"Why Your Worst Deeds Don't Define You" Ted Talk - Call List

(Print) Use this randomly generated list as your call list when playing the game. There is no need to say the BINGO column name. Place some kind of mark (like an X, a checkmark, a dot, tally mark, etc) on each cell as you announce it, to keep track. You can also cut out each item, place them in a bag and pull words from the bag.

1. He rationalized his decision to shoot
2. His son told him, “Don’t kill. Jesus watches what you do.”
3. At age 19, he shot and killed a man
4. The letter made him reflect on his life
5. He asked people to imagine a world where mistakes don’t define you forever
6. His father stood by him for 19 years
7. The warden called him “the model prisoner”
8. His son wrote, “My mama told me why you was in prison: murder.”
9. He later became deeply religious in prison
10. He said 90% of incarcerated people will return to the community
11. Some of his mentors were serving life sentences
12. He had mentors in prison
13. His friend rushed him to the hospital
14. He was released from prison in 2005
15. His mentors were famous athletes who visited the prison
16. He thought “LOL” meant “lots of love”
17. Doctors patched him up and sent him back to his neighborhood
18. He said most incarcerated people are redeemable
19. His parents separated and divorced
20. Calvin Evans enrolled in college at age 45
21. He compared release to Fred Flintstone walking into The Jetsons
22. He got a fellowship at MIT Media Lab
23. He was shot once at age 15
24. He wanted to help others turn their lives around
25. He taught at the University of Michigan
26. He was a young drug dealer with a quick temper
27. He ran black market stores in prison
28. He realized many incarcerated men came from abusive backgrounds
29. He blamed his parents and the system
30. Fourteen months later, he fired the shots that killed a man
31. He later became a professional chef
32. No one counseled him or told him he would be okay
33. He spent one month in solitary confinement
34. His son wrote, “Dad, one day you’ll be president.”
35. He was released from prison in 2010
36. He stressed acknowledgment, apology, and atonement
37. He wants society to move away from “lock them up and throw away the key”
38. He worked for a company called BMe
39. He read Harry Potter and said it changed his life
40. He started keeping a journal
41. He entered prison bitter and angry
42. He accidentally texted “FU” as a joke
43. He was shot three times at age 17
44. The warden called him “the worst of the worst”
45. He grew up in Chicago
46. He thought “K” in texting meant something bad
47. He remembered a quote from Socrates in Plato’s Apology
48. He got a letter from his son with squiggly handwriting
49. His friend Calvin Evans served 24 years for a crime he didn’t commit
50. He dreamed of being a professional basketball player
51. He was amazed by new phone technology
52. That letter made him feel open to forgiving himself
53. He read Malcolm X’s autobiography
54. He met an amazing woman who taught him to love himself
55. He received a letter of forgiveness from a victim’s relative
56. He spent seven and a half years in solitary confinement
57. He became paranoid after being shot
58. He discovered black poets, authors, and philosophers