Last week when it was raining buckets in Boston, I was in sunny San Francisco attending the National School Boards Association annual conference.
This is me with the CRLS Modern Dance Company, CRLS dance teachers and Cambridge Superintendent Dr. Thomas Fowler-Finn, who also attended this year's conference. The Cambridge dancers were one of only seven student groups chosen to perform for the NSBA's "Night of Student Stars" event. They did a terrific job dancing two original pieces choreographed by their teacher Mila Thigpen (with flowers on the right).
I've written before about the restorative nature of these conferences, and this one was no different. It's hard to describe all the opportunities to learn. On the third day, for example, I counted more than 90 different workshops, seminars and panels to chose from. That's not even counting all the things you pick up from talking to other folks in the hallways, or while standing in line to get coffee.
(My trip, like the one I wrote about in February, was sponsored by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.)
At this year's conference, you can tell that the pendulum is swinging away from NCLB and standards in favor of the "whole child," as it is being called. The conference booklet was full of panels on health, preschool, college readiness, etc.
Former President Bill Clinton gave the keynote address and asked school board members to help with the obesity epidemic.
I went to sessions about the relationship between achievement gap and health issues; about middle school to high school transitions (drop-out rates are cut in half when eight or more transition activities are implemented by a district) and about the college admissions game (it's working against real college readiness.)
I also attended a provocative talk given by the superintendent of the first school to eliminate textbooks completely in favor of laptops -- Empire High School in Vail, Arizona.
As usual, though, there is one experience that really sticks with you at these conferences. Mine will be the talk by Erin Gruwell, the Long Beach, Calif. teacher who helped, inspired and conjoled all 150 at-risk teens from her gang-torn high school class to graduate by introducing them to books written by other teens (i.e. Anne Frank) whose response to war was to take up the pen and write. Their own diaries became a book, The Freedom Writers Diary, and a movie starring Hilary Swank.
The story is a true testament to the need to put student motivation and engagement over just about everything. I highly recommend buying the book, in part, because the proceeds are paying for her students' college tuitions. You can read more about this project on the Freedom Writers Foundation website.
