Mercedes Sanchez, Mirella Rodriguez, Lynn Fredericks, and Mari Strand Cary

By Lynn Fredericks, Founder and CEO, FamilyCook Productions

SxSW was an exciting new opportunity to engage with educators across the US and identify: 1) what was on their minds and 2) the type of programming they are seeking. Although FamilyCook’s primary mission is food-related behavior changes, we’ve won awards for our programming because of its strength in supporting human development –  at every age. Because igniting behavior change around diet and health is wound up with understanding what motivates human behavior in general, SxSW was an opportunity to hear from education experts and meet classroom teachers who have their pulse on how youth are best learning post-Covid and as screens and AI are ever prominent.

1. Early childhood is having a moment

No one was more excited than me when nearly 50 participants were arranged among round tables for our session “Nourishing Minds: the Power of Food in Early Learning.” Although on the face of it, there were fewer sessions focused on early childhood, attendees were present at the conference in strong numbers and very vocal. Participants posed excellent questions, curious to know specifics about the weekly ingredient changes  that make Nibble with Willow exciting to our youngest learners and understand more about how peer support plays into children’s acceptance of new foods.  An early childhood meet-up, “Building the Foundation: Early Childhood Professionals Unite,” hosted by Robin Hood was so well-attended, participants were spilling out of the room. The energy was literally bursting with topics people wanted to elevate to the group, from how to encourage more men as educators in early learning and exciting opportunities for early learning to happen outside of preschool classrooms. I was inspired! 

2. Educators are heavily AI curious

I don’t envy the SxSW organizers to try to anticipate how many people will attend various types of sessions and hence which room and format to provide.  Surprisingly, lots of interesting topics had much fewer attendees than one might expect. More unexpected, from my perspective at least, were the LINES to get into sessions that discussed opportunities for employing AI in education.  I anticipated from the session list that AI was a big topic, but I was not prepared for the lines to attend many of the AI themed sessions. When speaking to educators about AI, the resounding caution was “AI can be a great tool, let it help you but you still need to do the work to shape and verify the end product.”

3. Puppetry is not passé

When we conceived of Willow, our bunny character over 10 years ago, we were inspired by the cuddly nature of the bunny in the Velveteen Rabbit and Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit sneaking into Mr. McGreggor’s garden for some delicious veggies. Willow, our hand puppet and her Magical Garden apron, are about as far from being ‘high tech’ as you can get. Yet when the children call Willow to ‘wake up’ and emerge from her burrow each week, children are more awed and enraptured by Willow than any iPhone app or fantastical cartoon. And so the session on puppetry, “Puppets Are Tomorrow’s Playful Educators,” attracted a sizeable crowd. The puppets were much bigger and used more sophisticated and trained puppeteers, but the session included a ‘sock puppet’ character that was more Willow scale and equally transfixing. Adults and children alike respond to puppetry because it requires the use of one’s imagination. We may not be doing that enough in education these days, so I for one, want to make sure we emphasize that!

4. The Networking is Real @SxSW.EDU

Lynn Fredericks (third from left) and Linda Novick O’Keefe, CEO of Common Threads (far right)

Going to a new conference, you really need to get the ‘lay of the land’ your first time and see where the most value lies as an attendee. Apart from leading our amazing session where we were able to demonstrate what is magical about Nibble with Willow with participants taking on the role of children, it was the networking that makes SxSW.EDU worthwhile.