ted talk about education

When education is not a given: 10 inspiring talks

“Each day, we took a different route so that no one would suspect where we were going,” says Basij-Rasikh in this powerful talk . “The school was in a house, more than 100 of us packed into one living room … We all knew we were risking our lives — the students, the parents, the teachers.”

When the Taliban fell in 2001, Basij-Rasikh’s father was thrilled that his daughters would be able to return to a traditional school. Still, says Basij-Rasikh, her family’s commitment to education for its daughters was not the norm. In Afghanistan, only 6 percent of women 25 or older received any formal education.

“I was very lucky to grow up in a family where education was prized and daughters were treasured,” says Basij-Rasikh, a recent graduate of Middlebury College in the United States. “During the Taliban years, I remember there were times I would get so frustrated by our life and always being scared. I would want to quit. But my father would say, ‘Listen, my daughter. You can lose everything you own in your life. Your money can be stolen. You can be forced to leave your home in a war. The one thing that will always remain with you is what is up here. If we have to sell our blood to pay your school fees, we will.’”

After college, Basij-Rasikh returned home and co-founded SOLA, the School of Leadership Afghanistan , the first boarding school for girls in Afghanistan. And yet sadly, getting an education is still a risk in the country . To hear a shocking story of one of Basij-Rasikh’s students whose family was targeted by terrorists — simply for sending their daughter to SOLA — watch this talk .

Here, more talks from people who went to great lengths to get, or give, an education.

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22 Education TED Talks to Make You Think

These education-focused TED talks aim to answer the question: “As a country, how can we better inspire our students — and support our educators?”

Sal Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Liz Coleman: A call to reinvent liberal arts education

Bennington president Liz Coleman delivers a call-to-arms for radical reform in higher education. Bucking the trend to push students toward increasingly narrow areas of study, she proposes a truly cross-disciplinary education — one that dynamically combines all areas of study to address the great problems of our day.

Geoffrey Canada: Our failing schools. Enough is enough!

Why, why, why does our education system look so similar to the way it did 50 years ago? Millions of students were failing then, as they are now — and it’s because we’re clinging to a business model that clearly doesn’t work. Education advocate Geoffrey Canada dares the system to look at the data, think about the customers and make systematic shifts in order to help greater numbers of kids excel.

Michelle Obama: A passionate, personal case for education

Speaking to an audience of students, US First Lady Michelle Obama reminds each one to take their education seriously — and never take it for granted. This new, brilliant generation, she tells us, is the one that could close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be.

Nadia Lopez: Why open a school? To close a prison

Our kids are our future, and it’s crucial they believe it themselves. That’s why Nadia Lopez opened an academic oasis in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in New York — because she believes in every child’s brilliance and capabilities. In this short, energizing talk, the founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy (and a star of Humans of New York) shares how she helps her scholars envision a brighter future for themselves and their families.

Linda Cliatt-Wayman: How to fix a broken school? Lead fearlessly, love hard

On Linda Cliatt-Wayman’s first day as principal at a failing high school in North Philadelphia, she was determined to lay down the law. But she soon realized the job was more complex than she thought. With palpable passion, she shares the three principles that helped her turn around three schools labeled “low-performing and persistently dangerous.” Her fearless determination to lead — and to love the students, no matter what — is a model for leaders in all fields.

Sugata Mitra: Kids can teach themselves

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own — and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education — the best teachers and schools don’t exist where they’re needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.

Bill Gates: Mosquitos, malaria and education

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world’s biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them. (And see the Q&A on the TED Blog.)

Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools’ dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.

Charles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the slums

Charles Leadbeater went looking for radical new forms of education — and found them in the slums of Rio and Kibera, where some of the world’s poorest kids are finding transformative new ways to learn. And this informal, disruptive new kind of school, he says, is what all schools need to become.

Andreas Schleicher: Use data to build better schools

How can we measure what makes a school system work? Andreas Schleicher walks us through the PISA test, a global measurement that ranks countries against one another — then uses that same data to help schools improve. Watch to find out where your country stacks up, and learn the single factor that makes some systems outperform others.

Takaharu Tezuka: The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen

At this school in Tokyo, five-year-olds cause traffic jams and windows are for Santa to climb into. Meet: the world’s cutest kindergarten, designed by architect Takaharu Tezuka. In this charming talk, he walks us through a design process that really lets kids be kids.

Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change

Designer Emily Pilloton moved to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina, to engage in a bold experiment of design-led community transformation. She’s teaching a design-build class called Studio H that engages high schoolers’ minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state.

John Hunter: Teaching with the World Peace Game

John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4’x5′ plywood board — and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches — spontaneous, and always surprising — go further than classroom lectures can.

John Hardy: My green school dream

Join John Hardy on a tour of the Green School, his off-the-grid school in Bali that teaches kids how to build, garden, create (and get into college). The centerpiece of campus is the spiraling Heart of School, perhaps the world’s largest freestanding bamboo building.

Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in science

At age 12, Freeman Hrabowski marched with Martin Luther King. Now he’s president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where he works to create an environment that helps under-represented students — specifically African-American, Latino and low-income learners — get degrees in math and science. He shares the four pillars of UMBC’s approach.

Timothy Bartik: The economic case for preschool

In this well-argued talk, Timothy Bartik makes the macro-economic case for preschool education — and explains why you should be happy to invest in it, even if you don’t have kids that age (or kids at all). The economic benefits of well-educated kids, it turns out, go well beyond the altruistic.

Shimon Schocken: The self-organizing computer course

Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan developed a curriculum for their students to build a computer, piece by piece. When they put the course online — giving away the tools, simulators, chip specifications and other building blocks — they were surprised that thousands jumped at the opportunity to learn, working independently as well as organizing their own classes in the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). A call to forget about grades and tap into the self-motivation to learn.

Kang Lee: Can you really tell if a kid is lying?

Are children poor liars? Do you think you can easily detect their lies? Developmental researcher Kang Lee studies what happens physiologically to children when they lie. They do it a lot, starting as young as two years old, and they’re actually really good at it. Lee explains why we should celebrate when kids start to lie and presents new lie-detection technology that could someday reveal our hidden emotions.

Richard Baraniuk: The birth of the open-source learning revolution

In 2006, open-learning visionary Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind Connexions (now called OpenStax), an open-source, online education system. It cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share and modify course materials freely, anywhere in the world.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas: How computers are learning to be creative

We’re on the edge of a new frontier in art and creativity — and it’s not human. Blaise Agüera y Arcas, principal scientist at Google, works with deep neural networks for machine perception and distributed learning. In this captivating demo, he shows how neural nets trained to recognize images can be run in reverse, to generate them.

Check out more educational TED Talks .

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10 TED Talks on Education

Are you ready to discover your college program?

So we all know that education in America has its fair share of problems (understatement alert). Some of these problems are sociocultural, others are economic. Some problems are practical and others still are philosophical.

In the face of these numerous and mounting challenges, elected officials and lawmakers have been short on meaningful solutions. It makes you wonder if perhaps the biggest problem with our educational system is that solutions don’t always come from the smartest of folks. Feel fee to jump to the defense of your district congressman or state senator at any time…Bueller? Bueller?

