From the White House to Diane Ravitch: A whirlwind week for Parents United
The past few weeks have been kind of a whirlwind as a host of events converged around our Parents United work seemingly all at once. I thought I’d share a few thoughts about what it’s been like.
TEDx Philadelphia
(Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer)
By far one of the most intense experiences of my life was going on stage at TEDx Philadelphia at the beautiful Temple Performing Arts Center on March 28. TEDx is quite the production, and my fellow speakers were simply stunning. From the luminous Natalie Nixon who talked about seeing life through jazz, to talks on education from Science Leadership Academy student Nikki Adeli and YouthBuild Executive Director Simran Sidhu, to Austin Seraphin conveying the wonders of accessibility tools when you grow up blind, TEDx was a tribute to the creativity, vitality and energy of so many of our city’s best denizens. I have to say that I struggled mightily in this context, not the least of which is that I decided to largely forego a slide show and do a talk about collective values which engage us around our schools. I spoke about public spaces and collective responsibility for preserving, fighting for and uplifting our public schools despite their struggles. I also realized that when you don’t have slides, you end up on stage in front of 1200 people, 18 minutes on the clock and just your voice and ideas. Not sure I would entirely recommend that approach unless you’re someone like Bryan Stevenson, but I have to thank the entire TEDx audience and organizers for giving me the opportunity and space to try. You can catch all