Walt Cochran, a teacher in Kansas City, shared this touching video with us for Education Week about his children — one disabled, one not — who make you think about the depth of the sibling relationship. Lindsay, 10, suffers from a form of Muscular Dystrophy called Spinal Muscular Atrophy and has been in a wheelchair since she was 2 years old. Meanwhile her older brother Trent, 12, sees his role as not just protective older brother, but as an ambassador to remind others that kids with disabilities can do anything they put their mind to with the help of technology and support of loving relationships. Really, we dare you not to shed a tear while watching this.

This video feels especially relevant today given a comment we noticed on John Legend’s performance of “True Colors,” from Caroline Playle, who gave a talk at TEDxKingsCollege. She writes, “This just made me cry. My 5 year old son has Down’s Syndrome and attends a mainstream school. The teachers and assistants have been amazing and he has lots of friends. Little people see a person — not a syndrome — and really do see my son’s true colours and strengths shining through. I hope through inclusion, both at school and within communities, we can breed a new generation of acceptance.”

Watch Legend’s performance below:

Timothy Bartik: The economic case for preschool“Early childhood education can bring more and better jobs to a state and can thereby promote higher per-capita earnings for the state’s residents,” says Bartik in this talk, given ay TEDxMiamiUniversity in Ohio. “When legislatures and others think about economic development, what they first of all think about are business tax incentives. Early childhood programs can do the exact same thing.”

To hear exactly how it works, listen to this talk. His fresh perspective moves the topic of improving schools away from the altruistic “wouldn’t it be nice if…” level. In fact, it forces us to ask not “How can I get a good education for my kids?” but “How can I get a good education for everyone else’s kids?” It’s a shift in thinking — one that reframes the discussion about education reform.

The TEDx program, with its global reach, is privileged to have a unique perspective on education. Below, watch five TEDx Talks (and one bonus TED Talk) that explore some of the social, economic and political implications of guaranteeing good schools.

The impact desegregation had on schools: Rucker Johnson at TEDxMiamiUniversity
As schools were desegregated in the 1950s and 1960s, opponents feared that embracing students from low-performing, all-black schools would lower standards and unfairly disrupt white students’ performances. It’s been 60 years — were they right? No. As Rucker Johnson shows with his extensive research, desegregation had virtually no effect on white students, but propelled minority students to unprecedented levels of success.

No more easy answers: Adrián Paenza at TEDxJoven@RiodelaPlata
All too often, school lessons set concrete problems with clean answers. Which, suggests Adrián Paenza, can limit students’ creative problem-solving abilities. But perhaps more importantly, it can engender arrogance — setting classist expectations for the answers everyone ought to know. With humor and a few touching stories, he looks at some of the effects that unequal educational opportunities have on society. (In Spanish with English subtitles.)

Don’t mistake a dialect for a disorder: Sade Wilson at TEDxEMU
African American Vernacular English is a common dialect in the US. It’s not bad English, yet kids who grow up speaking it at home are too often misdiagnosed with speech and learning disabilities by teachers who either don’t recognize the dialect or give tests in their own dialect of English. At TEDxEMU, speech pathologist Sade Wilson sheds light on the issue and makes six recommendations to improve how teachers work with students who speak a dialect.

Where’s the R&D for better schools? Jim Shelton at TEDxMidAtlantic
If education is an essential social good, shouldn’t we make a bigger effort to figure out what’s worth investing in and what’s not? Governments invest in education, and governments invest in research, but according to Jim Shelton, many countries don’t invest much in education research. In this talk from TEDxMidAtlantic, he calls for expanding public investment into the research and development of new education practices and platforms.

A girl who demanded school: Kakenya Ntaiya at TEDxMidAtlantic
Kakenya Ntaiya made an unusual deal with her father in order to go to high school – something unheard-of for girls in her Maasai village. After continuing on to college in the US., Ntaiya returned to her village and set up a school for girls. In this talk, she shows how the school is changing the local culture by creating an alternative path for girls uninterested in marriage in their early teens.

Teaching design for change: Emily Pilloton at TEDGlobal 2010
And now for a TED Talk with a similar theme: Bertie County was known for being the poorest region of North Carolina. In this talk, Emily Pilloton suggests that teaching design in school may be key to lifting the entire area. By giving students the tools to dream up and fabricate real projects for the community good, Bertie County got bus shelters and a farmer’s market – while students got paying summer jobs.

