Bringing Down the House

I hate to sleep in.  Not because I don't want to get a full 6 hours of sleep, it's that I'm afraid I'll miss something.   I have to keep reminding myself that I am out seeing plenty in the EARLY a.m. hours.  Like last 1:40 a.m. when we happened upon several groups of youths hanging out in the street and on the corners where we needed to go and we decided it was time to get a cab rather than continue to wander the streets, trying to get to our subway line - in the neighborhood by the park we were told not to go to during the day. But that's another story.  

(d

on't worry, we weren't in any true danger)

Back to Wednesday.  Our keynote speaker was Doug Reeves, the founder of The Leadership and Learning Center.  He spoke about how decisions concerning curriculum, teacher workload, and morale impact student achievement, as well ways to be more efficient and effective.

Highlights (quotes and summarizations)

-Pull weeds before you plant flowers.  What can

 you give up before you add

 more? (to your workload/curriculum)

-Your joy, excitement, enthusiasm is contagious.  If you are burned out, stressed... b

e careful who is watching you.

-Efficacy is the antidote to stress, anxiety, and burnout.  Knowing that you have influence, that your work matters and that you have improved student results.

My morning section continued to work on refining conferencing with student writers, (the heart of Writers Workshop), and in the afternoon large group session we worked on the art of the mini-lesson and using mentor texts.   In both of these sections you are with teachers from your grade level.  Which is cool, since you get to really focus on your own particular "animal" and its habits and talents - the second grader being my species of choice.  I'm in love with both of my section leaders.  They are great - both are linear presenters, who do a mix of nar

rative examples and direct instr

uction with realistic tips.  During the optional afternoon sessions you can attend any workshop you like, regardless of what grade level it is geared towards.  I went to one on creating a conferencing toolkit.

We had dinner at Vynl, a hip, dinery sort of joint filled with  homages to music/record greats. Each of the four bathrooms was a shrine to a different artist, complete with a tile mosaic and gr

eatest hits.  I tinkled with Dolly.  Katie got all shook up with Elvis.

We saw "In the Heights."  It was a story about a changing New York neighborhood, filled with fabu hip-hop, latin,  street dance.  We loved it!  Laughter, tears, joy and great seats!  And a couple really hot dancers.  Boom, boom - move over sections

 leaders.