Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Good afternoon. Hope you guys are doing well. So I'm going to be totally honest with you guys. I'm, like, nervous. And, like, I don't even know. I didn't think I would be here today. But here I am. Thank you. And I'm not just saying this just to say this. I'm saying this because I wasn't always the person to come forth and say I'm nervous or, you know, I'm sad. I'm feeling kind of angry right now. I wasn't the person to always come up and be in front with my emotions to myself and to others. Growing up, my family, it wasn't really the natural thing to really say, hey, can we talk? Can we have a conversation? You know, I'm kind of feeling down. I need to sit down with you if we could talk, you know? I grew up without my father. And this put a dent in my life. I was hurt for a long time. And just recently, I started seeking help. Growing up without my father made it even worse that I felt uncomfortable talking to my own family about my emotions. I did have this fifth grade teacher that I'm super thankful for because she is the one person when I was young to say, you can talk to me about anything whenever I'm here for you. I will always remember her. And I'm so thankful. And I truly do wish that everybody else had somebody like her in their lives. In seventh grade, I transferred to Boston Latin Academy. And in eighth grade, my civics class started a research project on the lack of mental health support for students in middles and high schools. Now, this started off as a mandatory research project that everybody was doing. And it was just like, whatever. I don't care. We're doing this for a grade. And I'm going home at the end of the day. For me, it was so much deeper because out of some sort of part in my brain, I knew that this was what I liked, that this was important to me, and I loved it. I stayed after school for hours working on a board, a project, and this project is becoming my life. So it's no longer a project to me. And by the end of this talk, I hope you guys don't see this as a project or just a TED talk that you came to hear about. I want you guys to take this and say, how can I change this for my child, for my child's school, for my school, for my friend? During this research project, I've had the opportunity to go to a program called Generation Citizens. And going to this company, I realized a lot. And some main things that I realized is the problems with these systems is the lack of funding, the lack of knowledge about this issue, this issue not being seen as a priority, and students themselves not feeling comfortable. So I came up with a few solutions that I thought would be very helpful for myself, for others inside of my school. And then I most recently started to say, no, this is more than just Boston Line Academy. This is Boston Public Schools. This is schools all over America, schools all over the world. So I realized having simple things like students and guidance counselors using a check-in checklist, just simple questions, how was your day? If not so well, why would you like to have a sit-down one-to-one conversation? Simple things like that help. Sometimes we want, as children, to talk to somebody, but nobody asks. And we are too afraid, too afraid, ourselves, to really advocate that for ourselves. Another solution that I came up with is the Zona Regulation Method. I personally would have loved to have a Zona Regulation Method put in place in any school that I've been to because I would have realized how many blue days that I had or how many red days that I had, and somebody would have known also. It wouldn't have just been me. It would have been maybe a guidance counselor or teacher that said to somebody else, you know, Jordan is having a blue day, and I realize she's been having these a lot. These are really helpful methods, and I really wish they were put in place when I was younger, and I think that they could be super helpful for anybody else younger or the same age as me. During this research project, near the beginning, when this was still a project, I talked to state legislators, I talked to companies like the National Alliance on Mental Illness, but I also talked to Boston Public School psychologists, and one psychologist that I talked to, Mary Cohen, she said a quote that I can't seem to forget. Emotion is a strength. Don't be afraid to use it. Now, this quote stuck with me for two reasons. One, myself, I know how hard it is to not be afraid, but two, it's what pushed me to advocate for myself inside and outside of my school and others my age. Over time, I've realized that society in general just isn't comfortable with emotions. I've realized that mental illnesses revolving around depression and bipolar disorders aren't a part of IEPs. Why? I don't know. I've asked people who are involved with the system, I asked them why. They don't know. I've asked this question for months. Almost four now. I still don't have an answer. Schools being the smaller portion of society mean that people who are comfortable talking about their emotions are going to eventually be joined by people who aren't comfortable, meaning eventually, maybe, those people who were comfortable at first are going to feel the need to back off and say, you know what, maybe this just isn't normal, this isn't the right thing to do. I'm not really going to talk about my emotions anymore. I'm not going to say how I feel. I'm going to stay closed up. Now that's an issue. Because then they're going to lead to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorders, and it's just a non-ending cycle. The traditional way of thinking how to act in a school is you go to school, you learn your three main subjects, maybe it's math, science, and English, and in this day, there is no room to talk about how you truly feel. Why? Why can't I just have one 20-minute class period to talk to maybe a friend or really let out my true emotions and say, listen, today has been really hard for me, or, you know, this whole week, I've been struggling in my class. Just one small moment, that would help so many people. Now these schools are truly preparing us as students for our life in jail, and I really do hate to say that, because we should be preparing for our life of freedom. America is supposed to be free. Think about it. The long, dark, narrow hallways compared to the ID numbers that we all get. My science teacher tells us that we are not to put our names on any of the hard work that we do. We are to put our ID number and initial, and if we are to put our name, we will get no grade for the work that we've done. Why? Why can I put my name on my work that I spent maybe hours doing, and then get no grade for it? I understand that maybe these teachers are thinking, hey, this is an easier way to grade equally, but how does that make us as students feel, as teenagers, that we can't put our work, our name on our work? That doesn't make sense to me. Does it make sense to you? It doesn't. I would have loved this whole school year so far to put my name on all my biology projects, but I haven't. Imagine a world where people could talk about emotions, talk about mental health, where people would protest for more than just LGBTQ problems, because it's deeper than all of that. It goes back to mental health issues. Imagine a world where people could talk about these issues freely. Emotion would be the strength people are now afraid to use. Thank you.