Ok. Moving on.

If you’re looking for solutions to education’s myriad problems from the smartest folks, most of them have delivered a TED Talk at some point. Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, is a set of global conferences operating under the tagline “Ideas Worth Spreading.”

In that spirit, here are a few education ideas from among TED’s nearly endless panel of featured speakers that we feel are worth spreading. Enjoy our first installment of 10 Awesome TED Talks on Education.

10 Awesome TED Talks on Education

1. do schools kill creativity by sir ken robinson.

Sir Ken Robinson gave this speech in February of 2006 and it has since been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube and a remarkable 39 million times on the TED Talks website. That is more than enough time to arrive at the conclusion that the answer is probably “yes” to the titular question “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”

Robinson makes the argument that we need to rethink the fundamental premise by which we educate our children. Robinson is dry and hilarious in this insightful takedown of formal education as it exists to day. He argues that all children are born inherently creative and that school systematically squanders that creativity, and “pretty ruthlessly” at that. Robinson makes the powerful assessment that creativity should be viewed as equal in importance to literacy. Robinson also resolves that if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. Nonetheless, schools train students to be frightened of being wrong, and of making mistakes. Robinson laments that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people are educated to believe their talents are not valued, and perhaps even that these talents are obstacles to success.

Robinson insists that we can’t afford to continue on this way, that we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence as something diverse, dynamic, and distinct.

2. How To Fix a Broken School? Lead Fearlessly, Love Hard by Linda Ciatt-Wayman

With 1.3 million views on the TED Talks website, and 87,000 views on YouTube, Cliatt-Wayman’s May 2015 Talk casts a blinding light on the reality facing students and educators alike in “low-performing” inner-city schools. As a graduate and principal of North Philadelphia schools, Cliatt-Wayman gives a stirring and personal speech, one that moved many in the audience to tears. Cliatt-Wayman charged that what we call low-performing schools are often not schools at all, that the chains on the doors, the darkened hallways and the half-empty classrooms do not imply places of learning.

Cliatt-Wayman shares her strategies as a principal for transforming dark, dangerous, and frightening North Philadelphia schools from havens for drugs, weapons and violence to havens for disincline, enrichment, and love. Her experiential wisdom makes for a poignant Talk, anchored by a few of the slogans that have produced meaningful change at her Strawberry Mansion High School (where it bears noting she was the fourth principle in four years).

Cliatt-Wayman advises that “If you’re going to lead, LEAD,” an attitude that contributed to changes large and small at her troubled school, from replacing lightbulbs and decorating bulletin boards to recasting the way the school day is scheduled and transforming the budget. She also told educators that eliminating excuses at every turn is the primary responsibility for leaders at struggling schools. Finally and fundamentally, she said that it is the job of educators to offer their students hope, undivided attention, unwavering belief in their potential, consistent expectations, and unconditional love.

3. Teaching the World Peace Game by John Hunter

Filmed in March of 2011, and viewed just under 1.3 million times on TED Talks, 228,000 times on YouTube, “Teaching the World Peace Game” provides an energizing demonstration of how we can use classroom time to cultivate students who will one day be leaders, innovators and decision-makers.

Public School teacher John Hunter is warm, funny and personable as he explains his extraordinary approach to stimulating interactive learning among gifted students. Hunter demos the multi-tiered, map-based gameboard—basically Risk on anabolic steroids—that he has used to engage students since the late 1970s. The goal of the game is to do nothing less than solve the world’s problems. Students are handed a planet and a list of encompassing crises—not unlike the world that they will eventually inherit from prior generations.

The class collaborates, debates and compromises on developing solutions for issues as far-reaching as ethnic tension, nuclear proliferation, environmental disasters, water rights disputes and basically the entire grab-bag of seemingly insoluble problems that they will one day be asked to solve. Indeed, John told the audience that he’d happily send his fourth graders to consult Al Gore because they succeeded in solving the problem of global warming in a single week.

Hunter demonstrates both how educators can excite the imagination of their students and how they can nurture the young minds that will eventually be required to shape our world for the better. What most fascinates about Hunter’s experience is the fact that his students ultimately manifested strategies in ways that no educator could possibly predict, suggesting that the best educational results come when students are allowed to arrive at their own answers and solutions.

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4. Our Failing Schools. Enough is Enough by Geoffrey Canada

In May of 2013, Geoffrey Canada delivered an impassioned talk that has been viewed 188,000+ times on YouTube and more than 1.5 million times on the TED Talks website. Canada levies an accusation that’s pretty hard to dispute, claiming that in spite of our long track record of educational failure, we’ve basically done nothing to improve our outcomes. From both a scientific perspective and a business perspective, Canada says that our approach to education simply doesn’t make sense.

We’re losing kids, we know we’re losing kids, and yet we simply don’t allow real educational innovation to occur. He asks the audience to imagine a world in which we took the same stagnating approach to technology as we did to education. Whereas we respond to failure in this sector by probing for yet greater achievement, the education business has failed to use science to improve its approach to children.

To much approval from the audience, Canada attests that what sets him apart from many education policy-makers is that he “actually likes kids.” In this spirit, he remarks just how strange it is that we spend billions of dollars on standardized testing, that we gather enormous troves of incredible data, and that we fail to use them to actually help students in either a timely or effective manner.

Canada urges that its time to try something different. He insists that we must keep innovating in education until we nail the science down. We cannot wait another 50 years to get this right. He warns that here is an educational cliff and that we are walking over it right this very second.

5. The Nerd’s Guide To Learning Everything Online by John Green

John Green’s Talk, from November of 2012, has been viewed roughly 2.8 million times on the Ted Talks website and does not appear to have been published on YouTube.

Green takes a little bit of time to get to the point. Fortunately, he does so in a decidedly engrossing fashion. Green analogizes the lifelong quest for knowledge to cartography. Learning, he explains, makes the map of your life bigger. When you begin learning, you may not know every location on the map but you do have an instrument that tells you where you’d like to go. As Green phrases it, you’ve seen the coastline but now you want to explore the land.

When we’re young—and to the extent that we manage to develop a love for learning in school—we get to be part of a physical community of learning. Green advises that as we age out of school, we often lose that level of engagement. He shows how online forums like YouTube are restoring our opportunity to be part of a fluid, active and dynamic learning community.

Green demonstrates the variety and intuition with which YouTube can teach and invite learning, all in real-time. Green notes that videos which aim to teach are not necessarily being viewed in classrooms but independently by individuals electing to be part of a learning community. The centerpiece of his Talk is the resolution that these virtual spaces have become, for a new generation of learners, the kind of communities we used to have as students, communities that allow us to continue following our own learning maps into adulthood.

6. The Key To Success? Grit by Angela Lee Duckworth

Filmed in April of 2013, viewed by roughly 1.6 million on YouTube, and by 8.5 million viewers on the TED Talks website, Angela Lee Duckworth’s Talk brings some level of scientific rigor to a character trait that has rarely been measured thusly.