In this new playlist, Robinson selects 10 talks about education that he finds both inspiring and insightful. His list, given in no particular order, contains talks from Alison Gopnik on what babies think, TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra on his vision for a School in the Cloud, and Shane Koyczan on the ways bullying sticks with us. Check out the full list of talks here »

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built to illuminate ideas in context. A new playlist is added every week. We hope you enjoy this installment.

Rita Pierson and Sir Ken Robinson both give incredible talks in the PBS special TED Talks Education. Photo: Ryan Lash

As the daughter and granddaughter of educators, teaching is in Rita Pierson’s blood. In this talk — Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion a teaser of next Tuesday’s TED Talks Education on PBS — Pierson is going to make you wish you had been lucky enough to be her student. Pierson believes deeply in forming strong bonds with her students: through simple things like apologizing, laughing and just acknowledging their successes, even in times when they are technically failing.

Pierson challenges other teachers to understand the power of relationships. And this week’s TED Weekends on the Huffington Post explores the influence of connections in the classroom. We are especially excited about this edition because it contains not only a beautiful essay from Pierson, but also an offering from the most-watched speaker on TED.com, Sir Ken Robinson, who also appear in TED Talks Education. Read excerpts of both amazing essays below.

Rita F. Pierson: This Will Make You Appreciate Your Elementary School Teacher

Teachers don’t make a lot of money. They are usually not deemed worthy of news coverage unless there is a scandal or a strike. Most of the time, their major accomplishments are shared only with colleagues and family members and not the media. The celebration is often cut short by some catastrophe the next day. Yet, in spite of the highs and lows, I cannot think of another profession that brings both joy and challenge on a daily basis.

In the spring of my career, I found myself questioning the choice of my life’s work. The students did not appear to be motivated, the paperwork was overwhelming and the constant change of educational direction was discouraging. But, I just could not seem bring myself to do anything else. “Next year”, I would say. “Next year I will switch jobs, make more money and have far less stress.”

Next year just never came. I am now in year 40. And while I am no longer in the classroom or at the schoolhouse, I remain an educator. It finally dawned on me that there was no other profession that would let me change children’s minds and have an impact on their future, long after the school day and school year were over. For every student that finally “got it,” for every rookie teacher that said, “you inspired me to stay,” I get the raise that never quite made it to my paycheck. Read more »

Sir Ken Robinson: Why We Need to Reform Education Now

What should America do about its disastrous high school dropout rate? That’s the focus of TED Talks Education, the first ever TED/PBS television special, hosted by John Legend, the award-winning musician. The program looks not only at what’s going wrong in high schools, but how to put it right. As it happens, the solution is not a mystery; but putting it into practice will involve a major shift in current policies.

In 1970, the U.S. had the highest rates of high school graduation in the world, now it has one of the lowest. According to the OECD, the overall U.S. graduation rate is now around 75 percent, which puts America 23rd out of 28 countries surveyed. In some communities the graduation rate is less than 50 percent. About 7,000 young people ‘drop out’ of the nation’s high schools every day, close to 1.5 million a year. The social and economic costs are enormous.

Research indicates that in general, high school graduates are more likely to find employment, to earn at higher levels and to pay more taxes than non-graduates. They’re more likely to go on to college or other learning programs. They’re more likely to engage positively in their communities and less likely to depend on social programs. It’s not true, of course, that pulling out of high school inevitably leads young people into trouble. Many high school ‘drop outs’ have gone on to have extraordinary, successful lives. What is true is that a very high proportion people who are long-term unemployed, homeless, on welfare or in the correctional system do not have high school diplomas. Read more »

Rita Pierson leads off TED Talks Education, our first televised event, which will air on PBS on May 7. Photo: Ryan Lash

Rita Pierson is the kind of teacher you wish you had. An educator for 40 years, she is funny, sharp and simply has a way with words — so much so that today’s talk feels a bit like a sermon.

Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a championIn this talk, Pierson shares the secret to teaching students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds — make personal connections with them.

“I have had classes so low, so academically deficient that I cried. I wondered, ‘How am I going to take this group in nine months from where they are to where they need to be?” says Pierson, in this amazing talk. “I came up with a bright idea … I gave them a saying: ‘I am somebody. I was somebody when I came and I’ll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here’ … You say it long enough, it starts to be a part of you.”

