Katrin Rääk

Educator/Teacher, Parent

I am from Tallinn, Estonia. I work as a teacher of English and have been one for over 15 years. I am always on the lookout of interesting ideas about my work, people and the world in general.

I am passionate about music - listening to it, playing it, singing to it, going to concerts etc. Also, I am quite an avid reader - I read all kinds of literature (recently less and less fiction though). Finally, I guess I am passionate about my work or profession. Being a teacher has helped me learn more about people in general, and has provided me different opportunities to study.

Any idea that a person is passionate about is worth spreading I guess. I am fascinated about how future schools and education so I would spread different ideas on how to provide education in the future.

I became fascinated about TED talks some years ago. The fact that I could listen to various performers talk about ideas worth spreading engaged me and I not only watched different talks that interest me, but I also started to use them in my teaching. I also had the luck to work in a school which hosted a TEDxYouth event for several years. I could see the excitement of the students involved in the process and I thoroughly enjoyed going to the events. After a short gap of a few years, I have now joined the same team that was behind the organisation of the TEDxYouth event and we have been preparing for restarting this tradition in our school again. Also, I am part of another event organisation in Tallinn that focuses on education. All in all, I must say that TED has inspired me to know more about different fields starting from poetry to neuroscience, to share good ideas with people around me, and finally, to hopefully gain a better understanding of how to organise an independent event.

I do not consider myself an expert in any field, but there might be some things that I feel confident about. For example, people might not know that I can play the piano or that I am rather good at handling stressful situations, such as approaching deadlines. I seem to thrive on them. Also, I am quite proud of my pasta making skills.