Conference+Review+-+Valerie

This past week, I was lucky enough to attend the National Council of Teachers of English conference in Chicago, Illinois. Although I am not officially a teacher of English just yet, it was rewarding and inspiring to be surrounded by fellow teachers who are just as passionate about their careers and educating students as you are. I gained an immense amount of knowledge – only making my commitment to teaching and to my students even more concrete. This conference was truly inspiring.
 * Teaching Conference – NCTE – Review**

The first session I attended honored Linda Darling–Hammond who was an education advisor to Barack Obama and is a professor of Education at Stanford University. What I found interesting about Linda Darling–Hammond’s lecture was how dedicated she was on finding fact-based research from not only the United States, but around the world as well on how to best educate our students. She took a deep look into different counties style and technique such as whether standardized testing vs. non standardized testing was beneficial or not for students. Darling-Hammond main goal is to figure out a way for students to achieve to their highest potential.

The second lecture I went to was how to incorporate LGBTQ into classroom reading. I learned that LGBTQ young adult books such as, “Annie on my Mind”, “Forbidden Love”, and “How Beautiful the Ordinary,” are good novels to have all students read alongside //Romeo and Juliet//. Incorporating LGBTQ books in your curriculum will help students have an open mind to those around them – this is something I would love to include in my classroom.

The third lecture I attended was Incorporating Holocaust Videos in the Classroom. This was one of my favorite lectures to go to. The lecturers have set up a website which has access for students to listen, read (printouts) and watch videos of thousands of Holocaust survivors from 1990-2010. We were able to watch some of the videos as examples and it was truly moving. I hope one day I will be able to teach a unit on the Holocaust and be able to use this website as the teachers have given us who attended the lecture full access to all of their hard work.

The last lecture I attended was Sarah Brown Wessling. This was a very interesting lecture because Sarah expressed the importance of including Common Core Standards in the classroom, but more importantly, to do it well. Sarah also touched upon getting students engaged in their work too. Often teachers lose a lot of focus and interest from their students because they are too busy rushing through standards. In short, Sarah expressed that if you are going to each a standard; teach it well so your students benefit from it.

Overall, the NCTE conference was extremely informational and I am happy I went. I learned so much and became so inspired by every person I came in contact with. Being surrounded by people who truly care about their job and their students only makes me more excited to start student teaching in the winter semester. I plan on attending as many teaching conferences that I can – I enjoyed by time very much.