Pierson’s talk will open our first-ever television special, TED Talks Education, which airs Tuesday, May 7 at 10/9c on PBS. It will be an exhilarating night, featuring talks from educators and innovators with bold ideas, plus performances from host John Legend. Set your DVRs and read lots more here »

In honor of Rita Pierson and TED Talks Education, I asked the TED staff: who is that one teacher who just really, truly influenced you?

“The teacher who changed my life was, serendipitously, my English teacher for kindergarten, 7th grade and senior year of high school. Ms. Barbato taught me how to write eloquently (I hope!), and she had this unexplained faith in me that really galvanized me as a student. What she taught me stuck with me through college and beyond.” —Olivier Sherman, Distribution Coordinator

“Mr. Eric Yang was only in his mid-twenties when I had him as my AP government teacher, but he was unforgettable. He was the first teacher I had who made keeping up with current events mandatory, forcing us to read news sources on our own time and not just from the textbook. He exuded discipline, and that was contagious.” —Thu-Huong Ha, Editorial Projects Specialist

“Mrs. Bailey was my English teacher. I loved her. I was the younger sister of an already very successful big sister, and that was a cloud over my head too. She held my hand and brought me into the sun with her love of the English language. She recommended books just to me, she made me feel special and I just couldn’t get enough of her. I went on a school trip to Amsterdam with her and she brought her husband, who was an artist. She changed my life.” —Juliet Blake, TED TV (who executive produced TED Talks Education)

“Mrs. Mendelson, my 8th-grade English teacher. This was my first year living in the U.S. I think she set the stage for future learning and she’s the main reason I have such good English right now, both written and spoken. So, thank you, Mrs. Mendelson.”  —Ruben Marcos, intern

“I still recall how awesome my 6th-grade teacher, Mr. Fawess, was. Middle school in general is basically Hades. I was extremely small, super nerdy, and had a unibrow, asthma and glasses — plus I left school once a week to take classes at the local high school. I got picked on a lot. Mr. Fawess came up with all these ways to take my mind off that — he talked to me about bullying and how to let things roll off your shoulder and gave me books I could read outside of class. He got me thinking about college early and what kinds of subjects I was most interested in. I consider myself lucky to have had such an inspiring teacher. If only he had discouraged me from dressing up as the skunk in our annual school play.” —Amanda Ellis, TEDx Projects Coordinator

“Robert Baldwin’s class ‘Essay and Inquiry.’ Every day: Walk into class. Sit down. Look at the handout on every desk. Read it. Start writing. Class ends — stop writing. Every day. Except Wednesday, when we’d put the desks in a circle and everyone would read something they’d written. The prompts were everything from simple questions like, “What’s your favorite memory of trees?” to readings from Rachel Carson or W.B. Yeats or Orson Welles. It was a whirlwind of ideas, and the constant writing forced us to wrestle with them, and (tritely but correctly) ourselves. It was like a boot camp in thinking. People I know who took, and loved, that class went on to some of the most amazing careers. Every time we get together, we gush about the quiet, unassuming, force of nature that was Mr. Baldwin. He would have hated that last sentence, because the metaphor is strained. But he also taught us to ignore authority, so I’m writing it anyway.” —Ben Lillie, Writer/Editor

“Mrs. Lewis, my 5th-grade teacher, read to us every week. She made us put our heads on the desk and close our eyes and then read wonderful stories to us: The Golden Pine Cone, The Diamond Feather ... It made our imaginations come alive.” —Janet McCartney, Director of Events

“My junior high school science teacher, Dr. Ernie Roy, with his outsized laugh and booming voice, was one of my very favorite teachers. He demonstrated to us how important we were to him by making what were obviously personal sacrifices on our behalf: when the lab needed equipment, we knew he had purchased some of it on his own; when we couldn’t get a bus for a field trip, he took a few of us in his own car (something which could have gotten him into quite a bit of trouble); and when a big science fair deadline loomed large, he opened the lab every weekend to help us with our experiments. At a point in my life when I didn’t have a lot of guidance or positive role models, he taught me a lot more than science; he taught me, by example, the power of sacrifice, discipline and self-respect.” —Michael McWatters, UX Architect

“Dr. Heller, my 10th-grade social studies teacher, taught me that passion is the key to learning. I had never met anyone from kindergarten to 10th grade that matched his raw passion for the meaning behind historical events, and it was so contagious.” —Deron Triff, Director of Distribution

