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The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau

A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.

Elizabeth Green

Teaching isn’t an innate quality—it’s a skill that can be taught and nurtured.

Author of New York Times Bestseller Building a Better Teacher

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Lavin Exclusive Speaker

Great teachers have the power to change students’ lives—we just need to give them the right tools. Elizabeth Green is the author of New York Times bestseller Building a Better Teacher, a groundbreaking new book that examines the hidden science behind the art of teaching. Her talks equip teachers, policymakers, and parents with a hopeful vision for the future of education—and the roadmap to get us there.

We romanticize teachers, and we vilify them, but we don’t do much to help. This beautifully written, defiantly hopeful book points the way to a better future for American teachers and the children they teach.Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed

There is no such thing as a natural-born teacher, says Elizabeth Green. As a Spencer fellow, Green penned a covery story for The New York Times Magazine, dispelling the myth that good teaching is purely instinctual. The article was so wildly popular—sparking a national conversation on the state of education—that she was offered a full length book deal. Now a New York Times bestseller, Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone) shows us that teaching is a complex skill—one that requires infrastructure for support and training. How do America’s best educators master their craft? What techniques do they use in the classroom? And what could America’s education system learn from other countries in the world? Green considers all of these questions, and more, in a book that has been called “required reading” for every teacher and tax payer.

Elizabeth Green is also co-founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization that covers educational change efforts across the country. Fiercely independent and mission-driven, Chalkbeat believes that strong press is the key to improving education for children everywhere—especially those who have been historically denied access. In addition to The New York Times Magazine, Greene has written for The New York Sun and U.S. News & World Report. She was an Abe Journalism Fellow studying education in Japan and a Spencer Fellow in education journalism at Columbia University. She serves on the board of the Education Writers Association.

Lavin Exclusive Speakers

Angela Duckworth

Grit, more than talent, IQ, looks, or wealth, is a powerful indicator of success.

Nikole Hannah-Jones

There isn’t a beat you can cover in America—education, housing—where race is not a factor.

Greg Hoffman

Great brands don’t simply reach customers: they create real emotional bonds with them.

George M. Johnson

Stories of queer identity and Black joy have the power to educate us on diversity, inspire social justice activism, and build community.

Nicholas Thompson

Technology and science continue to make the world a better place—we can’t lose sight of that core truth.

Speech Topics

How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone)Building a Better Teacher

Everyone agrees that a great teacher can have an enormous impact. Yet we still don’t know what, precisely, makes a teacher great. Is it a matter of natural-born charisma? Or does great teaching require something more? In this talk, Elizabeth Green introduces a new generation of educators who are revealing the hidden science behind their art. A former principal studies the country’s best teachers and discovers a common set of techniques to help children pay attention. Two math teachers videotape a year of lessons and develop a new approach that has nine-year-olds writing sophisticated mathematical proofs. Through their stories—and the hilarious and heartbreaking theater that unfolds between children and teachers every day—Green examines the dynamics of truly effective teaching. Exploring the astonishingly diverse skills exceptional teachers must develop, she provides a new way for teachers, parents, and policymakers to judge what is needed in the classroom—and considers how to make every teacher great.