Often millennials are disparaged for being soft and entitled. If this criticism has any basis in reality, Duckworth’s concise Talk is something today’s students and parents need to watch. Duckworth argues that we need to achieve a better understanding of students and learning from a motivational and psychological perspective. She contends that schools are only really effective at measuring I.Q. and asks if success in school and life require more than just being able to learn quickly.

More than social charisma, attractiveness, and intelligence, Duckworth’s experience and research led her to conclude that grit—day-in day-out hard work and determination—is the trait that most determines success. Measuring traits of grittiness among her own students, Duckworth learned that grittier kids—marathon runners rather sprinters—generally succeeded best, independent of talent and intelligence. In spite of just how determinant an impact grit has, Duckworth concedes that science knows precious little on the subject.

Accordingly, Duckworth promotes “growth mindset,” the belief that the ability to learn can change with one’s effort. In Duckworth’s findings, the fascinating trait that most differentiates gritty people from their softer counterparts is that they don’t view failure as a permanent condition. Duckworth admits that her remarks are brief because we simply don’t know much about grit. Her speech ultimately suggests itself as a starting point for improving our understanding of what might be a key determinant of success. Among TED Talks, Duckworth’s is brief but instructive.

7. Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education by Salman Khan

Salman Khan’s Talk from March of 2011 doesn’t necessarily break any new ground. Instead it reaffirms that, at least in one regard, we are moving in the right direction. Even if schools aren’t taking the active steps to revolutionize education, at least technologists and web users are. Viewed roughly 900,000 times on YouTube and 4 million times on the TED Talks website, Khan’s Talk deals largely with the positive impact that web-based video-education can have on learners. Indeed, Khan scored his best laugh when he informed his audience that as a former analyst for a hedge fund, he wasn’t accustomed to doing something of social value.

But that’s exactly what happened when he started tutoring his cousin remotely. As part of the process, Khan began producing explanatory YouTube videos to accompany individual lessons and quickly found that his cousin preferred the videos to live instruction. Getting past the “backhanded” nature of that compliment, Khan discusses the ways that video learning can help to improve the individuality, accessibility, and comprehensibility of instruction. Rather than using video to supplement the classroom experience, Khan made a case for allowing video instruction to transform the way we approach classroom time.

Khan’s approach transposes the classroom and homework experiences. As teachers assigned his videos for self-guided after-school instruction, they found that classroom time was freed up for problem-solving, game-playing and innovation-building. Teachers also used this time to provide individual attention and in-class guidance to students while they completed assignments. Ironically, remarks Khan, the impact of replacing human instruction with video instruction was a humanization of the otherwise dehumanizing process of sitting in a classroom listening to a monolithic lecture. Khan’s presentation ultimately demonstrates that video instruction, properly dispatched, can be used to individualize learning outside of the classroom while transforming the in-class experience into something far more personal and stimulating.

8. Teachers need real feedback by Bill Gates

If you’ve ever seen Bill Gates speak, then you know this one isn’t breathtakingly exciting. It does, however, inform on a major shortcoming in our educational system, and one that may help to explain why so many other countries outperform the U.S. in math, science and reading. Filmed in March of 2013, Gates’ Talk has been viewed roughly 293,000 times on YouTube and just under 2 million times on the TED Talks website.

Gates laments that teachers receive woefully inadequate feedback on how to improve their practice. The Microsoft magnate argues that the system in place is unfair to teachers and is consequently unfair to students.

Gates diverges with a brief video featuring a teacher who uses a camera to record her classroom lessons. Not unlike a quarterback, the teacher explains that she revisits her tapes following each lesson in order to dissect her own performance. Gates suggests that this method could be a pathway to providing teachers with real-time diagnoses on their performance and could ultimately help schools develop the tools they need to act on these diagnoses. Again, this won’t be the most entertaining TED Talk you’ll ever watch (and the visual aids just scream Windows ’98), but Gates is right. Teachers need feedback that’s actually designed to help. The real value of this Talk is that a person of visible influence is making that case.

9. Mathematics and Sex by Clio Cresswell

If you’ve just finished with the Gates Talk and you’re looking for something a little more…stimulating…this one is your next logical stop. More than 3.6 million YouTube viewers have indulged their curiosity in mathematics since Cresswell delivered her April 2014 Talk.

Full disclosure, this isn’t as much about sex as how sexy math can be, whether it’s used to detect inconsistencies in how people report their sexual activeness or in designing the perfect piece of chocolate. Cresswell draws playful connections between sexuality and mathematics, two natural conditions which transcend human culture, in order to demonstrate the fact that mathematics can provide new insight and understanding into all things around us.

The value of Cresswell’s presentation is in its appeal to those who are not of an inherently mathematical disposition. She reveals just how fascinating and all-encompassing mathematics are, and just how scintillating they can be.

10. Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling by Emilie Wapnick

This talk centers around the oft-posed question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Wapnick’s Talk has been viewed 261,000+ views on YouTube and 2.7 Million on the TED Talks website since being delivered in April of 2015.

The troubling implication of Wapnick’s leading question is that we are raised to believe that we have no recourse but to choose a single path of personal and professional development. This question, which is innocent and entertaining when we’re young but which imposes stress and insecurity as we grow older, implies that we each have one great thing that we are meant to do while we’re here on this earth and that we have to figure out what that thing is and devote our lives to it.

But what of those who have many interests, whose passions and intelligences can’t be bottled as a single elixir? Wapnick calls these individuals “multipotentialites.” For those who have been instructed that they must pursue a single true calling, Wapnick says its easy to see multipotentiality as a flaw to be overcome but she argues that multipotentialites have superpowers, among them idea synthesis, rapid learning, adaptability.

We need creative thinkers to tackle the world’s problems, Wapnick argues. Accordingly, says Wapnick, we should all be pursuing careers based on how we’re wired. She advises “embrace your inner-wiring, whatever that may be. If you’re a specialist at heart, by all means specialize…To the multipotentialites…embrace your many passions, follow your curiosity down those rabbit holes, explore your intersections.”

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50 Inspiring TED Talks For Teachers

These are the best TED Talks for teachers because they make us laugh, warm our hearts, break down barriers, and inspire us to dig deeper.

50 Of The Most Inspiring TED Talks For Teachers

contributed by Sara Briggs, opencolleges.edu.au

The communication explosion reaches its peak when you explore the endless avenues running through TED Talks. Moreover, the title educator embodies many forms within these talks.

So it’s precisely for this reason that any educator benefits from so many of these talks. Each speaker reveals his or her passion of a view or a subject with the enthusiasm of a first-year teacher.

Using TED Talks to convey an important message or spark creativity might be more effective in teaching students than an individual agenda or preconceived notion of what should be said. Furthermore, TED Talks challenges educators everywhere to think differently and encourage the same in their students.

These are the best TED Talks for any educator because they make us laugh, warm our hearts, break down barriers, and always inspire us to dig a little deeper and push a little harder, challenging your educator perspective.

1. 100,000 Tutors

One student described this Stanford University class on Artificial Intelligence as “sitting in a bar with a really smart friend who’s explaining something you haven’t grasped but are about to.” In the video, Peter Norvig pinpoints what it takes to create online learning at its best, how it should work and how it should feel.

2. School Cloud

Sugata Mitra won the 2013 TED Prize for his idea: Build a school in the cloud. After quite literally putting a computer in a wall in impoverished areas of India, he proved that children, people, are capable of learning without an agenda or even a teacher. Given the proper tools people will group together and teach themselves. They only need encouragement and positive reinforcement as a teaching mechanism.

3. Autistic Brothers

Another must-see for educators,  Faith Jegede: What I’ve learned from my autistic brothers  enlightens anyone who sees education as a one-way street. Faith Jegede shares her insights into the beauty behind the Autistic mind and urges us to change our view of “normal.”

4. Teacher Feedback

In this  Ted Talk, Bill Gates: Teachers need real feedback , Gates talks about the need for teachers to receive valuable feedback so that they can improve and strengthen their skills and become better teachers. He brings the teaching field to technology and cameras, using video to share and promote better and more effective teaching.

5. Bring On the Learning Revolution!

In  this  poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.

6. Teaching Design for Change

Designer Emily Pilloton moved to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina, to engage in a bold experiment of design-led community transformation. In  this video , she talks about teaching a design-build class called Studio H that engages high schoolers’ minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state.

7. What We’re Learning From Online Education

Daphne Koller is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free — not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. With Coursera (cofounded by Andrew Ng), each keystroke, quiz, peer-to-peer discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed. Watch the video  here .

8. What Teachers Make

Ever heard the phrase “Those who can’t do, teach”? At the Bowery Poetry Club, slam poet Taylor Mali begs to differ, and delivers a powerful, 3-minute  response  on behalf of educators everywhere.

9. How to Learn? From Mistakes

Diana Laufenberg, an 11th grade history teacher in Philadelphia,  shares  3 surprising things she has learned about teaching — including a key insight about learning from mistakes.

10. Changing Education Paradigms

In  this talk  from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools’ dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.

11. Don’t Eat the Marshmallow!

In  this  short talk from TED U, Joachim de Posada shares a landmark experiment on delayed gratification — and how it can predict future success. With a priceless video of kids trying their hardest not to eat the marshmallow.

12. The Puzzle of Motivation

Career analyst Dan Pink  examines  the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

13. Teaching Kids Real Math With Computers

From rockets to stock markets, many of humanity’s most thrilling creations are powered by math. So why do kids lose interest in it? Conrad Wolfram says the part of math we teach — calculation by hand — isn’t just tedious, it’s mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. In  this  talk, he presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming.

14. Teach Arts and Sciences Together

Mae Jemison is an astronaut, a doctor, an art collector, a dancer. Telling stories from her own education and from her time in space, she  calls on  educators to teach both the arts and sciences, both intuition and logic, as one — to create bold thinkers.

15. Education Innovation in the Slums

Charles Leadbeater went looking for radical new forms of education — and found them in the slums of Rio and Kibera, where some of the world’s poorest kids are finding transformative new ways to learn. And this informal, disruptive new kind of school,  he says , is what all schools need to become.

16. Teach Statistics Before Calculus!

Someone always asks the math teacher, “Am I going to use calculus in real life?” And for most of us, says Arthur Benjamin, the answer is no. He  offers  a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant in the digital age.

17. Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Education

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world’s biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny  18 minutes , he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them.

18. Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education

Salman Khan  talks  about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

19. How to Educate Leaders? Liberal Arts

After leaving his Microsoft job in Washington, Awuah returned to his home in Ghana and has helped to open a liberal arts college there. This polished speaker  shares  his experience in Africa and uses this experience to plead his case for the importance of incorporating a liberal arts education in order to create true leaders.

20. The Birth of the Open Source Learning Revolution

A professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas and the founder of Connexions, an open-source education system, Richard Baraniuk  talks about  the benefits of open source for educators. Specifically, Baraniuk speaks about the drawbacks of texts books and how using online open-source information provides more current and relevant material. Students pursuing an online bachelor’s degree in Education may have a particular interest in this resource.

21. Sputnik Mania

Filmmaker David Hoffman  shares  a part of his documentary, Sputnik Mania. Through this movie, Hoffman explains how it contributed to the space and arms race that, in turn, lead to an inspirational movement of math and science education across the US.

22. Finding the Next Einstein in Africa

While accepting his TED prize, physicist Neil Turok  shares  his wish to provide opportunity for the future of Africa through opening and nurturing the creativity available in the young people there. Turok uses his math and science background to understand why and how Africa has been left behind–and how we can change it.

23. What I’m Worried About, What I’m Excited About

Bill Joy  muses  on what’s next. Looking to the future, this co-founder of Sun Microsystems discusses how society and individuals have reacted to situations in the past. He then explores the path we can take to ensure positive growth in the areas of health, education, and technology.

24. A Parable for Kenya

This member of parliament in Kenya  discusses  education, both his own and the importance of education to children in Africa. He has a vision for making this education possible and shares it passionately.

25. Toy Tiles That Talk to Each Other

MIT grad student David Merrill  demos  Siftables — cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?

26. The El Sistema Music Revolution

Jose Abreu on kids transformed by music. The founder of a Venezuelan youth orchestra, El Sistema, Abreu  speaks  about his wish to spread music throughout Venezuela and the world as a tool of social change and empowerment. Abreu speaks in Spanish (with English subtitles) with such passion about his vision for the future of the world.

27. El Sistema’s Top Youth Orchestra

Gustavo Dudamel leads El Sistema’s top youth orchestra. Watch this video of Dudamel and his students as they perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement and Arturo Marquez’s Danzon No. 2. The power of  this performance  is a testament to why El Sistema works.

28. Once Upon a School

Surrounded in a culture of educators, Eggers grew up realizing the importance of education. He  talks about  his tutoring center, 826 Valencia, and how it has helped and inspired others to become involved in education. The power of this tutoring center is inspirational to those concerned with education.

29. Tales of Creativity and Play

Tim Brown explores the relationship between creative thinking and play, and how this relationship can be nurtured. Using activities presented in  the talk , he illustrates his points that are useful for all who work with children as well as those who want to nurture creativity in adults.

30. Digging up Dinosaurs

Strange landscapes, scorching heat and (sometimes) mad crocodiles await scientists seeking clues to evolution’s genius. Paleontologist Paul Sereno  talks about  his surprising encounters with prehistory — and a new way to help students join the adventure.

31. What We Think We Know

Jonathan Drori, expert on culture and educational media,  offers  four questions to the listeners as a starting point to explore how we get ideas in our heads and how difficult it is to shake ideas once they are there. Drori also reviews some “bad practices” that serve to reinforce wrong ideas and some better ways of helping students learn correctly.

32. A Powerful Idea About Ideas

Alan Kay  shares  a powerful idea about ideas. Kay talks about techniques for educating children by using computers to illustrate experiences. By looking at simplicity and complexity, traditional teaching modes that rely on complex adult ideas, and approachable methods of teaching students in ways that are more simple and intuitive.

33. Play is More Than Just Fun

Stuart Brown says play is more than fun. Brown  describes  why play is important and how it contributes to happy and healthy adults–not just children. Using examples from the natural world, Brown shows how play is an integral part of life and how it can change behaviors.

34. One Laptop Per Child

The founder of the MIT Media Lab in Massachusetts  discusses  his program, called “One Laptop Per Child.” This project hopes to build $100 pedal-powered laptops and distribute them to children in developing countries around the world in an effort to promote education. Coming from the perspective of children being the most important natural resource of any country, Negroponte’s project hopes to provide students with opportunities for their future and the future of their countries.

35. A Free Digital Library

Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library — every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history … It’s all free to the public — unless someone else gets to it first. Watch his video  here .

36. Institutions vs. Collaboration

In  this  prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning. His concepts can be applied to education as well.

37. A Call to Reinvent Liberal Arts Education

Liz Coleman is the president of education and learning reform at Bennington. She is the advocate for educational reforms. In  this speech  she says that the interaction between the two organizations in areas of education should be reflected as an opposing factor in modernism and it reduces the study fields into the non moving specialized place. She has emphasized on the point that why diversity is required for solving the big problems.

38. How Games Make Kids Smarter

Gabe Zichermann  explains  how games make kids smart. His speech readily opposes the idea that games and video playing gadgets are a total waste of time for kids. He says that games are the most innovative, creative, and intellectual tools that are working to bring improvement in almost every aspect of performance in cognitive areas.

39. Turning Trash into Toys for Learning

At the INK Conference, Arvind Gupta  shares  simple yet stunning plans for turning trash into seriously entertaining, well-designed toys that kids can build themselves — while learning basic principles of science and design.

40. A Girl Who Demanded School

Kakenya Ntaiya made a deal with her father: She would undergo the traditional Maasai rite of passage of female circumcision if he would let her go to high school. Ntaiya  tells  the fearless story of continuing on to college, and of working with her village elders to build a school for girls in her community. It’s the educational journey of one that altered the destiny of 125 young women.

41. Teaching One Child at a Time

Educating the poor is more than just a numbers game, says Shukla Bose. She  tells the story  of her groundbreaking Parikrma Humanity Foundation, which brings hope to India’s slums by looking past the daunting statistics and focusing on treating each child as an individual.

42. How to Escape Education’s Death Valley

Sir Ken Robinson offers three principles crucial for the human mind to flourish — and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational “death valley” we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.

43. How Schools Kill Creativity

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. Watch the classic video  here .

44. Life Lessons Through Tinkering

Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to clarify the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a roller coaster!

45. Math Class Needs a Makeover

Today’s math curriculum is teaching students to expect — and excel at — paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. In  his talk , Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.

46. Kids, Take Charge

Kiran Bir Sethi  shows  how her groundbreaking Riverside School in India teaches kids life’s most valuable lesson: “I can.” Watch her students take local issues into their own hands, lead other young people, even educate their parents.

47. Gaming to Re-Engage Boys in Learning

Although it may be inappropriate to brashly generalize, education statistics point to one thing for males ages 3-13: their culture isn’t exactly school appropriate. Their general sense of violence, emotional disconnect, and hyperactivity tends to make them more inclined to drop out. The items males generally embrace do not make them great learners. However, there is hope. Alison Carr-Chellman  illustrates how gaming, one of the most notorious aspects of male culture, could help reel them back in.

48. Let’s Raise Kids to Be Entrepreneurs

Why is it that we only hire tutors to train kids at what they’re bad at? Why is it that the idea of being an entrepreneur is so vilified? Cameron Herold explains that we need to stop essentially punishing the children with these proclivities in business. Instead, we need to foster their development. Although specific in its focus, the core message can be translated ubiquitously. Let’s teach our kids what they’re good at, not teach them to be adequate in something they previously weren’t.

49. 3 Rules to Spark Learning

It took a life-threatening condition to jolt chemistry teacher Ramsey Musallam out of ten years of “pseudo-teaching” to understand the true role of the educator: to cultivate curiosity. In a fun and personal  talk , Musallam gives 3 rules to spark imagination and learning, and get students excited about how the world works.

50. The Call to Learn

The incredibly eccentric Clifford Stoll reviews what it means to be drawn to learning as well as tangents about the Moog synthesizer and no-volume bottles. He claims that the only ones who can truly predict the future are kindergarten teachers; they’re the only ones with exposure to the next generation.

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12 Must-See TED Talks for Teachers

These videos changed the way I think about teaching.

Looking to intrigue tomorrow’s first period class? Want to connect with that student sleeping in the back row? Tasked with giving a presentation at the next professional development meeting? Hoping to reinvigorate your love of teaching?

TED may be just the inspiration you need.

TED is a nonprofit that shares cutting-edge ideas through short, engaging talks on almost any topic you can imagine: from cyborgs to growing fresh air to connecting with others . Each talk is given by a practitioner or researcher who has ample wisdom to share.

You could lose yourself for hours on TED’s website, but we both know teachers don’t have that luxury.

Here are some TED videos that helped me think deeply about my teaching practice.

1. Kelly McGonigal: How to Make Stress Your Friend

Wait. What? You mean the stacks of ungraded essays, looming grade deadlines, and unfinished unit plans won’t necessarily pressure me into an early grave? McGonigal explains how to combat the negative effects of stress with a simple change in perspective.

2. Christopher Emdin: Teach Teachers How to Create Magic

Some say you either have it or you don’t. Emdin disagrees. He demystifies the magic of the engaging teacher and makes it accessible to all of us.

3. Ramsey Musallam: 3 Rules to Spark Learning

Inspired by the surgeon who saved his life, Musallam woke up from 10 years of “pseudo-teaching” and adopted 3 practices to promote student inquiry.

4. Fawn Qiu: Easy DIY Projects for Kid Engineers

Qiu offers practical advice to teachers who need inventive, low-cost STEM projects for students of all ability levels.

5. Astro Teller: The Unexpected Benefit of Embracing Failure

How do you encourage risk-taking? Celebrate failure as a necessary part of the learning process.

6. Reshma Saujani: Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection

Saujani argues that girls are socialized to be perfect. As a result, they give up too easily. Teach them to approach challenges bravely instead.

7. Laura Vanderkam: How to Gain Control of Your Free Time

You have more free time than you think. Vanderkam offers strategies to help you find the time for the things you love.

8. Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs a Champion

In this passionate and engaging talk, Pierson argues that by connecting with your students you may help unleash their potential.

9. Eduardo Briceño: How to Get Better at the Things You Care About

Improvement stagnates despite our hard work. This is true of students and teachers alike. Alternate between the learning and performing zones in order to grow. Here’s how.

10. Dena Simmons: How Students of Color Confront Imposter Syndrome

Students learn best when they can be themselves. Simmons shares insight into how to support students of color in the classroom.

11. Carol Dweck: The Power of Believing That You Can Improve

Discover how a growth mindset can boost student achievement.

12. Stephen Ritz: A Teacher Growing Green in the South Bronx

Plenty of inspiration here. With unbridled enthusiasm, Ritz describes the urban landscaping and farming projects that helped his students build skills while improving their access to nutritious foods.

If there is not something for you in one of these videos, explore TED’s education playlists . While you are there, you can also check out the TED-ED Originals . Each customizable lesson includes an animated video to share with your class, background resources to deepen your knowledge on the topic, and questions for students.

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New 'Ram Talks' will bring CSU experts to Old Town for 'happy hour' talks on their work

That expert you read about in the New York Times discussing elephants talking to each other by name just might be your neighbor.

In an effort to better connect Colorado State University with the Fort Collins community, the university is planning a series of “Ram Talks” during the 2024-25 school year, said Kyle Henley, the university’s vice president of university marketing and communications. CSU professors, researchers and other experts will discuss their work and answer questions from those in attendance in a casual setting in Old Town Fort Collins.

The research work with elephants performed by CSU professor George Wittemyer, for instance, was featured recently in the New York Times .

“As anyone who’s lived here for any amount of time knows, we have amazing things happening here on campus all the time,” Henley said. “We have faculty in the New York Times, and incredible things happening on the research side of the house. Sometimes, it can feel like that’s happening not necessarily in your community. But the reality is this kind of cool stuff that’s happening at CSU involves your neighbors that you see at the grocery store.”

The talks will take place in a “happy-hour” style setting in the soon-to-open Fort Collins Welcome Center , operated by Visit Fort Collins, in Old Town Square (next door to Coopersmith’s Pub and Brewing) from 5-6:30 p.m. on two Wednesdays each month. Admission is free, and a cash bar and light snacks will be available.

More: New dinosaur species found by CSU faculty member named after Norse god

The series begins Sept. 4 with CSU sociology professor Jeni Cross in a talk titled, “Hidden hurdles – Inventing new approaches to old problems by re-thinking systems.”

Other speakers on the fall-semester schedule include:

• Sept. 18 – Wittemyer, “Elephant names: What we can learn from how elephants communicate”
• Oct. 2 – Professor Martin Carcasson, “Taking on the challenge of toxic polarization: better conversations in a hyper-partisan world”
• Oct. 16 – Professor Jessica Metcalf, post-doctoral fellow Valerie Seitz and Plant Growth Facilities Manager Tammy Brenner, “Morbid Trickery – What science is learning from CSU’s corpse flower ”
• Nov. 6 – Associate professor Brian Tracy, “Your electric muscles are movers and sensors”
• Nov. 20 – TBD

Additional “Ram Talks” are planned for the spring semester, Henley said.

“Part of the reason we love living in a university town is so you can interact with ideas, because we’re intellectually curious,” he said. “And what better way to interact with some of the ideas than in an informal setting, where you can have a conversation, come up afterward and ask more questions if you want to. There’s a lot going on with our academics and with our research as it relates to the impact that we’re having on the community, the state, the world. This is a way to share that in a fun, informal setting, that we think people will really enjoy.”

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at  [email protected] , x.com/KellyLyell and   facebook.com/KellyLyell.news . 

Creative Commons

Cc open education platform activities: 2023 in review.

The CC Open Education community had a busy 2023!  Community members reflect on their accomplishments, lessons learned and what is next. 

The CC Open Education community had a busy 2023!  Five project teams, spanning nine countries, worked on open education projects ranging from developing STEAM, interactive, and climate change-related OER, to international curriculum alignment and translation work. Community members also worked on multimedia resources supporting the UNESCO Recommendation on OER, and presented in CC’s biannual Open Education Lightning Talks. Community members reflect on their accomplishments, lessons learned and what is next below. CC staff lightly edited text for clarity.

Building a K-12 Interactive Open Textbook

Update from Werner Westermann : This project developed a K-12 Open Textbook in the subject of Civics and Citizenship subject for 11th and 12th Grade, aligned to the official K-12 curriculum of Chile.  With the CC funding, we made 60% progress on one Open Textbook for 11th grade , surpassing our initial goal. We worked with teachers, creators of the interactive resources and a graphic designer on all four learning units of the 11th grade Open Textbook, as defined by Chile’s official curriculum for Civics and Citizenship. To help others’ open education projects, we share some lessons we encountered:

• This type of community engagement requires specific and explicit guidelines and benchmarks for quality . Like any book development, this Open Textbook required a general editor to orchestrate community contributions, manage expectations, and enforce quality guidelines and benchmarks. 
• Standardized workflows are necessary .  It was most efficient to load content, then follow up with graphic and interactive resources, rather than focus on those specifics first. We tested an AI Smart Import tool that creates H5P interactive resources in seconds, in order to save up to 50% development time.  
• Community adoption of a tech tool (the H5P editor in our case) requires flexibility to adapt to the tool for mastery. We had a lot of discussions about what H5P could and could not achieve. For better results, postpone specific expectations and work on what is editor enabled.

What’s next? The next step is to complete the 11th grade Open Textbook development and publish it, pending funding.  We also await an AI tool for Spanish support to speed up production.

Popularization of OER in Ukraine: Small steps to a big goal

Update from Tetiana Kolesnykova : Polytechnic University of Milan and the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies (USUST) partnered to translate and localize a MOOC on OER: “ Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching .” This OER provides equitable and inclusive access to education amidst full-scale war in Ukraine. Despite the war, the project achieved its aim: there is now a version of the MOOC for Ukrainian learners . Our lessons from this work included: listening to each other, negotiating where needed, and compromise . We were not looking for perfection but for a good result to be achieved within all limitations. With teamwork and strong motivation, we solved the challenges of the project together; and the end result exceeded our expectations.  As a result: All MOOC subtitles for each video, the course description and all tests were made available in Ukrainian, ensuring participants gain a better understanding and support with the final assessment. We also created eight additional instructions and illustrations in Ukrainian. We developed a mock-up of the Certificate of Completion of the course “Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching” adapted into Ukrainian. Several faculty and librarians tested the MOOC in Ukrainian.

We started promoting the Ukrainian localisation of the MOOC “Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching” in October. Politecnico di Milano (METID) and the Scientific Library of the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies (USUST) presented our collaborative project at international conferences, national webinars, publications, and on the website of the USUST Scientific Library.

While it is too early to measure the success of the Ukrainian MOOC “Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching,” we know it is already raising awareness of OER opportunities among the wider Ukrainian academic community. 

What’s next?   We will continue our teamwork, and ignite new OER adaptations in a sustainable way.

STEAM Ahead with OER in South Africa project

Update from Dan McGuire : This collaborative project between Ghana, South Africa and the US created, curated, and sourced OER content aligned to Ghanaian and South African education standards.  

Our colleague, Peter Amoabil observed that using the MoodleBox and OER materials provided learning opportunities for students without the need to rely on the internet, which is very useful in Ghana where over 95% of schools don’t have internet access. Students were able to use the digital content for all subjects and especially for reading in their mother tongue, Dagbani. Reading materials in Dagbani have previously been very hard to acquire.

In South Africa, we were able to translate both reading materials and math assessments from English into isiXhosa for students in grades Pre-K through 1st grade. Students were excited to learn using WIFI devices.

What’s next? Translating educational materials into the students’ mother tongue is especially valuable and innovative. We plan to expand the professional development for use of digital OER materials aligned to national standards to more teachers in both Ghana and South Africa. This project helped us establish a process to create and deliver learning materials to Pre-K — 6th grade students. We will also be making the OER professional development courses and instructional content available via open repositories.

Climate Change: OER integrating SDG components in Education in two Southeast Asian Countries

Update from Dr. Suma Parahakaran : This project worked with the Malaysian Ministry of Education as well as Malaysian and Laotian schools, creating OER and experiential learning activities. Primary and Secondary school students engaged in cross disciplinary, technical, and integrated learning activities, such as setting up solar panels on rooftops. They got to attend workshops and brainstorms with international experts and teachers. Students also created videos, brochures and other resources focused on ethics, climate change and sustainable development education. Finally, students then entered a competition related to Climate Change and Sustainable Development OER. For more information and results of the competition, view the project website . 

What’s next? While there are private Youtube links to the videos, they will be made public soon. Project lead: Dr. Suma Parahakaran

Alquimetricos

Update from Fernando Daguanno : Alquimétricos is an OER project that uses connectors and sticks to build geometric structures for STEAM education. Through experiential learning, the project develops students’ spatial, mathematical and kinetic understanding. The Alquimétricos Kit Zero is already published online and available to purchase: see our repositories for ready-to-print and fully editable CC BY files, including content, packaging and labeling. 

During 2023 we developed a new product line of elementary-school-oriented kits, drawing from eight years of experiences and research. The kits include a deck of cards with guidelines, a bunch of hubs and sticks that help educators make Alquimétricos’ activities dynamic in the classroom. The new kit was developed and introduced as part of the (FADU-UBA) DiJu post degree “Toys and Games Design” course 2023. It was launched in Argentina at the Open Education Meeting in Bariloche – Argentinian Patagonia, presented at the OpenEd Conference 2023 and displayed at the CC Global Summit in Mexico City.

What’s next? Next steps include translation to Portuguese and English and sharing the project in global OER repositories. We will seek support proofreading and sharking Kit Zero in a community call in early 2024. 

Global Commons: Unlocking Open Education with Creative Commons

Update from Lisa Di Valentino and John Okewole : This project developed a short animated video describing Creative Commons and how CC licenses support the implementation of the United Nations Recommendation on OER. We currently have a first version of the video created by Brainboxx Studios for which we will re-record the English narration. We have also solicited translations of the transcript from other subgroup members in the nine other UNESCO languages, and have offers for translation in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian (of which we now have a draft), and Spanish. 

What’s next? We will finalize the English video and determine how to translate the video text.  We will also design handouts in the various languages explaining the benefits of using Creative Commons licensing for open educational resources.

CC Open Education Lightning Talks

Lightning Talks are seven-minute presentations on a given area of expertise or work. Based on community demand, CC hosted Open Education Lighting Talks online in February and in-person, at the CC Summit in October . Community members’  presentations ranged from explorations of OER for social justice to practical applications, such as using machine translation algorithms for OER translation and recommendations for digital publishing. CC also presented a forthcoming microcredential course on which we are partnering with the University of Nebraska Omaha, in effort to bring more open licensing expertise to new audiences. 

What’s next? We look forward to learning more from the open education community in future CC Open Education Lightning Talks!

Creative Commons extends our gratitude to the inspiring CC community members making a difference in their educational contexts. We look forward to continued open education collaborations in 2024! If you would like to join our Open Education community, visit the CC Open Education Platform site for more information.

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Questions for consideration on ai & the commons, cc is refreshing its strategy. here’s why your voice matters., the cc open education platform funds five new community projects, join the creative commons board of directors.

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County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards talks deflection, accountability and education

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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Julia Brim Edwards occupies a unique position in local politics. She’s a Multnomah County Commissioner representing Southeast Portland’s District 3. She’s also been on the Portland School Board for 11 years and a previous board chair. A graduate of Oregon State University, she was also a senior executive at Nike.

On this week’s Eye on Northwest Politics, Brim-Edwards said she is frequently asked why she takes on so much for the community. But it all comes from her roots in East Portland.

“I went to public schools here, I raised my family with my husband here,” she said, “I’m really committed to the region and both Portland Public Schools and the county have had a number of challenges. Growing up, my parents in our household said, ‘Don’t complain about things, go do something about it,’ which is how I both got on the Portland School Board and the County Commission.”

With the county scheduled to roll out its deflection program on September 1, critics say the current plan will be a revolving door with little or no accountability. Brim-Edwards believes those are valid concerns, citing the needs for ‘real consequences and accountability’ for those who choose deflection.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to happen in the next 30 days,” she noted. “And at the same time, we need to re-stand up a 24-7 drop -off sobering center because the deflection center will actually only impact a pretty limited number of people. A sobering center actually will help those that are sober and drug intoxication and make our streets safer.”

The identified location of a deflection center on Sandy Boulevard has prompted concern from neighbors who say they were not notified or consulted about this move. Brim-Edwards also agrees there was a missed step in community-county relations.

“I’m a firm believer that when the county sets up some sort of operation, whether it’s a shelter or in this case, a deflection center, that they have an obligation to work with the neighbors to reach a good neighbor agreement so that neighbors have a very reasonable expectation of community safety,” she emphasized.

Regarding conflict between County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and other members of the commission – in particular Sharon Meieran – Brim-Edwards stressed personal disagreements should not be mistaken for policy disagreements.

“I do believe the County Commission gets to better results when we have a vigorous public debate. And because we make better decisions, we have stronger decisions,” she said. “And I expect if I put an idea on the table that my fellow commissioners are going to pressure test it, ask me questions, make it better. And that’s just part of a good legislative process versus just having a rubber stamp board that just goes along with everything that either the chair or another commissioner rolls out.”

While she acknowledged her belief that the current structure of the county commission allows for better results, she added certain recent decisions being made behind closed doors is “not at all working for the county.”

However, at the state level, Governor Kotek is proposing to add half a billion dollars to the current service level for the state school fund for the 2025-2027 biennium. Brim-Edwards called this “promising” and will be “a big supporter of it.”

“Her proposal actually better matches the actual cost structures that not just PPS, but other districts have, and the money that we will be getting from the state,” she noted. “So it’s a very significant proposal for, not just for PPS, but also for districts around the state. So I’m gonna be a big supporter of it, advocate for it when the legislature comes into session, and I’m appreciative that the governor followed up on her commitment.”

Watch the full interview in the video above.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.

Penny Bishop, Adolescent Development Scholar, Appointed New Dean of Wheelock College

In wide-ranging conversation, Wheelock’s new dean talks about her experience as a first-gen student, her passion for public education, and what led her to BU

Incoming BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development Dean Penny Bishop comes by way of the University of Maine, where she served as dean of the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development since June 2021.

Cydney Scott

A leading adolescent development scholar and former fourth grade hula-hoop champion is the new Dean of Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

Penny Bishop, who had been dean of the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development since June 2021, officially assumes leadership at Wheelock August 1, according to a letter sent on Monday to the BU community from Gloria Waters, provost and chief academic officer. 

“Dr. Bishop’s strong track record of strategic leadership, her impressive scholarly work, and her reputation as a gifted teacher and community builder are an ideal fit for the needs of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development,” Waters wrote. 

Bishop succeeds David Chard , who served as the president of Wheelock College and helped shepherd its historic 2018 merger with Boston University. Mary Churchill , associate dean of strategic initiatives and community engagement at Wheelock, had been serving as interim dean since Chard’s departure on July 1.

Prior to joining the University of Maine, Bishop was a professor of education at the University of Vermont, where she later served as associate dean of the school’s College of Education and Social Services and directed the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education.

Bishop is a leading scholar on the intersection between adolescent development and education and the co-author of seven books on education reform, including The Successful Middle School: This We Believe (Association for Middle Level Education) and Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades (Harvard Education Press).

Mariette DiChristina-Gerosa, dean of the College of Communication, served as chair of the Dean Search Advisory Committee that led a national search to choose Chard’s successor. 

“Among the finalists [for Wheelock’s new dean], Penny Bishop stood out to the search committee for her strong leadership experience as a dean and administrator, for her exciting vision, for how she has centered equity and inclusion in her administration and her decision-making,” DiChristina-Gerosa says. “She possesses a relational and warm management style and a track record of collaboratively engaging her teams and energizing alumni. I’m excited to learn from her as a colleague dean.”

Bishop, who relocated to Boston with her husband Marc Ducharme and dog Tally, spoke with BU Today about her own experience in school, going to college as a first-generation student, and why she’s thrilled to take the top job at Wheelock.

with Penny Bishop

Bu today: how did your own school experience shape the work you would eventually do as an adult.

Bishop: I grew up in Vermont. In fact, I’m a ninth-generation Vermonter, and I attended public schools K–12. Something that was critical in my own upbringing was a move that I made from a classroom with only 12 students in the fourth and fifth grade to an open concept classroom of about 50 students. I found myself awash in uncertainty at that moment. I reflect on that now, thinking about how a lot of my research has been on students’ development of a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging at that age, and I think oh yeah, there are a lot of interesting connections there.

BU Today: You were a first-generation college student. What was that experience like for you?

Bishop: I had a very circuitous route through university life. In fact, I went through four different institutions to get my first degree. It’s not an uncommon story for first-generation students to find themselves in a variety of circumstances, often financially related. So, it was a bit of a bumpy road at the beginning, but then I really found myself loving teaching, loving writing, and I found myself on the higher ed path quite unexpectedly.

BU Today: When did teaching become a passion for you?

Bishop: I was not someone who grew up always wanting to be the third grade teacher or always wanting to teach 10th grade biology. Coming from a working-class background, I was thinking about [it practically]: If I go to college, I need to get a job, and I need to move on from there and support myself. It wasn’t until I got into the classroom that I became passionate about teaching. It wasn’t until I actually got into my middle school classroom and really started to teach that I realized what a creative act teaching is. No one had ever mentioned that part to me or told me about the inspiring roles that you play, especially for middle school students. Because they are in the midst of identity development. They’re in the midst of figuring out who they are and who they are becoming—who they want to be or don’t want to be. And I just really loved that age group and loved teaching.

BU Today: Talk about your transition into higher education leadership.

Bishop: It’s certainly not everyone’s path. In fact, in higher ed, I think one of the best roles is to be a professor: you get to teach, you get to write, it’s fabulous.  Early on, I found myself in leadership positions without necessarily seeking them out. That does happen, particularly in higher ed, where people would often prefer to be the professor than to be the person solving problems, but I am a problem-solver. It’s what I really love to do. I found myself in a position of directing a program, of working as an associate dean, of directing a research and outreach institute. Gradually, those roles became more comprehensive, more complex, increasing in responsibility. At the root of them all was this idea that there are complex and interesting problems to solve.  The shift to dean was a bit different because it was much more conscious. I think that really stemmed from a desire to strengthen communities. And that’s really, I think, at the heart of what a good dean of a college of education & human development does.

BU Today: What are the top challenges facing young people today?

Bishop: I think our young people are facing some unprecedented challenges, even pre-pandemic. We were seeing a rise in depression, anxiety, and disengagement and a lack of affiliation—all of the pieces that could be the crumbling of our democracy. I think of our public schools as the foundation of a solid democracy, and I can’t imagine a better place to be investing our time and energy than in those places where youth need to grapple with challenging questions and develop skills to have difficult conversations and find a sense of purpose.

BU Today: What drew you to Wheelock?

Bishop: I’m extraordinarily excited about the mission of the college. The Wheelock Guide Star & Values , are very, very explicit. There’s no denying its overt social justice mission. I’m excited to be part of a community that puts that out front and leads with the mission to disrupt inequity. That’s hard work. It’s daunting work. I also see such a strong community here of scholars and teachers who are already doing that in so many ways. I was also drawn to the opportunity to continue this work post-merger. Under Dean Chard’s leadership, the transition that he led between historic Wheelock and BU helped the college come out stronger after the merger. When I was interviewing for the position, to a person that I spoke with, people felt like it was a stronger unit afterward. That’s a very rare story. When you have a merger of institutions where identity is so central, it’s rare to be able to point to folks who feel like it’s been successful, much less value added. So that’s an amazing time to be able to join a community.

BU Today: What do you like to do when you’re not working?

Bishop: I’m embarrassed to say first of all that work is my hobby. That’s not great, I recognize, but I really love my work. [Marc and I] love to travel, particularly internationally, to surround ourselves with new cultures, hear other languages, and experience new foods.

BU Today: What are you most looking forward to about living in Boston?

Bishop: Parking the car and not using it. Exploring everything that the city has to offer. And there are a lot of amazing museums here, and we’re really excited to explore those and get a sense of the city. Also, we love good food, so this is a good place for that.

BU Today: Anything else that you would want the BU community to know about Penny Bishop?

Bishop: You mean, other than that I won a hula-hoop contest in fourth grade?

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Senior Editor/Writer Twitter Profile

Steve Holt is a senior editor and writer responsible for print alumni magazines at the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, School of Theology, and the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. He came to BU in 2022 from Appalachian Mountain Club, where he was a senior editor at the nonprofit’s award-winning member magazine. For more than a decade before that, Steve built a prolific freelance journalism career, collecting bylines in numerous print and online publications, such as The Boston Globe , Boston magazine, Civil Eats , Business Insider , and Bloomberg CityLab . His Edible Boston story about sustainable hamburgers in Boston was selected for inclusion in the Best Food Writing 2011 anthology. Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in theology from Abilene Christian University. Profile

Photojournalist

Cydney Scott has been a professional photographer since graduating from the Ohio University VisCom program in 1998. She spent 10 years shooting for newspapers, first in upstate New York, then Palm Beach County, Fla., before moving back to her home city of Boston and joining BU Photography. Profile

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