“Rene Arcilla, a professor of Educational Philosophy at NYU, changed the way I think.  Prior to that class, I hadn’t truly been challenged about what *I* actually thought — much of my educational life was about regurgitating answers. Rene was the first teacher who asked me questions that he/we didn’t know the answers to. Realizing that I had to actually provide the answers from within myself, and not look to an outside source, was very difficult at first. It was a muscle I had to build. I owe a lot of who I am today — and even this job — to the introspective, critical and philosophical thinking I learned from Rene’s classes.” —Susan Zimmerman, Executive Assistant to the Curator

“Mr. Downey — 7th- and 8th-grade Humanities. Still the hardest class I’ve ever taken!  I’d credit Mr. Downey with helping me think more expansively about the world. Right before 8th-grade graduation, he showed us Dead Poets Society, and on the final day of class we all agreed to stand on our desks and recite ‘O Captain, my captain.’ It was all very dramatic and I think there were tears.” —Jennifer Gilhooley, Partnership Development

“I took my first painting class my sophomore year of high school and fell in love with it. My teacher, Ms. Bowen, told me I could use the art studio whenever I wanted to, and gave me access to all kinds of new paints and canvasses. I spent almost every lunch period there for a few years, and regularly stayed in the studio after school ended. One day, Ms. Bowen told me that a parent of a student I had painted expressed interest in buying the painting of her daughter. After that first sale, I painted portraits of kids in my school on a commission basis, and continued to do so for the remainder of my high school experience. Thanks to Ms. Bowen’s mentorship, I felt empowered to try to make money from something I was passionate about and loved to do. Here is one of the paintings.” —Cloe Shasha, TED Projects Coordinator

“I had a chemistry teacher, Mr. Sampson, who used to meet me at school an hour before it started to tutor me when the material wasn’t clicking. That was the first class I had ever really struggled with, and he made this investment to help me get through the material — but more importantly learn that I could teach myself anything.” —Stephanie Kent, Special Projects

“On the first day of my Elementary Italian Immersion class, I asked to be excused to use the restroom in English. Professor Agostini kept speaking rapidly in Italian as I squirmed in my seat. Since she seemed unclear about my request, I asked her again to no avail. Finally, I flipped through my brand-new Italian-English dictionary and discovered the words, ‘Posso usare il bagno per favore.’ Suddenly, she flashed me a smile, handed me the key, told me where to go in Italian, and pointed to my dictionary so I could learn how to follow her directions. Even though I only studied with her for one semester, I will never forget that I emerged from her class knowing intermediate-level Italian.” —Jamia Wilson, TED Prize Storyteller

“My history teacher in high school, Mr. Cook, challenged us to think hard about what happened in the past and directly related it to what was happening around us. He gave us ways to try and predict what could happen in the future. He was the first person to make me take ownership of what it meant to be a citizen and the social responsibility that came with that. Because he taught ‘World History’ rather than a regionally specific class, we learned extensively about other countries, and I am convinced he is the reason that I went abroad to Ghana in college and I am now still an avid traveler today.” —Samantha Kelly, Fellows Group

“The professor who taught me Intro to Women and Gender Studies my sophomore year of college completely changed my framework for thinking about human relationships within a hierarchy. She brought coffee and tea to class for us every morning to congratulate us for being so dedicated to learning as to choose an 8:30 a.m. class. When I emailed her to say I’d be out sick, she sent me a get-well e-card. And when, in a fit of undergraduate irresponsibility, I simply failed to do an assignment, she wasn’t the least bit mad — instead, I received a phone call from her a week after the end of the semester informing me that, because I’d done such good work, she couldn’t bear to give me the B+ I numerically deserved. It was incredible to see how fully she lived the subject she taught; the philosophy of compassion and equality.” —Morton Bast, Editorial Assistant

“My high school photography teacher, Susan Now. I’m convinced that the support I got from Susan got me through high school. Two years later, when I was freaked out about transferring colleges, I, without hesitation, called her for advice. She made me feel comfortable and challenged me to speak up and be confident with expressing myself as a student. So valuable!” — Ella Saunders-Crivello, Partnerships Coordinator

“Cliff Simon, one of my college professors, taught me that wisdom is the greatest pursuit, our skills and passions are transferable, and that fear will only ever always hold us back.  To this day, he’s a great mentor.  We’re now great friends, and I even officiated his wedding ceremony.” —Jordan Reeves, TED-Ed Community Manager

