Some Takeaways From #edcampsummitSD

I was lucky enough to attend my first Edcamp Leadership Summit this past weekend down in San Diego. It was a great weekend - get a bunch of edcamp peeps together and of course we'll have fun! Plus, sun and weather in the 60s and 70s was a welcome break from high 30s and rain in the Vancouver area :)

I learned a lot this weekend. In no particular order:
Meeting Eric Cross - an amazing science teacher in San Diego - and hearing him talk about how he structured the units in his middle school science class made me want to be a student in his class. It also made me want to talk to a bunch of different teachers about unit design cross-curricularly. We've got a lot we could learn from each other.

From a session on school climate

Hearing Jen Roberts talk about how her work teaching preservice teachers pushes her pedagogy was interesting. Jen talked about how working with these teachers keeps her trying new things she steals from them in her own class was a benefit that I hadn't thought about.
In a session about how to get a more diverse set of educational stakeholders at edcamps, Dena Glynn had some cool ideas about having student presentations during edcamps. In addition to showing off the host school and district it would bring more parents in as well - to see their kids present. Hopefully this would allow those parents to stay and participate in the edcamp. Really good idea, and we need more parent voices at edcamps!
I only overlapped briefly as a moderator of #caedchat with Kriscia Cabral and I had never gotten a chance to meet her. Her positivity and excitement throughout the weekend were amazing, and a great reminder that if you're excited about what you're doing that enthusiasm rubs off on the people around you.
Improv in the classroom? Need to start doing some learning here. Anthony Veneziale led a two hour improv session for attendees that was excellent: high energy, fun, and backed by the brain science showing the importance of improv. Anthony recommended Impro by Keith Johnstone as a good read with crossovers to improv in the classroom. Definitely adding that to my To Read list on Goodreads!
Scott Bedley shared how he is using sound prompts to get his class writing. Not photo prompts, which I had heard about, but sound clips he records while out living his life. These sound prompts force his elementary student to imagine then describe the scene that sound conjures for them. Super rad!

In The Classroom

I’m not in the classroom this year. An American can’t just show up and teach in Canada: you need a work permit. You can’t get a work permit until you submit your permanent residence application. You can’t submit your permanent residence application until you get your official marriage certificate. Which doesn’t show up until a month after a wedding. But I digress…

There have been times I’ve really missed being in the classroom this year. It was weird to watch all my old friends post about going back to school in mid-August. Hearing from old students - now juniors - made me miss getting to talk to kids. Getting to show up to my old school’s fall play - I was in town for 30 hours and the schedules fit JUST RIGHT - and getting to see kids I knew and loved do amazing things, and getting to talk to them? That made me miss it.

Nothing like today though.

I turned 37 yesterday. All in all, it was a pretty cruddy birthday. But at some point last night, after I heard that Ron Johnson beat Russ Feingold in my old home state and that Trump was going to win Wisconsin and the presidency, I wanted to be able to be in a classroom today. My classroom. With my kids.

To listen. To hear. To make sure kids felt heard. Loved. That despite what was said publicly about them - immigrants, Muslim, female, LGBT, Latino, … - that kids could feel safe. Today was the day that I missed that.

Teachers I talked to today weren’t sure they were ready, but put on a brave face. They were there for their students, whether they felt ready internally or not.

Today, more than any other day this fall, I wished I had that opportunity.

Pivoting on This Week's #caedchat Topic

I really can’t say, I guess I laugh to keep from cryin

So much goin on, people killin people dyin

But I won’t dwell on that, I think I’ll elevate my mental

Q-Tip on Steve Biko from Midnight Marauders, released November 1993

For me, there’s A Tribe Called Quest, then everyone else. There isn’t a conversation about my favorite rap group. It’s them. There isn’t a close second.

As a white male who was fourteen and living in Wisconsin when Midnight Marauders came out, there is a lot I can’t understand about what it was like to be a young black man in New York City in the early 1990s. I can only listen. And appreciate.

I certainly don’t begrudge Q-Tip his choice to elevate his mental and focus on his music and positive things going on around him.

***

I am hosting #caedchat this week. A long time ago - January? Late 2015? - I came across a really interesting article on the importance of open networks for success in life and work. It’s good. Thought provoking. The questions are ready to go - I wrote them already. It’d be a good conversation. We’ll have it. At some point. Not this week.

***

Alton Sterling.

Philando Castile.

***

Earlier this week, we lost a great humanitarian in Elie Wiesel. As I was going through my timeline late last night, I came across a quote of his that someone (sorry, I don’t remember who) tweeted in the aftermath of the second videotaped shooting of a black man by police officers in as many days: "We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

And as I read that quote, I knew that we can’t talk about open networks on #caedchat this week. As my mind churned, my thoughts turned to Q-Tip’s verse. It was written in a completely different context - a young black man in New York City in the 1990s can be completely right to choose focus on the positive. This week though I can’t ‘not dwell on that and elevate my mental.’

Educators - disproportionately white - often choose not to dwell on the negative, including (and importantly) the systematic oppression that impacts so many of our students. We choose to elevate our mind by focusing on the happy things. And while there is a time and a place for that, at some point that neutrality has to end. For all our students’ sake.

I don’t know what we’re talking about on #caedchat this week. But it won’t be open networks.