From the beautiful Green School in Bali, to the inspiring Dharavi Art Room in Bombay, another recurring point of learning for me was around access. Educational access isn't a new concern in education, yet I haven't found it to be a priority in the design of many innovative and progressive models.

(Dharavi Art Room and the School in the Cloud/SOLE Colombia are great examples of programs designed to increase access, as is the sliding scale for tuition that some independent alternatives are implementing.)

Here is the "lesson" shared at AERO 2016 on this issue. Look forward to sharing the final two parts to this talk next week!

Over the past year, one theme that kept surfacing for me across visits was the importance of contextual factors in designing learning experiences and determining priorities.

Although the importance of context to inform our understanding may seem obvious with global comparisons (ie. a school in rural Uganda compared to a school in urban Toronto faces clearly different circumstances), contextual factors can play an important role for schools even within the same city.
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Two distinct schools in New York helped me to demonstrate this first lesson: Context Matters.

Here is a brief explanation shared at AERO2016:

I look forward to sharing lesson #2 next week!

Over the past year, I have been fortunate to dedicate much of my time to visiting innovative programs in several countries, collecting stories as Himanshu at Dharavi Art Room aptly put it. My intention was to engage with courageous trailblazers; to showcase their approaches; and to raise awareness of key educational challenges that are being addressed.

Recently, I summarized some of the lessons learned for a presentation at the AERO 2016 conference in Portland, Oregon. Over the next couple of weeks, I am pleased to share these with you, beginning with the Intro below.

I am grateful to everyone who has welcomed me and my mochila full of interview gear so far. To all my gracious hosts, educators, students and communities: THANK YOU for being willing to share your struggles, your hopes, and your dreams for education. You helped to shape a rich year of learning and creating for me.

I look forward to sharing the "lessons" from my talk, and more Educators Who Inspire as the journey (and the editing!) continue.