“My 10th-grade biology teacher spoke and interacted with me like I was a grown-up individual and not one of a batch of ‘kids.’ He made us all fascinated with the subjects he taught because he spoke to us not at us. I always worked hard to match that capacity that he saw in me. He was only in his 50s when, a few years after I graduated, he died suddenly of a heart attack. Lots of sad former students.” —Ladan Wise, Product Development Manager

“Stephen O’Leary, my professor and mentor at the University of Southern California, showed me that the quality of my thinking could be directly traced to the quality of the authors I referenced in my bibliography. This realization motivated me to both seek and challenge everything I have read ever since. This habit likely played a part in me finding myself so passionate about being a part of TED.” —Sarah Shewey, TEDActive Program Producer

“My high school art teacher was equal parts smart and silly, and always insightful. Mr. Miller showed a bunch of restless seniors that art class wasn’t just about memorizing which painters influenced which periods. Instead, he taught us that art was — at its core — an exciting way to touch both the head and the heart. Mr. Miller took our  class to the Met in New York one warm spring afternoon, a trip I’ll never forget. Great art, he told us, was about great ideas, and not simply the pleasing arrangement of color, shape and form. Thank you, Russ Miller.” —Jim Daly, TED Books 

“Mrs. Presley, my 1st-grade teacher, advanced my reading skills to full-on chapter book independence … and for that I’ll be forever grateful! But the most valuable gift she gave me was self-esteem. At my school, we’d bring a brown bag lunch with our name written on the bag. I always wanted a middle name like the other kids, and this daily ritual made me feel the lack. I must have let my mom know, because she started to write middle names on my bag. At first it started: ‘Marla Ruby Mitchnick.’ Then ‘Marla Ruby Diamond Mitchnick,’ and then ‘Marla Ruby Diamond Violet Mitchnick,’ and so on. Mrs. Presley never skipped a single syllable — she just read it straight through, and I felt like a beloved and fortunate person with a beautiful name, surrounded by wonderful friends.” —Marla Mitchnick, Film + Video Editor

“I signed up for Journalism 1 in high school having no idea what I was getting myself into. Marcie Pachino ran a rigorous course on the joys of telling other people’s stories and on the extreme responsibility that comes with reporting news that might otherwise go unheard. She was kind and inspiring, but wouldn’t hesitate to give you an edit of an article that simply read ‘Ugh’ in big red letters. The key: you always knew she was right. I went on to become a journalist professionally and, in all my years of writing, I’ve never encountered a more demanding editor.” —Kate Torgovnick, Writer (the author of this post)

“Professor Stephen Commins completely changed my  learning experience at UCLA. He pushed the boundaries of what I thought I could accomplish as an undergrad, and having him as my research professor improved my quality of education tenfold. I’ll never forget in my last lecture with him, he left our class with this piece of advice: to work on poverty domestically before attempting to help those abroad, because you aren’t truly a development professional until you have done both.” —Chiara Baldanza, Coordinator

“My high school English teacher Veronica Stephenson went above and beyond to allow me the opportunity to dive into theater and acting in a very underfunded arts community. She saw passion in me, and engaged it by spending a lot of her own time and effort to help me pursue something I loved. I learned so much from her and got more personalized experience than I probably would have from a more arts-focused curriculum due solely to her faith in me.” —Emilie Soffe, Office Coordinator

Now it’s your turn. Who is the teacher who most inspired you? Please share in your comments.

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built for you in a thoughtful sequence to illuminate ideas in context. This weekend, a new playlist is available: TED for kids.

Not at all TED Talks are appropriate for elementary and middle schooers. But these 9 talks — filled with information presented in fun ways — is perfect for curious kids. David Gallo takes you into the world under water, Arthur Benjamin performs mathematical mental feats, LXD dancers bend in truly weird ways.

Watch the “TED for kids” playlist »

Shane Koyczan: "To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful “I’ve been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself,” he says, beginning today’s talk. “That’s what we were told—stand up for yourself. But that’s hard to do if you don’t know who you are.”

Koyczan appeared on the TED2013 stage just a week after his spoken-word poem, “To This Day,” went viral as a crowd-animated video. Live onstage, mixing poetry and prose, Koyczan explains to the audience what prompted to him to write the poem, an ode to anyone who felt bullied or left out as a child, and have it animated by people around the world. Koyczan says it wasn’t just overt bullying he was reacting to — but the subtle discouragement kids receive along the path to adulthood, as they’re required to define themselves in narrower and narrower ways.

