3 Hours. 180 minutes.

That’s not a lot of time.

But given the right opportunity, the right people, and the right plan, that three hours can generate ideas, shift perspectives, initiate plans, and most importantly, catalyze action. Three hours can be a start.

The team of Diana Laufenberg, Andrew Marcinek and myself have submitted a proposal for SXSWedu to take those three hours and help teachers design learning experiences that focus on developing citizenship skills. Recent events across the world, ranging from terrorism to the discourse associated with the political elections in the United States, have changed how people view each other and how they interact. And a lot of it is not good. We think education has an opportunity to address this and a responsibility to do so. We want to help.

Our proposal, entitled “Designing the Citizen School Experience” will focus on creating student experiences that promote a wider range of empathy, tolerance, openness and acceptance between people. We’ll explore the design thinking process as a way to create those experiences, and we’ll challenge our workshop participants to develop the skills required to create student learning experiences that address the development of meaningful and contributory citizenship.

So, as you might expect, there is a great deal of competition from equally worthwhile sessions. If you think this is an important topic, and believe that education has the capacity to look forward, to see new conditions for what it means to be a citizen of a globally connected world, and to offer a long-term solution for seeking something better for all, we’d appreciate it if you would consider casting a vote for our session.

You can watch our video and learn more about the session here. You’ll need to register for an account to be able to vote.

Our thanks, and we hope to see you at SXSWedu.