Bright Ideas

I love conferences.  Once upon a time when I was going to be a band director I went to quite a few music educator conferences.  I love learning.  This was my first english ed conference.  I love this stuff…

I liked the keynote speaker Jacqueline Woodson a lot.  I must admit, I was worried it would be a droll boring lecture.  But she was fun and spirited and made me forget it was 8:30 in the morning.  I not only enjoyed her book excerpts, but I loved that she had all of that stuff memorized.  My mind told me, “Wow.  She really cares about what she does!” 

I also had to laugh when she made the comment about putting “stickers” on her books, because kids want to read books with stickers on them.  Yeah.  So do I.  I have read a few YA books this semester.  On my many trips to the library I have a few goal books in mind and then I peruse.  Then I see the book with the sticker and think, “Oh, there’s a sticker on this one.  I should get it.”

So, now I think I will be checking out a few of her books from the library.  With or without stickers.

I went to the “Acing the Interview: What Principals Say They Value,” session.  I had high hopes.  I have a brilliant friend that has been trying to find a teaching gig for awhile now but to no avail.  We have done the “What is wrong,” brainstorming, and all I can come up with is that he has a Master’s Degree.  Other than that his resume is phat.  So I was hoping to get some tips out of this sessions for both me and him.

I have to say, virtually everything was pretty much common sense.  In my opinion at least.  “Dress properly, don’t show tattoos, don’t show piercing.”  Yeah, I didthat for the crappy job I have now.  Next.  The thing that threw me the most was the comment that according to principals polled, “20-100+ applicants apply for a single position.”  Roughly 10 make it to the interview round.  So, how do I become one of the ten?  That’s what I really want to know.  Once I get in their I can rely on my sparkling personality.  It’s a lot easier to be on out of ten than one out of one-hundred.

I did go to a cool session called,” Reading, Writing & Eurythmics: Infusing Popular Music and New Media in the ELA Classroom.”  This session was great for me.  Being a music geek, the idea of combining the two was fabulous.  If there was a Literature and Psychoanalysis session there too, all of my academic dreams would have come true. 

The idea of the class was inspiring readers, especially “at risk” students to read by showing them references to literature in popular music.  The idea was, “Even your favorite artist that didn’t graduate high school is well read.”  And the cool thing was that the music was diverse.  Eric Federspiel and Luke Rodesiler of South Lyon High School have created a wiki site where teachers can easily find these music/lit references.  I have to say, I am listening to my music so closely now hoping to spot one so I can add it to the site.  I went to the site and I was highly disappointed that someone had already added the two Bjork references that I was going to add.  And of course my Kate Bush/ Wuthering Heights reference was there too.  I did find some Tori Amos references and submitted them.  I’ll wait and see if they make the cut.  This is an ongoing project, so if you know some stuff to add you can submit it!  The site is http://pclit.pbwiki.com/.  If you want to add any info you can sign in as a guest with the password BrightIdeas….shhh, don’t tell.