“At the same time as we were being told who we were, we were being asked, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’” Koyczan’s answers were: a writer, then a professional wrestler. Both ideas were shot down.

“What made my dreams so easy to dismiss?” he asks. “Granted my dreams are shy, because they’re Canadian. My dreams are self-conscious and overly apologetic—they’re standing alone at the high school dance and they’ve never been kissed. See, my dreams got called names too — silly, foolish, impossible.”

To hear more of Koyczan’s motivation, and to hear a beautiful live rendition of “To This Day,” watch this talk. For more of Koyczan’s poems, read on.

A proud Canuck, Koyczan wrote the poem “We Are More” for the Canadian Tourism Commission. He even performed it at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, for a television audience of more than 1 billion people. “We’re more than hockey and fishing lines/ off the rocky coast of the Maritimes/ some say what defines us/ is something as simple as please and thank you,” spits Koyczan in this poem. “But we are more than genteel or civilized/ we are an idea in the process of being realized.” See a version of the poem with visuals.

Koyczan got some help in sharing these “Instructions for a Bad Day” from a group of students at G.P. Vanier secondary school in British Columbia. They wrote the storyboard for the video, handled the cameras, did the acting and collected the props. The piece was created for Pink Shirt Day — a national day devoted to the discussion of bullying.

Here, Koyczan performs “The Crickets Have Arthritis” at Words Aloud in 2007. A heartbreaking love letter to his 9-year-old hospital roommate, Louis, the poem begins, “It doesn’t matter why I was there, where the air is sterile and the sheets sting. It doesn’t matter that I was hooked up to this thing that buzzed and beeped every time my heart leaped like a man whose faith tells him God’s hands are big enough to catch an airplane, or a world.”

Yes, Koyczan does on occasion write love poems. Here is “More Often Than Sometimes,” in a new video produced by Amazing Factory Productions and posted just two weeks ago as part of the Giants of the Forest series. “I think of her more often than sometimes/ If she ever hears this/ I want her to know that/ Our first kiss tasted like pepper,” he says. “We loved like two games of solitaire/ Waiting to be played by one another.”

In January, during an event to mark the closing of the Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver after 63 years, Koyczan performs the poem “Remember How We Forgot.” His words are beautifully backed, as they were on the TED stage, by violinist Hannah Epperson. “Once upon a time we were young/ our dreams hung like apples waiting to be picked and peeled,” flows Koyczan.

The words that begin the poem “Atlantis,” performed here at Words Aloud in 2007, may just get you: “Your entire body shakes when you laugh/ as if your sense was built on a fault line/ and the coast of your heart falls into the ocean of yourself/ and you’re left looking for Atlantis.”

Here, Koyczan’s poem “Educate the Heart,” created for the Dalai Lama Center. In a video about writing the poem, Koyczan stops reciting and talks boldly about how our culture values the wrong things. “Somewhere along the way we got very invested in things that don’t care about us,” says Koyczan. “Money doesn’t love you. Your car isn’t going to sit down and hold your hand if your kid is sick.”

Want more from this poet? Subscribe to get a new poem from Koyczan every week »

Bahia Shehab’s latest work on the streets of Cairo memorialize 51 children killed in a school bus crash. In this image, three brothers have a conversation. Child 1: “They still didn’t get the lesson.” Child 2: “NO.” Child 3: “It’s OK, repetition is the best teacher.”

On November 17, 2012, in a village in Assuit-Egypt, a train crashed into a school bus killing 51 children. These kinds of accidents have always been brushed aside as random acts of chance. The minister of transportation resigned as a result, and the families of the children were compensated financially. There was a huge public outcry … but eventually these children were forgotten.

But the details of this accident that circulated on social networks were still very vivid in my mind. A video of a regretful father who, when asked the last thing he said to his son before he got on the bus, cried bitterly and said that he hit his son so that he would not miss the bus. Another video showed a girl, only nine years of age — one of the survivors — saying calmly on TV to the government, “You are all dogs.” A note circulated commenting on the price paid by the government to each family and comparing it to other more expensive items, like an iPhone or the front light of a Mercedes Benz. The image of the children wrapped in their shrouds. The cries of the mothers who lost 2 or 3 or 4 children in that accident — one of them has been admitted to a psychiatric ward. And finally a list of the dead children’s names.

