Saturday, February 28, 2015

Such a Thin Line

This is crazy - I got confused this morning and thought it was Sunday.  So, I posted #NovelSnip.  Luckily, mm caught my mistake.  I'm taking it down and putting it up tomorrow for the sake of consistency. Geez! The stress of #ConferenceLife really caught me off guard.

We've spent the morning here in Room 2557 rehashing a talk by someone who was named the "most interesting and influential classroom teacher in the country" by the Washington Post.

This dude was, to understate it, slightly full of himself.  "It's not about me," he said, "but, listen to this letter that my student wrote about how I changed her life."  This happened over and over again.  I was incredulous.  Robin researched him later and found some choice quotes like, "Can you even imagine how many times I've been asked to make a movie?" and "Yes, I'm very famous in China."

This guy rubbed me the wrong way, but even in his session, I gleaned some wisdom.  Here it is: Be the person you want your students to be.

You're welcome.  Keep in mind, though, that I am not even the best classroom teacher in my very own school.  You might not want to listen to my advice.

3 comments:

mm said...

a) I don't think she should stop worrying.
b) I thought #novelstrip was saved for Sunday.
c) Stay warm in Boston.

LH said...

Not sure that I want my students to be one person, but I appreciate the gist of the message. I saw a video with that teacher once and it was quite a good video. So I'm disappointed in the abundance of ego.
Looking forward to #novelsnip.

Jill said...

I think your distilled advice sounds much better than his presentation.
Hope you had a good conference! I did NAIS when I was teaching at a boarding school.