ASCD Conference (March 26-28)

The Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction sent me this note last Thursday after school: I have a registration for the ASCD Conference this weekend in San Francisco. Would you like to go? I was honored to receive the invitation, but I was completely unfamiliar with the ASCD. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development is an educational leadership organization dedicated to "advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner." It boasts 160,000 members in 148 countries from all levels and subjects areas of education. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association that "provides expert and innovative solutions in professional development, capacity building, and educational leadership essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead." Within about 5 minutes after arriving at this conference, I quickly registered online and became a member. So let's make that 160,001 and counting!

The event was held at the Moscone Center, located in the South of Market Area. It's the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco and has hosted events including the American Bar Association's annual meeting, the Game Developer's Conference, and even the 1984 Democratic National Convention. It's a short walk from the Powell Street Station to 4th Street, and you're ther!

I attended on Saturday and Monday. The district had a 3-day pass for the superintendent which I ended up using because he could not attend. There were nearly 500 workshops to choose from to attend. The exhibition hall was filled with the latest in anything and everything educational.

Every morning at 10am was General Session in one of the Moscone Center's three halls. This is where I met up with other leaders from my district. On Saturday ASCD recognized Outstanding Youth Educators and featured an address from Stanford University research professor, Chip Heath. I attended Monday's General Session to enjoy remarks from Harvard University's Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot.

The first workshop I attended was hosted by Sabrina Silverstein (below) and

Frances Rust (below). The focus was on Teacher Action Research and was designed to help us with teacher effectiveness, critical conversations, professional learning communities, and student achievement.

The interactive nature of the workshop, time provided to collaborate with other teachers - my neighbor in this workshop was a middle school math teacher from Singapore! - were so helpful and made my experience so much more meaningful. We left with so many important tools for inquiry, teacher evaluation ideas, and the process of action research.

As mentioned, Chip Heath was the featured speaker at Saturday morning's General Session. The author of a unique book entitled "Switch," Chip kicked things off by telling us that we can make changes by focusing on the bright spots in our lives.

Says Chip, "We found the answer in the research of some brilliant psychologists who'd discovered that people have two separate "systems" in their brains - a rational system and an emotional system. The rational system a thoughtful, logical planner. The emotional system is, well, emotional - and impulsive and instinctual."

When he started his talk, he described one of life's biggest changes: marriage. He showed us images that he found when he entered "marriage" as a search in Flickr's photo website. Check out what he saw.

For lunch today, a group of us went across the street to CHA AM Thai Restaurant.

I enjoyed gai yang (b.b.q. chicken). Delicious!

But right before lunch at CHA AM, we enjoyed listening to this morning's featured speaker, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. She reflected on her book "The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventures in the 25 Years After 50."

Another highlight of the weekend was bumping into my older brother, Casey, who was in attendance with other school leaders from his campus. We met up at the nearby Metreon where he was having lunch with his colleagues.

Overall, this was such a unique invitation. I was able to grow professionally by learning from leaders around the country in education, collaborating with teachers from around the world, and listening to such dynamic speakers such as Chip and Sara. I look forward to my newfound involvement with ASCD and the opportunities to get connected with these outstanding people.