Today was the last day of the convention. The day started with a big session - I think they called it the "closing session" or something like that. It was in a huge room, and there lots of people there. The president of the International Reading Association did a little speaking, thanked some board members who were completing their term of service, and introduced the new president, Dr. Kathryn Au, from Hawaii. I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Au a couple of years ago, and she was as impressive this morning as I remember her being. She spoke of her experiences in education, her family, and the plans for next year's conference in Chicago!
The main speaker this morning was Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson is the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. Let me explain - he is a medical doctor whose specialty is brain surgery on kids, and he is the main doctor for that at one of the leading hospitals in the world. One thing he is famous for is doing a surgery to separate conjoined (or Siamese) twins who were joined at the top of the head. When he talked about that surgery, he said it took more than 28 hours. More than 1 whole day! But the twins lived and are now finishing sixth grade. Wow! Dr. Carson did talk some about his job, and the two books he has written, but mostly, he talked about his childhood. He did not have an easy childhood. He lived in a very poor area of a very big city. His mom didn't know how to read (although he didn't know that at the time) and they did not have an easy life. However, his mother would not allow him to make excuses and be "stupid." She required him to take responsibility for his actions, and wanted him to be the best he could be. To help him do that, she would not allow him to watch very much television, and required him and his brother to read two books a week from the library and hand in written book reports. (Hmm...maybe I should start making you guys do that. What do you thin LOL!) Dr. Carson became a curious person and decided he wanted to know about lots of things. He learned, on his own, about classical music, literature, and art. He studied just because he wanted to know more. Little did he know, when he was learning those things, that the knowledge of art and music would help him get into a special program that allowed him to learn to be a neurosurgeon! Dr. Carson was very impressive, and I think I'm going to have to buy his books and read them! (I also think I'll watch the Hallmark movie about him - Gifted Hands - when it comes on TV again.)
After the closing session, I went to a session about "inquiry groups" - kind of like small group research. The presenters were Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels, and they jokingly called themselves "Harvey-squared." Theirs is another book I'm going to have to buy and read! I have a lot of studying to do this summer!
Last, I went to a symposium about a "book of the month" club that one school does. At that school, each month the whole school reads a different book and responds to it. They don't do it all at the same time - each class works on it at different times. I really like that idea, and think I'll do that with my class next year, and maybe I'll see about partnering with other classes, too. This year, the school worked to respond to the books using technology tools. They used things like voicethread, glogster, and google docs. Using tools like those, I think you could even do this kind of project with classes at different schools. My thoughts are kind of whirling with possibilities!
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