What can bring innovators, entrepreneurs, journalists, activists, geeks, and hipsters all together? That would be South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW), which kicks off today in Austin, Texas.
This rather eclectic crowd gathers for panels, presentations, and even parties on all that is new and next. Not only are there a wide range of attendees, but panel discussions as well: They cover everything from “The Internet of Cars” to “Hacking Princess Culture” to “Being Social With Grandma: Social Media for 50+.”
For those of us with our eyes on the most creative solutions to our national challenges, here are the sessions we think have the most potential to impact America. Certainly, their messages will extend far beyond the podium and long past the Q&A:
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Heading to SXSW? Hopefully, we’ll see you at the one of these panels. But if you’re not able to make it, use the hashtags listed on the session URLs to join the virtual conversation, then let us know how you plan to take action!
Tag: SXSW
The Man Behind No Child Left Behind Has a Surprising Answer on How to Improve Education
If you’re a music fan or a film buff, guaranteed you’ve heard of South by Southwest, a gathering in Austin, Texas that’s more commonly known by its acronym SXSW. But the annual event isn’t only rocking concerts and documentary viewings. It also attracts some of the brightest, innovative minds in education. The SXSWedu sessions discuss ways to improve teaching and learning and are filled with a-ha moments of invention and inspiration around how to help our kids.
But in a keynote session titled “Education: The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time,” Rod Paige, the former U.S. Secretary of Education, focused on the achievement gap that exists in our country and what needs to change.
After the session ended, NationSwell had the opportunity to ask him two exclusive questions: What is working in education and what is his call to action for the room of people he had just addressed?
He quickly replied: “Go visit Rocketship and visit KIPP.”
By mentioning these charter schools networks (KIPP is national network consisting of 141 schools; Rocketship currently serves three regions: The Bay Area in California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Nashville, Tennessee), Paige echoed what has come up time and again in the full days of conversations and long halls of conference rooms at the Austin Convention Center: The importance of re-imagining the traditional school system. The underlying message of his two answers in one? His belief that bottom-up solutions (such as charter schools) are more exciting than some of the innovations in the public arena.
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The focus of Paige’s keynote conversation with Evan Smith, Editor in Chief and CEO of the Texas Tribune, comes out of a stance the former secretary of education has taken for years — that education is a civil right. That position was a driving force behind his work in the George W. Bush administration and in his book The Black-White Achievement Gap: Why Closing it is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time, which was published in 2010.
“There is no strategy available that has a higher leverage opportunity to change the ethnic equality issue than closing the achievement gap in education,” he said on Wednesday. When Smith asked whether closing the gap should be dealt with at the federal level, Paige responded that while the federal government can have some influence, “the primary impact has to be at the place where the people walk the halls of the schools and look in the eyes of the children.”
Coming from a man who helped develop the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, this was certainly an interesting answer. However, Paige said he views education as a three-legged school made up of “the school, the home, and the community.”
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“We are doing all we can” to improve what goes on in the school and “very little” to improve what is going on in the home and the community, Paige added. “A child who has a loving and caring and supportive parent has a huge advantage,” he said. Those who lack that support are at a major disadvantage — a void that a teacher cannot fill on his or her own.
And when it comes to making sure that the original intent of No Child Left Behind Act “to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice” is realized, Paige said the leadership in African American and American Latino communities have to own this issue.
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Still, he said he does see a place for a national approach to education when it comes to the Common Core (also a controversial topic in education), explaining that 50 different state systems cannot control the public education of the United States.
Referencing the 1983 report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, Paige said it was called “A Nation at Risk,” not “50 States at Risk,” for a reason. “There has to be some coordination,” he said explaining that there cannot be efficiency when there are too many points of authority.
But real change cannot come without those aforementioned three legs of the stool.
Perhaps that is why Paige was so quick to mention Rocketship. Its motto? “We do more than educate students. We empower teachers, engage parents, and inspire communities.”
How Teaching Compassion Empowers Kids to Make the World a Better Place
Don’t all kids dream of being superheroes, with the power to save their cities from seemingly unstoppable forces of evil? In today’s society, however, you don’t need to be able to run faster than a speeding bullet, have x-ray vision, or possess superhuman strength (à la Superman) to change the world. You just need compassion.
That’s the message behind Global Game Changers (GGC), an innovative educational program that inspires students to use their skills, talents, and love to “ignite good” in their classrooms and communities in order to make the world a better place. GGC is a Common Core State Standard-compliant curriculum that can be integrated right into elementary language or social studies classes (pre-K to fifth grade). It’s built around a team of superheroes — led by Global Girl and her sidekick Little Big-Heart — who recruit real-life kids from all over the country to do good things without asking for anything in return. The goal of the program? To demonstrate to each child that they have a superpower. And that, just like Global Girl, Little Big-Heart and their comrades, they can make a difference in the world by giving back.
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“We believe that it’s important for kids to find the educational aspects of what they’re learning to be fun and engaging and something that’s relatable,” says Jan Helson, co-founder and chairman of GGC. “By using the equation — my talent plus my heart equals my superpower — the goal is to show them that giving back is part of who they are and not just something that they do. It becomes a true, integral part of them and a foundation for their lives to come.”
Compassion is at the core of the GGC curriculum. Research has shown that this emotion can be linked to a variety of positive outcomes throughout a child’s life — from peer acceptance to social competence and, most notably, academic achievement. In fact, a National Center for Biotechnology Information study found that students who acted with compassion during the early childhood years — cooperating, helping, sharing, and consoling — had stronger academic achievement later on. “In some ways, yeah, it’s common sense [that compassion builds] a great foundation of self-confidence and self-value, which will make you more successful,” Helson says. But for some time, compassion hasn’t been taught in schools. To Helson, this is due to shift in society where political correctness became the norm. “If you go back, compassion is connected to religion. But it certainly isn’t solely a religious principle,” she says. “You can be PC but also be compassionate and have good values and morals.”
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Since 2012, the GGC curriculum has been used in more than 30 classrooms in the United States—in Washington, Indiana, and Kentucky, where the program was piloted—and in Mexico. Additionally, GGC has created an after-school program that is being piloted at the YMCA in Louisville, Kentucky, and a summer program that will be launched in Spokane, Washington, through their parks department. So far, the response from everyone involved — teachers, students and parents — has been overwhelmingly positive.
Dr. Judi Vanderhaar, an evaluation specialist in Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, conducted an independent evaluation of the GGC pilot program that took place in three classrooms during the 2012–13 school year. She found that the program had a positive impact not only on the students, but the teachers as well. “The Global Game Changers pilot program reveals that the program holds tremendous amounts of promise for ensuring that classrooms provide engaging, creative learning, positive classroom climates, and develop civic engagement despite the current environment of high-stakes academic pressures,” she wrote. Currently, Dr. Vanderhaar is conducting a larger evaluation of the program and will present her findings at SXSWedu on March 6, along with Justin Walker, the program’s executive director, at their panel, “Unleashing Kids’ Passion for Compassion.”
But the GGC program is about much more than academics. By integrating compassion into students’ every day learning, Helson and her colleagues hope that kids will want to give back to their communities through charitable initiatives and become active, engaged members of society for the rest of their lives. In short, they’ll be their own superheroes. “It’s not about going out and saving the world,” Helson says. “It’s about learning how to make that connection on a daily basis. If everyone does their part, then it doesn’t require a few people doing a lot every day. We can all work together to feel empowered and know that we can make a difference.”
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