How can we create an education system that works for kids, instead of against them? Watch eight inspiring talks from TED's May 2013 PBS special, given in their entirety.

Education legend Sir Ken Robinson picked the talks he loves — all full of insight, bright ideas and, of course, creativity.

2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra is an educator who helps kids learn to teach themselves. Here are 5 talks that align with his vision of education's future.

Learning doesn't end when you throw your graduation cap in the air. These talks celebrate education beyond the classroom.

Better education for generations to come means a brighter future for us all. These TED speakers have some great ideas for how we can solve our current education crisis.

Here's what can happen when we bring education online ... and open it up to anyone.

You probably didn't learn this in sex education...

Nadia Lopez is the founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy, where she is showing the world how underprivileged communities can beat the odds and create positive institutions that have a global impact.

All over the world, there's growing consensus that our education systems are broken. These educators share big ideas on how we might re-imagine school.

In far too many countries around the world, an education is not a given for girls. These moving talks are from those facing great risk to change that.

Through blended courses Anant Agarwal is pairing online education with face-to-face student-faculty interactions, reshaping the university campus experience.

Stressed about what you want to study? Let these guide you down a path of inspiration and passion in fields from mathematics to space archaeology.

Diane Wolk-Rogers has been a Florida public school teacher for more than three decades.

As a high school chemistry teacher, Ramsey Musallam expands curiosity in the classroom through multimedia and new technology.

Inspired by Mister Rogers, Sara DeWitt strives to make every child feel special by charting the forefront of new digital mediums where kids spend their time.

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world's biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them. (And see the Q&A on the TED Blog.)

Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.

Rita F. Pierson spent her entire life in or around the classroom, having followed both her parents and grandparents into a career as an educator.

In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.

Sharpen your pencils! It’s time to hit the books again, with these TED Talks that take you through a busy day of math, history, gym, lunch, English, science and art. No finals required.

Stuart Firestein teaches students and “citizen scientists” that ignorance is far more important to discovery than knowledge.

The joy of a new semester: picking classes you never knew existed. These are talks we wish were courses.

Kandice Sumner thinks we've been looking at the "achievement gap" in education all wrong.

Despite an attack on his daughter Malala in 2012, Ziauddin Yousafzai continues his fight to educate children in the developing world.

Pearl Arredondo helped establish a pilot middle school that teaches students to be good communicators in the 21st century.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh helps girls and young women in Afghanistan get an education.

Through education and technology-focused community centers, Aleph Molinari empowers the 5 billion people who cannot access or use the Internet and other technologies.

As a country, how can we better inspire our students — and support our educators? To explore ideas, TED, WNET, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting teamed up for a brand-new one-hour special, funded by CPB's "American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen." TED Talks Education was an exhilarating night of talks hosted by John Legend.

Shai Reshef wants to democratize higher education.

With Coursera, Daphne Koller and co-founder Andrew Ng are bringing courses from top colleges online, free, for anyone who wants to take them.