Saturday, November 20, 2010

ok, honesty...

Last night I was working really hard on being positive. Really, really  hard. But as magpie pointed out, last night's conference was kind of a waste of time. A painful, degrading waste of time. But I wasn't prepared to decide the conference was a total waste yet. I tried to be positive.

So, now that we're well into the next day I feel better saying that last night's presentations were horrid (two of the three) because today's has been 100% times better.  We had one rather painful speaker this morning who treated us like we were five, wanted us to think-pair-share, and even made us stand up to do leg raises. Why does our profession do this to us?  Why does one think the only way to connect with teachers is to treat them like their students? And why do we do this to ourselves? No wonder the rest of the world doesn't think we are professional when we can't treat ourselves this way.

 BUT the rest of the speakers have been fabulous. For real this time.

The other speakers have been actually discussing neuroscience accurately, discussing the difficulties in connecting neuroscience and practice, and have not been referring to their own book sales. Today's been more like a true academic conference than an amway convention.

Two of the speakers have even taken on the neuro-myth of learning styles, despite the reaction from some of the teachers in the room. For a moment I was embarrassed for my profession as they all angrily fought the research on learning-styles. But eventually everyone moved on and hopefully everyone learned something.

So, just wanted to apologize on the complete lack of honest last night and I appreciate being called out on it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait! Learning styles are a myth? I didn't know there was research on this. Please share more.

magpie said...

Gr8 to see you're professional and treating each day as a new one:)

The conference sounds like it has a very tough(but fun)crowd and I can't help but be envious of not being there for the leg raisings ☺☺☺