Four days of education-focused panel events, workshops and policy discussions culminated on a powerful note yesterday as SXSWedu hosted three keynote speakers who told stories of vulnerability, creativity and post-traumatic growth, and how these experiences can be applied to the classroom.

With over 25 million views, professor Brene Brown's TED Talk on the power of vulnerability is one of the top five most-viewed talks in the world. Her SXSWedu speech centered around "daring schools," and how educators can teach courage, vulnerability and the ability of empathy to kill shame. Audience members took to the internet to share Brown's inspiring words.









Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, a best-selling author and assistant professor at Harvard University, took to the stage to show the deep interconnection between creativity and social justice. According to Lewis, art transcends creative expression and can act as the driving force behind societal transformation. Lewis referenced Martin Luther King Jr., Louis Armstrong and Frederick Douglass, and how they used the arts to drive social change.







The conference concluded with inspirational speaker Roberto Rivera's speech on post-traumatic growth, or the idea that painful experiences can drive change. Roberto referenced his own past as a drug dealer, and his work in neighborhoods in Chicago with at-risk teens labeled as lost causes. Rivera uses hip-hop as a catalyst for demonstrating how unfortunate circumstances often lead to greatness.