The Bright Ideas Conference 2008 was a great experience, that exceeded my expectations and disappointed all in the same day. I had never been to anything similar before and I wasn’t sure what was in store.
Before the conference, I hadn’t a clue who Chris Crutcher was or why he was important to education. This all became very clear shortly after he began speaking. His keen and honest insight to adolescent issues are reason enough to hear him speak and certainly motivated me to read some of his work. I think honestly is something seriously lacking in our education system. When our schools make controversial subjects that students are already exposed to a taboo, our students are alienated. It wouldn’t be a stretch to even suspect that we insult their ability to handle these issues. Mr. Crutcher spoke eloquently about a number of subjects including censorship, creativity, writing and even embarrassing sports injuries. If you ever get a chance to see him speak, do not miss it.
I also really enjoyed Cathleen Cara’s Session titled “Hearing Voices: Engaging Students in Conversations about Their Lives Using Multi-voiced Literature.” Cathleen used The Brimstone Journals for this session. The story had (If I remember correctly) 21+ characters that were all equally represented through journal entries. This was a very effective method for teaching critical thinking and increasing the odds of a student finding a character within the story to identify with. I became very interested in including multi voiced literature in my future classes.
In the session titled “Human Faces of War” we were introduced to the concept of using responses to literature about realistic depictions on war as a classroom assignment. I found some good nuggets of information but, unfortunately, I did not realize that the session was geared toward middle school students and it seemed that the session was cut short because of time.
I think I was slightly disappointed because I had unrealistic expectations. I was hoping to experience a day filled with inspiration and gained confidence that I could in fact excel in Education. I received the inspiration, but I still worry somehow I won’t have “the right stuff” when it is time for me to step up.
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