Every once in a while I check out the visual list of top watched videos on YouTube …
I work in a high school, I am a mom of a houseful of teens, and so I desire to be as current and aware of the culture that these teens live in as is humanly possible on my end.
Last weekend I was was drawn to a particular video on the list … not because of the number of views (although over six million is a significant number of views), but because I recognized the face … the face of the man whose shared gift impressed me most at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 
Vancouver Winter Olympics.
“We Are More” is a spoken word poem that Shane Koyczan shared at that opening ceremony. With words and passion he defined all that is the nation of Canada, leaving our nation so stirred by national pride one could have mistaken us for our neighbors to the South. My favorite line from his poem was “so don’t let your luggage define your travels.”
And in the video I watched last weekend, he unpacked more baggage that we humans sometimes allow to defined define us … bullying.
In the first video is Shane speaking at the filming of his TED video of his entire poem. Although it is over twelve minutes, I recommend you watch that one!
This, second video is shorter (about seven and a half minutes), more visual, and I have included it because it is the one with over six million views (it is also the ‘cleaner’ video, the first has one line that ‘may’ be offensive to some) … I still recommend the first one … but, if you are short on time, go with number two … BUT spoken word is best heard when you can see the passion in the speaker speaking … just sayin’
itsawonderfilledlife 