Blue Sky

KM DiColandrea Describes His Passion for Education and How Speech and Debate Can Transform Young People’s Lives

<p>KM DiColandrea says he works with young people because he can’t imagine doing anything else.  In high school, he developed a love for speech and debate which has led to a passion for teaching and coaching young people to develop these skills.  We first met KM DiColandrea, aka “DiCo,” in our Blue Sky episode with Jonathan Conyers.  There, we heard of him helping turn around Jonathan’s life at Frederick Douglass High School.  With Jonathan’s help, DiCo went on to co-found the Brooklyn Debate League in 2019 and is currently developing speech and debate opportunities for kids throughout greater New York and across the country.  In this episode he describes why he thinks speech and debate programs are so good for developing young people and how he hopes that someday they will be included in schools’ core curriculum.</p>

Hosted by Bill Burke, founder of The Optimism Institute, this weekly podcast will feature inspiring leaders, authors, researchers, and big thinkers who are taking on some of our world’s toughest challenges with an infectious sense of optimism. Blue Sky takes its name from the meditation reminder that there’s always blue sky above, sometimes you just have to get your head above the clouds to see it.