Matthew Winkler, educational technology and English teacher at South Kent School is a newly published author on TED-Ed. Visit Winkler’s lesson, “What Makes a Hero?”
Nominated by Arthur Brown, former English Department Head and Faculty Mentor at South Kent School, Winkler created a four-minute video based on his research of The Hero’s Journey, by Joseph Campbell, for a non-fiction book he is writing as part of his completion of the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program as Fairfield University.
“Matt is very much up on the use of technology in the classroom so this presentation was a logical project for him to undertake,” said Brown. “He spends a lot of time referring to the Hero’s Journey in class and has studied it in several forms (differing number of stages, etc.), so he knows what he is talking about. The production of the short TED-Ed video introducing the subject is a South Kent natural for the educational market place,” he added.
TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons “worth sharing” is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform.
TED-Ed’s videos aim to capture and amplify the voices of the world’s greatest educators. To achieve this, TED-Ed pairs extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of exceptional educational videos. This website, similar to TED.com, is ever-evolving and depends on the TED community, to nominate inspiring teachers that have touched lives or clever animators who have the skills to bring a gifted teacher’s lesson to life.
“Each piece is the product of incredible work from an educator and an animator,” said Stephanie Lo of TED-Ed. “Matt was terrific to work with and we are all really excited about this piece; our whole team was really blown away,” she added.
South Kent School has embodied the Hero’s Journey by writer Joseph Campbell in a four-stage, four-year process reflecting adolescent growth and maturing, making each step the theme of a student’s school year. In South Kent terms, the stages of this journey are “A Sense of Place: Community and Belonging,” “The Quest: Coming of Age,” “Responsibility and Commitment,” and “Service and Moving On.” These themes define the Form Program. Launched in the fall of 1999, the Form Program is an innovative and balanced program for boys that guides their quest and provides tools to prepare them not only for college, but also for lives as men of quality.