Professional Development

Today started early with rise and shine sounding at 4:00am. I got ready and headed to the administration building where a group of district teachers and myself departed for Muskogee, OK at 5:30am. We arrived in Muskogee at 8:30am and this was just the start to a long, adventurous day. The conference began like most with a keynote address about why our schools will be changing standards in approximately 3 years. To sum it up, we must change learning in schools due to how fast the world is changing around us. It was a fine kick off to the day, where we talked about how it may appear that our schools are very low compared to other schools across the world, but that we are in fact improving and we are the best school system in the world due to the fact that we teach ALL kids, not just the most ideal kids. We went through a series of other lectures throughout the day which discussed what we must change to become higher performing schools, and how we must go about changing them. All-in-all, today was a great boost to start a new school year off on, reminding ourselves that we are investing in the future of EVERY child, not just the elite or chosen ones. I enjoyed being reminded that I do this for those kids whose only way out of their current situations may well be the knowledge they gain in my class or at our school.