Of the Elementary School Conference

Have you ever gone away from home for awhile, then come back with so much to talk about that you don’t know where to begin?

Sometimes that happens to me after a great vacation at the coast, or in the mountains with my family, or following a spiritual/work retreat with my church family.

I just returned from the 2nd Annual Elementary School Conference in Durham, and I wanted to write about the highlights of the two day event while it is all still fresh and vibrant in my mind.

To recall with the best of my ability, I will record as I would for a dream I remember upon awakening. That is, what happened last is the most recent and best remembered, and so it will be reported first, followed by the events leading up to that point, and as one who is retracing her steps back from room to room to find the missing thing, the beginning shall be last.

The staff of the Elementary Education Division of the North Carolina Department of Instruction did an outstanding job of lining up speakers for the two day conference. I thank them with all my heart for the closing luncheon speaker and entertainment this afternoon. I had no idea what a special treat it would be.

We ate a savory meal, and after the coffee and carrot cake were consumed, the guest speaker, Toody Byrd was introduced. I had never heard of this woman before, but after hearing her today, education has changed for me! Hailing from Texas, diminutive in size, grey haired, and wearing glasses, this woman could have been anyone’s grandmother or former teacher. She seemed quiet as she stepped up to the podium. Within the first minute, however, she had us all laughing in surprise. Her humor was pleasantly shocking and wildly entertaining, and with the skill of a sage comedian, she shared her wisdom with all the teachers who filled the room, some 800 of us we were told. I heard one teacher say “Toody, you made me cry.” The bio in our handbook said that she was “declared a ‘State Treasure’ by the 71st Legislature of the state of Texas in recognition of her unique contributions to education and community life around the state.” I can understand why. I wish I could have recorded her 30 minute speech/performance to bring back for our teachers who could not attend.

Preceding Toody, the younger students from South Graham Elementary School, under the direction of their music teacher, sang with fresh enthusiasm and innocent expression the songs that helped them to remember books they had read in their classrooms. The eleven teachers from my school sat close enough to follow the gestures and faces on all of them, and they had us cracking up. There's always one child that shines on the stage, and this little Hispanic girl was that one. She was blissfully unaware of how many pairs of eyes were on her and her theatrical antics.  It didn't seem to matter to her that she was unsure whether she had to hold up nine fingers or ten, and proceeded to count and recount them to our delight as she sang on, oblivious that she was the one that stole our affection. Their performance was a testimony of what children can do when they are “bathed in the language of a story,” a Dr. Gonzalez quote. I glanced over at the faces of the first grade students’ principal and assistant principal, and felt the love and pride that poured from their eyes.

But I was already in a heightened mood even before I had entered the Imperial Ballroom for the luncheon. Two 75-minute sessions prior to lunch had left me excited about teaching math. Both sessions had been presented by Dr. Johnny Warrick: Making Sense with Math, and Algebra: the Equation to Get Students Involved. The man had revived my interest in teaching math, providing us not only with handouts of his activities, and there were several of them, but he demonstrated many, many more using materials he had purchased at the Dollar Store. He spoke fast, dropping humorous lines and stories as he worked. A little faster, and I would have thought Robin Williams (Mork) had tutored him! He used cheap little props like flashing disco glasses, flashlights, beads, transparent cards, magnetic balls and bingo chips on the overhead. Another teacher from my school also attended both sessions. We agreed our school system had to invite him to do a math workshop. In the meantime, we decided we had learned enough during those two and a half hours, and had laughed enough, generated enough excitement that we wanted to do a staff development workshop for our teachers. You might say, we wanted to share the wealth of what we had seen and learned.

Yesterday’s sessions were interesting as well, but for some reason, I laughed more today than I had yesterday. Monday, the first day of the Conference, we could only attend three sessions during the entire day because our school staff made a presentation, cleverly named by our principal, “It Takes a Whole SWAT Team to School a Village: Specialists Wielding Academic Techniques.” She is proud of how all her teachers are serving all levels of learners, and of how we work closely with our regular education teachers, and she wanted us to showcase that fact during the session. I was pleased to be a part of the presentation, and now that I have taken part in it, I know what I could do better if I were to be invited to present again next year.

There was a wide range of presentations by vendors, and by school staff like ourselves. Some of the topics presented included student led conferencing, creative non-fiction writing, social studies activities and projects, the balanced curriculum, National Board Certification, Reader's Theater, computer/technology skills and the interactive Smartboard, global connections in the classroom, active questioning, parenting and healthy school connections, inquiry-based science, designing powerful curriculum, health education, creating winning classroom climates, immersion and FLES, Art and math, teaching gifted students in the regular ed classroom, poetry, and action research. These were but a few we could choose from over the past two days.

There is nothing more that I want to do than to improve what we do for the benefit of our kids. I live in this community. I run into the kids in many different situations all through the years, and they are growing up. Soon, my first students will be graduating and going to college. I want to hear that they are indeed graduating, not dropping out.

Tomorrow I return to school. I can't wait to see the kids again. To hear how their day went in my absence. And I can't wait to show them all the wonderful things I learned about numbers.