If you read the last post, you know that I avoided anything school related over this break.
Ms. Perky and I were made aware of a workshop entitled: “Pivotal Elections in U. S. History” sponsored by our district and other reputable agencies; we decided to attend. After all, it is a quite pertinent topic for our course, I could obtain my 6 hours of GT certification renewal and kill 2 two birds with the proverbial stone!
The first 15 minutes went well ~ then the representative for TEA stepped to the podium. We knew it wasn’t going to bode well for us when we given a 10 page power point handout (dual sided!) and the time allotment was 30 minutes. Yikes ~ a snooze fest and it wasn’t even 9:00 am. Thanks for the eloquent reminder of what NOT to do with my students!
The keynote speaker was a professor from Virginia and did hold our attention. He had a great delivery and a touch of humour as well. The gentleman did remind us to use video clips or stories to ‘hook’ our students so as to get them interested in the topic. Case in point: He spoke of how President Truman lambasted a critic from the newspaper over his daughter’s lack of singing ability. The most poignant story he relayed told how the media respected FDR and never took a photo of him in his wheelchair. The focus was not on his disability but rather on his actions as president. Think the media would do that today?
Lunch was so-so but when it’s free, one really can’t complain!
The most practical session came at the end of the day, unfortunately. Our district’s resident geek gave us some tips/strategies for the Social Studies classroom. My favourite part was: 86 ‘Power pointlessness’ or the k.i.s.s. principle. A session like this would have been great if it were for 2 hours rather than 1. Not to mention that I could heckle the presenter a tiny bit, too! Maybe he will have a longer session when we meet in September.
We left the seminar with goodies ~ resources we could use in our classes. I won a door prize: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn. What does it tell you about a book when the footnotes are longer than the text? Ms. Perky said to put it on my bookshelf @ school so I “could look smart!” We were both glad to be going home and are excitedly anticipating planning for next year.
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Dolly (hurricane) paid the Alamo City a visit yesterday; just because we are about 180 miles from the Gulf Coast doesn’t mean we won’t feel the wrath of Mother Nature. I was sequestered in my mobile home while torrential rain and thunder bombarded the area. A friend called to see if I was ok since I was in the direct path of potential tornadoes and flooding. I lucked out but there was a part of SE Alamo City that did have a tornado touchdown. Would you believe it was less than 3 miles from my campus?
All’s well that ends well says the bard!
ttfn,
~ba~
3 comments:
Two teachers from my school are moving to "AlamoCity" to teach school this fall. I'm curious to know if either one of them are gonna be at your school....they know about my blog, and would be totally respectful of your anonymity if I were to say, "hey...look up so&so...she's a buddy from Blogland"
could I email you and ask?
"Thanks for the eloquent reminder of what NOT to do with my students!" Amen! What I love is when you get the handouts, and the copies are half off the page or so faded you can't make out the wording.
Glad the storms passed you by. It sounds like it was a very close call.
Glad Dolly spared ya. That was a scary couple of days there for y'all down South.
Both Dolly and Eduardo pretty much spared Austin of any real significant rain. Dry and hot here. :(
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