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.

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.

A year after being released in theaters, American Teacher (co-produced by education speaker Ninive Calegari and Dave Eggers, narrated by Matt Damon, and directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth) is still gaining traction. Calegari will present the film three times this month alone: first at the AFI Silver Theatre in Maryland on October 12, then again at the Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma, California on October 18 and finally, at the Foreign Language Association of Northern California Conference at the San Francisco State University on October 26. More details about upcoming screenings can be found on The Teacher Salary Project website.

We’d like to welcome our newest speaker Paul Tough to The Lavin Agency. Tough is the author of The New York Times bestseller How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiousity and the Hidden Power of Character, as well as Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. InHow Children Succeed,Tough argues that character—traits and skills such as curiosity, grit, perseverance, and self-control—matter just as much as intelligence as predictors of a child’s academic success.

Here’s a preview of Reza Aslan (founder of Aslan Media) and Jessica Jackley’s (co-founder of KIVA) new talk, The Promise and Perils of Social Media:

Reza Aslan and Jessica Jackley know all about the social web’s remarkable ability to build communities and incite social change. As the founder of Aslan Media, which is altering perceptions of the Arab world through traditional and online entertainment, Aslan has traced the impact of social media in the Middle East. As the co-founder of KIVA, the world’s largest microlending website, Jackley has harnessed the power of one-to-one relationships to triumph over bureaucratic lending models. Together, this husband and wife team explains how social media has irrevocably changed the world, and explores the future of online collaboration. How has social media gone from simple news gathering to revolutionizing the concept of community? What changes must our institutions make—from government to business to education—in order to catch up to our new web-based society? And what can an individual do to ensure that social media reaches its full potential as a force for global change?

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta profiles exclusive Lavin speaker Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, on yesterday’s 60 Minutes.With the backing of Bill Gates and Google, the Khan Academy and its free online educational videos are moving into the classroom and across the world. Their goal: to revolutionize how we teach and learn.

Happy Johnson, the founder of Blanket Haiti, talks about the power of education, and shares his story of how he came from foster homes and ended up in College.