The 70th Annual ASCD Conference and Exhibit Show opened today. The theme is Challenging Convention: Leading Disruptive Innovations. There is something here for everyone! The 183 page program booklet can be daunting at times. There is so much to take in and so little time.
Today’s post is just a brief reflection on each session I attended. More to come once I have time to reflect on highlights of the conference at a later date.
1. Maximizing A School’s Potential Through Teacher Empowerment presented by Kenneth Cooper and Joseph Salah
The presenters are the authors of the book Becoming a Great School: Harnessing the Powers of Quality Management and Collaborative Leadership
Some great questions were asked:
- Can the faculty in a school change and improve what they are doing on behalf of the kids if they can’t work together?
- Is outstanding teamwork optional when striving to have an outstanding school?
- If there is discord on how a staff relates to each other, can change happen?
As an educational consultant I work with a wide variety of schools. I plan to read Cooper’s and Salah’s book to continue to enhance my abilities to help schools unit behind what is best for kids.
2. First General Session: The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, Sarah Lewis
I’ll be perfectly honest. Before today, I had not heard of Sarah Lewis or her book The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery
Lewis’s book is another one waiting for me to read. For now I’ll leave you with a few tweets I tweeted during the session:
- Allow kids to experiment, to dream, to try and fail. They may just discover something never discovered before.
- Do we let teachers explore, experiment, create, take risks, fail, and find success?
- Find ways for the classroom to be a save place for students – embodies risk talking, play, curiosity.
You can watch Sarah Lewis’s TED TALK here.
My mind is swirling with other thoughts. Yet, it is time to prepare for tomorrow.
Great post. Sorry I can’t be there but reflections you share are so wonderful!
Thank, Faige. Missing you. My mind is swirling (and I’m so tired).
Kathy
I’m excited to check out Sarah Lewis’ work! Thanks for sharing!
I have attended several ASCD conference and they really are the best of all national educational conferences. Be sure to hear Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey if you get a chance. Excellent. Enjoy your time there. D 🙂
Sounds like you are doing a lot of learning and having fun!! Thanks for listing those books! I wil have to look into reading them!!
Do we let teachers experiment, create, fail and explore? I do think we’re in the dark ages right now on that. The degree of testing that interrupts the flow of teaching really inhibits the process in a huge way! Lots of thought provoking ideas in your post! Thanks!
Thanks for the glimpse into these sessions. You captured the key points and I love the questions that came out of the first session.