Teacher Driven Change

This past weekend I attend California Teacher Associations Good Teaching Conference North in San Jose with fellow teachers from my school. As the association President I encouraged teachers to attend the conference as our association dues helps pay for these conferences.

Click on the picture above to go to the conference website to see a full list of workshops


You go to conferences like this and there is so much information thrown at you in a very short amount of time that it can be very overwhelming.How do you pick which session to attend, which vendors you spend time talking to, what do you spend money purchasing or do you even purchase anything, do you hang out with just your fellow teachers you came with or hang out with new friends you meet?

As the local President and a returning GTC attendee I felt it was important to give new teachers attending some direction on what to do, while still giving them freedom to make choices. One of the best things we did all weekend was to go out to dinner together on Saturday night. We shared about what sessions we had all attended during the day, what we had learned and thought we could take back and implement in the classroom. Then we talked about how the year has been going and got very real with each other the good and the bad.

Saturday started with the Uncluttered Teacher Tammy Duggan. Tammy did a bonus session on how to unclutter your classroom and your life. This is something I need help with and I did purchase Tammy's book "The Un-cluttered Teacher". On Monday the first day back at school I asked my principal about an idea I had to get backpacks up off the floor and out of the way. She said let's go for it and gave the maintenance department permission to put up hooks on the wall in the computer lab. So today we did a trial run with six hooks.

Several of the other teachers that went have also start putting in place small changes. We brought back some new material that will make better at our craft which we can share with our fellow teachers. Teacher driven change.. When given freedom to grow and learn we will thrive. We want what is best for our school. We want what is best for our students.

Come and join us for our first 'Appy Hour' (Thanks Kathleen and Chris for the title) on January 27 at Cappella's - I picked up a few new awesome apps this weekend!



Up next for me - I read the book - "Teach Like A Pirate" now I will see the head pirate himself Dave Burgess in Oakhurst