Richard Close & Joni Schwartz shared some appalling stats during their Techniques on How to Handle Poverty presentation. It is truly shocking to find out how much our educational system is failing young black men, that children in poverty are facing educational trauma and that our educational system is literally pushing these students out the school door. As Richard stated up front, "something is really broken". Reminds me of Jane McGonigal's line "reality is broken." Richard and Joni both demonstrated that there are pockets of hope and things that work, but challenge us all to figure out how we are going to "reverse the damage we've caused."
This conference keeps leading me back again and again to the idea that we've got to empower young people to take back their education. Richard showed how technology is really making that happen for kids in the "I am Africa, this is my story..." project as they figure out "flash learning" and realize through online collaboration that they are not alone. While Joni has shown that it really just takes one solid mentor to re-engage an educationally traumatized youth in learning.