Better Practices? Try a PD conference

Best Practice? Share Knowledge with others

In my first few years of teaching, I would down-play Professional Development opportunities, whining about the obligation of my time and energy. I changed my mind when I attended my first international conference. The level of professionalism at national or international events is like night and day difference from your local, district or regional PD event. 

Since that time, I have attended professional development courses or conferences in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Philadelphia, plus Florida, Texas, Connecticut. I try to get to something major every year or two. While nothing is looming for 2012 yet, I’m looking forward to Los Angeles in 2013. 

As a presenter, I have found  it is invigorating and enlightening to rub shoulders with top-notch authors, first-rate researchers or leading proponents in the field I enjoy best.  

Allow me, if you will, dear teaching colleagues, to give you some heart-felt advice and career wisdom. 

If you are a new teacher, in your first five years of teaching, get yourself to a national conference in your field. It will renew your belief in what you are doing.  

If you are mid career, five years to twenty years of teaching, buddy up with a friend and get to a national or international conference in your field. Then share your wisdom with your school and school district.  

If you are towards the end of your career, say twenty years or more, you have so much to give….you should consider presenting your wisdom at a national conference. Or write that book, where the need is not being met in your field. While you have made a difference in your classroom, when you retire, your wisdom is lost to teachers.  

I have frequently presented at a small media ed conference at U. Conn. One year I took my good friend, a long-service teacher, who had never attended a major conference. He talked about that conference with passion and enthusiasm for the next five years.

We sometimes hear teachers say that when they have left teaching, they felt like they were taking their hand out of a bucket of water…in other words, there was no real change in the environment with them or without them. What a shame and so untrue.  

See you at the next conference.