Dina Strasser, a 7th grade English teacher at Roth Middle School in Henrietta, N.Y., and the blogger behind The Line ( http://theline.edublogs.org ), was one of several guest bloggers who contributed to the coverage of the Annual Conference on Inservice, the ASCD blog. As she attended sessions and events and formed relationships with fellow attendees, Strasser developed a fun, insightful journal, which was posted throughout the conference. Here are just a few highlights from her blog posts.
OK, so you're at a massive conference—literally your weekly faculty meeting times six hundred. You're up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday to get registered on time. You manage to stumble your way to your meeting room, clutching your personal planner page from the program book. And piece of advice number one? Make your first early morning session one that's listed as "90 percent active."
Ten Ways To Teach Anyone Anything, by Penny Schuckman and John Burke, dusted me off, woke me up, and handed me three Web sites, seven tools, a bunch of laughs, and a new pen pal—the elementary principal from Argentina who sat next to me.
Ben Baxter, of the blog On the Tenure Track, asked me for something that a new teacher could use, and this session qualified: a concise and fresh approach to time-honored, effective strategies for helping both kids and adults learn. The strategies (music, procedures, movement, celebrations, relationships, visuals, chunked/relevant/engaging activities, games and humor, reciprocal teaching, and transfer of knowledge) will be well known to some, but the major power of this session for me was how seamlessly the presenters did double duty: modeling exactly how we should teach through the teaching they did with us. Not always a given in our classrooms—or conferences.
—"Ten Ways to Teach Anyone Anything"
Piece of Conference Advice #2: Wear good shoes. The Morial Conference Center is 80,000 square feet (and in amazing recovery from $58 million worth of damage from Katrina—not a hint of it to be seen), and major walking time is required. My shoes today are neon-green Keen sandals, purchased for the express purpose of this conference (and maybe Bourbon Street), with cushioning like a baby's bottom. I may never wear anything else again.
As it turns out, though, my concern for conference footwear may be no more than a function of my biology. Kelley King, principal of the school featured in aNewsweek article on educating boys, spent a couple of hours teaching us about the chemical and structural differences in the brains of boys and girls and how to address those differences as teachers.
Among the surprising things I learned: interruption—of the kind we regularly incorporate in school settings—is more neurologically irritating to boys than girls. Drinking water decreases elevated cortisol (stress) levels in boys. And girls have a more naturally developed awareness of touch, sound, and color—hence my deep appreciation of my sandals.
—"In Step with Boys' Brains"
I dash this off in the 10 minutes I have before throwing myself again into the ancillary, unexpected blossomings of conferences like this. Why is my time so short? I spent the morning sharing a rental car with Teachers College professors Ellen Livingston and Judith Cramer, getting physically into the heart of Katrina's damage in the Ninth Ward; they offered to take me as I introduced myself last night after their presentation, Teaching the Levees.
Piece of Conference Advice #3: It ain't just the presentations, handouts, materials, or strategies or doggedly following a schedule. It's the people. Talk to the people. Be open to what opportunities bloom from these [conversations].
—"It's the People"
What are your fellow teachers at your school buzzing about? As for me, advice solicited from my colleagues at Roth Middle School dictated my choice of the sessions Where the Boys Aren't and Teaching the Levees.
Piece of Conference Advice #4: I would highly recommend this democratic approach as a means of making conference attendance useful to one's school and district. Actually get out there to your kith and kin in your building and say, "If you were going to this, what would you attend?" (But don't hand them the list of 500 sessions like I did. Overload!) That way, you nearly guarantee bringing something back that at least one other teacher will be interested in.
—"Answering Your Burning Questions"
My last word needs to be about New Orleans itself. While New Orleans heroically rallies its defenses, beauty, and sense of humor, its wounds are still raw and bleeding. Two years is a very small amount of time to recover from such a disaster, and yet much of the assistance the city has counted on will be pulling out soon. I would encourage absolutely everyone reading this to find some small way to contribute to solving the massive housing, education, and poverty concerns that still plague New Orleans after Katrina. I was truly proud to have ASCD's and my presence help, in whatever small way, in its revitalization.
I'll end with what the drummer of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band shouted at us joyfully as we left the concert last night. "You like what you heard here, you tell someone else. We still alive here, y'all."
—"Homeward Bound"
