Spring Break

Aaahhhhh, the luxuries of 8-10 hours of sleep a night. Lovely. AND I got to go to a CSTA Equity Workshop. I learned many valuable things (either formally, or by interacting with various people), and here are some tidbits (and a nice picture of where I was):

* Are your reactions as a teacher (or person, for that matter) stifling or encouraging?
* It's potentially "good" when "bad" things happen to you because you (hopefully) learn empathy or awareness of how you treat others.
* Ask ALL kids the hard questions. Kids know when you don't expect much of them.
* Be careful of saying "you are so smart" versus "you worked hard and did well".
* People need to feel invited.
* All kids need to learn to advocate for themselves.
* All people need to learn the skill of pushing through even though someone may tell them, "no".
* Just because you are not "good" at something, it doesn't mean you can't get value out of it and learn to like it or let it teach you something.
* Get out of your comfort level often.
* Don't be the teacher that "says" something but acts differently.
* Once damage is done in a relationship, it's hard to repair.
* A cool response to "I don't know": "Well, if you DID know, what do you think you would say?"
* Are you challenging EVERYONE as a teacher?

Resources:

iSense (visualization of data)
Stuck in the Shallow End (book)
EarSketch (sound and computer programming)