Hi! My name is Katharine Hart, and I am a Senior at Jenks High School. I was inspired to give my TEDx talk from Mrs. Workun’s poetry class. She told us to write about a social issue meaningful to us, and I chose to write about how people often aren’t real when talking to one another. I notice that many of us High Schoolers put on faces and it just makes my heart sad! Emotions are important to express, and bottling them up can cause more pain later down the road.

In my speech on Authenticity, I discuss what it is, give a test to evaluate your own authenticity, provide tools to become more real, and challenge audience members to examine their answer to the question, “How are you?” Outside of school I dance at Tulsa Dance Company, play cello in the Tulsa Youth Symphony, bullet journal in coffee shops around Tulsa, pour into my youth group, and go on long runs at sunrise. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx