There is hope for education innovation in the U.S.

Earlier this month I had the great honor of joining several hundred people committed to innovation in education in various forms, for the TEDxNYED conference.  The speaker roster, folks behind the scenes and participants I met (like Nathan Dudley of the NY Harbor School) truly inspired me, with their sincerity, diversity of initiatives, experience, passion, knowledge and commitment to what's best for our children and our collective future on the planet.  I've been really grateful for the outpouring of support for my talk, which came more from the heart than my inner strategy/policy wonk.  There's much more on the practical, education side I wish I'd said, but I realize that can come later.  In the meantime, I hoped to touch more hearts to gain a vision of and commitment to the possibilities of transformation when we see ourselves as citizens of the world. 

Please take a look at the other talks from the day, too.  Though we each only got 15-minute slots, the talks can give a glimpse into lifetimes of dedication to education innovation, and give hope to where this most important work might be headed.  See (with links to each talk when you click their name): Alan November, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Lucy Gray, Dennis Littky, Gary Stager, Will Richardson, Rinat Aruh, Steve Bergen,  Luyen Chou, Patrick Carman, Global Writes, Samona Tait, Brian Crosby, Stacey Murphy, and music by Morley - a new favorite artist, whose music comes from a deep place informed by her activism.  I also want to give a big THANK YOU to organizers, especially @basilkolani and @specialkrb who seamlessly cultivated the people and space where connections and ideas flourished.  I'm not exaggerating to say that after just one day together I feel a very special connection to most of them that will last a lot longer than the #2 pencil (watch the talks to find out what i mean by that!).