In this clip from a recent keynote, How Children Succeed author Paul Tough talks about the importance of grit as a personality trait, and explains why grit and other similar character traits are as important as IQ in determining a child’s development.

Here’s Mitchell Joachim, TED Fellow and urban designer, talking about his ONE Lab, which he hopes to turn into a “university without walls.”

Education speaker Ninive Calegari in Good Magazine.

A student review of Reza Aslan’s “Religion and Politics in the Middle East” class at Drew University.

Ninive Calegari and Dave Eggers’ 826 National provides free, one-on-one, teacher-aided writing workshops for public school students across the country. The program even collects the students’ work, and publishes them on their website. To see some of our favorites, click HERE.

Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn’s Significant Objects—the book documenting their project where professional writers penned stories about every day objects, then sold on eBay for more than they were originally worth—is being brought to the classroom. Kate Bernheimer, who contributed to the book and teaches at the University of Arizona, has recreated the project for her students.

TED Fellow Juliette LaMontagne’s Project Breaker looks to reinvent the traditional education system, and help aspiring youth better use their talents to create projects with real-world impacts.

Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed, recently appeared on NPR’s This American Life to discuss his breakthrough findings on childhood success. From This American Life:

Ira talks with Paul Tough, author of the new book How Children Succeed, about the traditional ways we measure ability and intelligence in American schools. They talk about the focus on cognitive abilities, conventional “book smarts.” They discuss the current emphasis on these kinds of skills in American education, and the emphasis standardized testing, and then turn our attention to a growing body of research that suggests we may be on the verge of a new approach to some of the biggest challenges facing American schools today. Paul Tough discusses how “non-cognitive skills” — qualities like tenacity, resilience, impulse control — are being viewed as increasingly vital in education.

TED Fellow Hakeem Oluseyi has dedicated his life to teaching science to those in underserved communities and developing countries. From his formative years in some of the poorest ghettos in the American south, to his current position as a member of a Nobel Prize-winning team of scientists at Stanford, Oluseyi is a testament to the transformative power of knowledge, and a master at turning complex ideas into simple explanations. In this video, he likens the evidence that supports the Big Bang to the stretching of a rubber band.

“Why [aren’t] we asking students to do more than learn about the problem? They need to be part of designing the solutions,” says TED Fellow Juliette LaMontagne in her TEDx talk. With her interdisciplinary education program Project Breaker, LaMontagne is redefining education, creating entrepreneurs, and designing change.