In this image, the girl says: “I went to heaven and they are all going to hell.” It’s on the burnt building of the ex-ruling National Party in Downtown Cairo.

All the other details were very painful to me, but the list of names just locked the deal in my head. I wanted to paint these children. To me these children were killed by a corrupt system of governance. We started a revolution so that accidents like this would not happen again. I wanted to bring the children back to life.

I collected the names of the children and grouped them into boys, girls and families. I wanted to paint the sisters and brothers who died together — so that they could come to life again on the streets of Cairo, together. I painted each child walking on a train railway. They are painted in black but their wishes and dreams are painted in color.

This girl says: “I wish I grew up to be a princess.” The green plate reads: “Land owned by Princess Nora al-Saud, Giza-Cairo.”

On the 25th of January, 2013, I started painting the children of Assuit on the walls of Cairo. Some of them appear alone to ask a question, like “ I wish I grew up to be a princess” or “ I could have grown up to be a policeman or a scientist.” A sister calms her brother with a lullaby near a bus stop. The lullaby reads, “Mother is on the way” and her brother asks her, “Soon?” A little girl states that she has died and gone to heaven but they (meaning the responsible ones) are all going to hell. But my favorite is on a barrier wall in downtown Cairo. I painted 8 children playing hide and seek.

Child 1: Khalawees (Are you done? Did you hide?)

Child 2: Not yet.

Child 3: Has the revolution succeeded?

Child 4: Not yet.

Child 5: Did we get the rights of the martyrs?

Child 6: Not yet.

Child 7: Has Egypt become heaven on Earth?

Child 8: Not yet.

The first wall Shehab sprayed in front of the Ministry of Interior, with her series “A thousand times No.”

This barrier wall has a very special story for me. It was the first wall I ever covered with my “A thousand times No” series on February 15, 2012. Another group of artists came on March 15 and painted the street perspective with a very special character, Hanzala, added to the wall as part of a campaign called “There are no walls.” The artists painted the street and pretended that there was no wall — they danced and they sang.

This same wall, painted by other artists to look as if it weren’t there.

When I came back on January 25, even though artists pretended that there was no wall, the walls were still there. So I decided to add the children with Hanzala, with their questions and their dreams.

The children of Assuit will keep appearing on the streets of Cairo, as the conscience of an ongoing revolution, so that we all remember why we went down to the streets and why are we still going down to the streets until today.

In dialogue with the other artists, who put only Hanzala on the street, Shehab painted eight children on the wall.

Patton put the question to the girls themselves. And they came up with a fascinating concept — a father-daughter dance. The dance was such a hit the first time around that Camp Diva decided to make it an annual event. But as they started planning the dance a year later, Patton ran into a glitch — one of her camper’s fathers was in jail and wouldn’t be able to attend.

As Patton shares in today’s talk, filmed at TEDxWomen, another girl in the group had a bold idea.

“She suggested, ’Why don’t we just take the dance to the jail?’” recalls Patton. “Most of the other girls doubted the possibility of that. They said, ‘Are you crazy? Who is going to allow a bunch of little girls, dressed up, to come inside a jail and dance with their daddies?’”

Luckily, Patton found someone crazy enough to allow this — Richmond City Sheriff C.T. Woody.

“He is a very special sheriff,” explains Patton. “He contacted me immediately and said that whenever there is an opportunity to bring families inside, his doors are always open. One thing he knows is that when fathers are connected to their children, it is less likely that they will return.”

And so, a father-daughter dance was held in the Richmond City Jail with 16 inmates and 18 daughters invited.

“The girls were dressed in their Sunday best. The fathers traded in their yellow and blue jumpsuits for shirt and ties. They hugged … they laughed together,” remembers Patton. “It was beautiful. The fathers and daughters experienced the opportunity to have a physical connection … [The fathers could] extend their hand for a dance. Even the guards cried.”

Patton hopes this evening will create permanent change for these families.

“We have created a forum for girls who have heavy questions on their heart to be in a position to ask their fathers those questions, and given the fathers the freedom to answer,” says Patton. “A father who is locked in should not be locked out of his daughter’s life.”

To hear more about this incredible dance, and the wonderful ideas Patton and her girls had for continuing the father-daughter bonding, watch today’s talk. And after the jump, check out some photos taken at this unique dance.

In a room inside the Richmond City Jail, the girls wait for the dance to begin. Because several of them had their ride fall through, a lieutenant colonel at the jail went to pick them up himself.

