It’s the Sunday night after EduCon, and I’m exhausted. I’m not sure exhausted sums it up. I’m insanely bone-weary tired. But it’s a very good kind of tired. It may take me a day or two to look deeply at any one part of what happened, but I wanted to talk quickly about a few things.

For SLA, this weekend was such a powerful weekend where students and teachers saw themselves in the larger context of school reform. That’s such a wonderful gift that all those who came to EduCon or hung out in uStream chat rooms gave our kids. One of my students is already looking for ways to do a student conference where they talk about school reform.

And the other thing that struck me is that this conference was better than we ever could have hoped. The energy and excitement was incredible and inspiring, and perhaps that shouldn’t have been surprising. There were 75 members of the wikispace and 476 edits (and that’s not counting guests) in January alone. There were twitter posts, comments on blogs and Skype chats and calls with so many people to make this conference be what is was. So many of the people at the conference had a rightful sense of ownership and engagement in the success of this conference. And we’re no different than our kids — when we feel ownership, when we feel engaged, we work harder, do more, achieve greater heights. This conference belonged to all of us — we all planned it, wanted it, and we all had to show up with our A game to make it happen. And shouldn’t that tell us something about our schools?

There’s more to write about this, but my eyes are closing, and the morning will be here quicker than I’d like. Thank you to everyone who came, who uStreamed, who helped out this weekend. Thank you to all the facilitators and panelists who put together thoughtful and engaging sessions that dared people us all to think. Thank you to the SLA parents who came out and helped with registration and lunches and dinners — especially Anne Marie Sweeney who organized the parent participation and did so much incredible work. Thank you to my primary co-organizers, Marcie Hull and Kristin Hokanson. Thank you to David Jakes and Will Richardson who often were on the other end of phone calls and Skype calls as sounding boards. Thank you to SLA teachers Zac Chase and Tim Best who did tons and tons of work. Thank you to Franky St. Pierre who did everything in his power to solve every possible tech problem. Thank you to all the SLA teachers who put up with me throughout this process. Thank you to the SLA students who showed the world the amazing, thoughtful, brilliant, hard-working and kind kids that they are.

The energy of this weekend has to continue. There’s so much more for all all to do. And that’s my hope for EduCon… that it’s a weekend that restores us, energizes us, inspires us and reminds us of what we have to do for our kids as we continue in our journey to create schools that matter for all our kids. Sure, those are lofty goals, but why not?

"Never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change the world, in fact, it’s the only thing that ever has." — Margaret Mead

Thank you to everyone at EduCon for being part of a small group of committed individuals who want to change the world.

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