Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the latest celebration of TED-Ed Educator Talks at the TED Headquarters in NYC. For those who are unfamiliar, TED-Ed has created a cohort experience for educators to develop their own TED talks over the last couple of years, and it’s led to a lot of great speeches for educators across the field. A plethora of organizations – including EduColor – have gotten a chance to nominate and advocate for educators from their networks to contribute ideas that can build towards a TED talk. From there, organizations work with TED to elevate their “ideas worth spreading.”

I’ve had my own misgivings about TED over the years, but ultimately, I landed on one spot. Educators should have the opportunity to speak about an idea for about 15-20 minutes, without interruption. Just as academics, businesspeople, scientists, celebrities, and other luminaries have had.

At this point, I’ve already given two TED talks. My first on the definition of teacher voice gave me tons of confidence to pursue more opportunities to break our educational siloes. A few years later, in 2019, I gave another talk about educator voice in front of my then-boss Richard Carranza who, thankfully, appreciated it. Both took months to develop and practice. Both of these talks put me in rooms with educators across the world in ways I couldn’t do on my own. More importantly, it helped spur the idea in me that more of us could and should grow our imaginations for the world to see.

Now more than ever, we need more.

The critiques make sense on some level. Educator work usually looks best in dialogue. Not enough people think about what learning in community looks like. Some of the best learning we do isn’t when we’re alone, but when we’re wrestling out loud with an idea and hearing how others receive it. Even those of us who write need editors to help us communicate our ideas better. We also don’t want to give the impression that speaking ad nauseam for an extended period of time in front of an audience that’s compelled to be polite to you is authentic.

Yet, my experience suggests that the TED format for educators – and students – has real benefits. We have too many professional development sessions where educators (and I mean this to include principals, school counselors, etc.) listen to people who’ve barely taught tell them how to do their jobs. Some did it well, but others developed these sessions without empathy or nuance, but that’s been a not-so-subtle way of deprofessionalizing teaching in ways policymakers rarely realize. Usually, when people hear educators, they immediately disregard the feedback as “complaining,” in large part because of society’s perceptions of women and the teaching profession.

To wit, educators still have to advocate for PD done with them, not to them. The wrong kinds of interruptions can actually be a detriment to the flow necessary to build authentic learning experiences. And teachers, especially in the United States, get interrupted in all kinds and all the worst of ways.

For EduColor‘s part, we’ve already seen one of our members get their shine. Last week, two more shared their talks, and another is well on her way towards premiering hers next year. One of EduColor’s taglines is “Tomorrow, there will be more of us.” In advocating for more of us, we recognize that many of our best ideas come from people actually doing the work with their communities and giving the rest of the world feedback on it.

In this ever-evolving landscape for what we consider “media,” educators don’t have to cede their expertise or platforms for others. Thus, we get to talk back.

My Small and Non-Exhaustive TED Talk Playlist for You

Let me also share some of my favorite TED talks over the years:

1. Zarah Biabani, “The eco-creators helping the climate through social media.” A practical and concise talk about the ways young people mobilized around climate change at a time when people tried to squash the viability of social media to organize people. Spot on.
   
2. Bryan Stevenson, “We need to talk about an injustice.” He flips the formula of the typical TED talk to help us ground his definition of justice and why he does the work he does. I highly recommend.
   
3. Diana Laufenberg, “How to learn from mistakes.” Yes, I don’t just know her personally, but also there was a point when I heard this talk referenced in every education space for about three years. That says a lot.
   
4. Nemonte Nenquimo, “The forest is our teacher. It’s time to respect it.” This atypical TED talk captured my imagination because many people ignore indigenous folks’ calls to action.
   
5. Victor Rios, “Help for kids the education system ignores.” I recently saw this talk and thought it was a good rebuke to the notions of deficit thinking that our systems push onto students.
   
6. Jacqueline Woodson, “What reading slowly taught me about writing.” One of the best talks I’ve heard that pull you not just into Ms. Woodson’s process, but her shoes as she’s building a world for you.
   
7. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, “The search for the invisible matter that shapes the universe.” This talk makes invisible matter visible. That’s enough.
   
8. Richard Carranza, “Does your curriculum celebrate or suppress student perspectives?” He closed the event that I opened with a story about his twin brother that had the whole room emotional. To be this vulnerable in the midst of citywide attacks on him is remarkable.
   
9. Al Gore, “How to make radical climate action the new normal.” I was there for this one, too, and the way he presents massive sets of data into digestible bits of action needs to be studied.

Jose, who shares back and forward …