As soon as the dance began, all 16 inmates and their daughters took to the dance floor.

This father invited his twin daughters to the dance. Here, he holds one of them as the group gets a salsa lesson.

9-year-old De’Brianna Richardson poses for a photo with her father, Faiz Lawton, who was in jail for auto theft-grand larceny. Lawton tells Richmond Magazine that the best part of the dance was, “Just being able to embrace [De’Brianna]. Being able to hug her, hold her, squeeze her, kiss her, talk to her closely, share a meal with her.”

All of the father-daughter pairs at the dance got to borrow FlipCams, allowing them to record video messages for each other.

A father-daughter pair cut a rug on the dance floor. Because his daughter did not get to the dance until late, this father was worried she wouldn’t show at all. In addition to dancing, the fathers held a contest where they made up rhymes about their daughters on the spot.

Lin’Asia Harris hugs her father, Linwood Harris, who was serving 90 days for failure to pay child support. Harris was released shortly after the dance and told Richmond Magazine, “She knows from her heart that I’m not a bad person.”

The dance wrapped with the fathers and daughters dancing to Luther Vandross’ “Dance with My Father.” As the daughters left the Richmond City Jail, they exchanged journals with their fathers, each book full of messages for the other to read when they felt distant.

Photos by Jay Paul Photography and Angela Patton.

Years ago, Steven Addis’s wife photographed him holding their 1-year-old daughter on the corner of 57 Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. On her second birthday, the family happened to be back in the city, so headed to the same corner for daddy-daughter photo, round two. The next year, Addis brought his daughter back to New York — on purpose, this time — to take the same photograph.

This annual ritual is now 15 years strong. And in today’s talk, filmed at TED2012, Addis shares his “15 most treasured photos,” all but the first two snapped by strangers he handed his camera to. The most recent image drew big laughs from the TED audience, as Addis is holding his now-teenaged daughter in his arms. She appears to be nearly his height.

“These photos are far more than proxies for a single moment or even a specific trip,” Addis says. “They are also ways for us to freeze time for one week in October and reflect on time and how we change from year to year—and not just physically, but in every way. Because while we take the same photo, our perspectives change.”

Addis’s hope in sharing this metamorphosis through photographs is to encourage others to take “an active role in consciously creating memories.”

To see Addis’ father-daughter photo series, watch his moving talk.  And below, a look at others who are realizing the power of the same image repeated over time in impressive, funny and meaningful time-lapse projects.

1. When he turned 30, Cesar Kuriyama decided to start filming one second every single day. The cut-together snippets show adventure, boredom, illness, nature, coffee, computers — that is, life, alternately exciting and mundane. Kuriyama gave the talk “Filming one second every day” at TED2012 about this now lifelong project.

Recently, Kuriyama has been working on a 1 Second Everyday App. This month, he took to Kickstarter to fund it. With over a week to go, the project already has twice the amount Kuriyama needed to get the app off the ground. Read the TED Blog’s Q&A with Kuriyama about why he decided to create the app, so others could film their lives too.

2. In a similar (and similarly beautiful) project, Dutch filmmaker and artist Frans Hofmeester filmed his daughter, Lotte, every day from birth to age 12. They do grow up fast—in under three minutes, in this case.

3. Last week, the New York Times’s Op-Docs team put out a video chronicling a day in the life of a piano on a street in New York City’s Washington Heights. This short film, by Anthony Sherin, has a gripping narrative arc—and inspires an unusual degree of empathy toward the piano, a.k.a. an inanimate object. (Spoiler: get out some tissues.)

4. And now for something completely different: this exuberant video of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is not just another cityscape time-lapse, argues Mashable: it “may just take the genre to a whole new level,” using “quick cuts, neck-twisting camera angles and a pumped up soundtrack to mesmerizing effect.” You may be inspired to visit, or at least to go party at a nightclub.

5. Still have that box of tissues handy? This video of the Milky Way, shot during May evenings in South Dakota, is the kind of majestic footage that makes you reflect on your place in the world. The videographer, Randy Halverson, has made a number of other time-lapse videos as well.

6. For the past 30 years, a family in China has held a photo ritual that is strikingly similar to Addis’. On Father’s Day, 31-year-old daughter Zhao Meng Meng posted on Weibo images of herself with her father, one taken every of year of her life. The amazing images quickly went viral.