you get the help she needs? Russell gives her insight as to what might make a difference when helping someone else, or yourself, in this speech.

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Russell outlines, in a touching and poignant presentation detailing her own struggles to help a friend, how real the issue of teen mental illness is, and where we as a society lack the information and even the tools to help the matter.

"In this generation - my generation - over 20 percent of kids suffer from a serious mental illness," Russell said. "One in five kids I know suffer every day."

Russell's presentation can be seen live at this link

Russell is the third Mountain Brook student to be chosen for TED-Ed Weekend, following Brett Lewis and Sean Fredella.

TED-Ed Weekend 2018 celebrates students around the world who show up and speak up. Whether encouraging one another to seek help when needed, describing the journey of a refugee from the first person, or questioning their own education system, these students are ready to share their Talks from the TED stage and prove that one-well articulated idea can change the world.

TED-Ed supports students in discovering, exploring and presenting their big ideas in the form of short, TED-style talks. In TED-Ed Clubs, students work together to discuss and celebrate creative ideas. Students go through TED-Ed's flexible curriculum to develop their presentation literacy skills to help inspire tomorrow's TED speakers and future leaders.

Photo submitted by Anne Russell