Promising Practices

I woke up, my alarm set for 6:30 am. This is the earliest I have been up all school year and it wasn’t even for class. As you can tell I was not excited.  Not only did I have to take the whole day off of work, when I have bills to pay, pay for the conference, wake up early but I also now have to write this paper or supposedly blog it.  The day couldn’t get any better.  

It takes me about forty-five minutes or so to get to RIC from home so I realized at 7:10 that I should probably head out the door.  Stopping a Dunkin on my way to school I got my regular: a medium ice coffee and a ham, egg and cheese on a croissant.  Breakfast had already made my day seem not so bad.  I arrived at school about ten of eight and waited around in the parking lot for Kristyn cause she had asked me to wait for her.  Finally she arrived and we headed to Don.  As we walked in I felt a sudden rush of chaos and honestly had no clue where to go. Great, this just proved my point of why I didn’t want to be here.

After finding the sign in table the individual working it told me that I wasn’t signed up, when clearly I was cause I had printed proof that I was registrant number fourteen.  Turns out my name was spelt wrong on my folder and that’s why she couldn’t find me.  Kristyn and I then compared what workshops we were in and realized that we would have to split for the second one.  Now we just had to wait around for a half an hour.

                                         

On the way to workshop number one, “yoga in the classroom,” we were located in the last room in Alger.  This was actually my favorite activity all day! When everyone first sat down they played some calming music and read a five minute relaxing piece telling us to close our eyes and to breathe.  After the five minutes were up I didn't want to stop. They explained how they have  implemented yoga in a third grade classroom at HBS and have been tracking the progress of the students. At first they explained how this was difficult to accomplish because almost all parents were skeptical. I then thought of a quote from Johnson, "People can't help fearing the unfamiliar, " and it occurred to me.  The parents didn't understand what yoga was or how their children could benefit from it.  Now many parents have told the third grade teacher that they have even seen improvement in their child at home.  Yoga helps to relieve stress and helps the students to focus.  There are about 13% of children diagnosed with a clinical form of anxiety and most of this anxiety might not even be from school. So you can only image how hard it can be for a child.

Before my second workshop began, "disability in the classroom," we had about a fifty minute break to roam around Don collecting pamphlets and all sorts. I didn't really find this helpful because I'm not a teacher yet and by the time I am a teacher and needing this material I honestly will have no clue where I placed it several years ago.  Plus most of the materials were books with book ideas in them.  Like a list of great books teachers should use when teaching that subject.  So we walked around and grabbed a few things including a drink and just chilled at a table waiting to move on to the next workshop. 

Sitting through disability in the classroom made me come to more of a realization that you can't always tell if a child has a learning disability.  Also that most kids that are called lazy really aren't lazy and usually have a hard time comprehending something that they have learned. It was interesting. We were given a block with nine different shapes and several colors and then we were also given those nine shapes cut out and we had to listen to a clip where the woman told us to put certain shapes on other shapes and she was allowed to repeat so we really had to listen. Well one thing led to another and everyone else on the classroom clip started talking and the rest of the class couldn't comprehend anything the teacher was saying. That is what it is like to have a learning disability we were told. My favorite line from this class was, "Imagine going to work and not being able to do your job. Now imagine that you can't leave your job. Now imagine having to do that everyday. This is what it is like to be a child with disabilities." It's like this quote put things into perspective.  I can't imagine going through all of that especially if know one knew I had the disorder and had to do it all on my own.

Finally, Lunch! Although it really wasn't that tasty.

I absolutely loved Tricia Rose besides the fact that we had to sit in uncomfortable Don to listen to her, she was amazing.  She basically summed up all the articles that we have been reading on gender and race inequality throughout the semester.  One line that she said really stuck with me and it was the only line I had written down through her whole speech. "Being colorblind we sometimes see more." This made me think. What does she mean? Then I thought about all the pictures I have taken and edited and printed. When I love a photo I turn it into black and white. I feel as if when in black and white you are able to see more details and emotions that were not visable when in color and even if they were visible they were masked. She had so much to say and it was so insightful.

My overall experience of the conference was good but most definitely my favorite and most meaningful part was our keynote speaker Tricia Rose.