"I'm As Mad as Hell - And I'm Not Going To Take This Anymore"

An Educational "Conference" of Substance

Having attended countless educational conferences over the years, there's a couple truths I've come to realize:

1. it's good to catch up with old friends - and meet new ones;

2. little substance comes from the conferences.

Presenters spend a great deal of time refining their presentations.  Handouts of the presentation are given.  Duffle bags and vendor displays.  Some local sight-seeing.

What's the take-away?

What's the benefit to the educational system - to the students - to the kids?

Little.

I stopped giving presentations a couple years ago.  I had given approximately 30 presentations on a variety of subjects, from the Solar System to Shakespeare, from India to Spain to Mexico.

I had had enough.

I was tired of traveling.

I was tired of spending a lot of money.

I was tired of being away from my family.

I was tired of spending time making presentations - and then the presentations falling to some obscure directory on my hard drive.

But I still wanted to create good materials.

I decided to limit the conferences to presentations where I could present a book, be it a novel, a workbook, or a logical explanation of a topic, written in book format.  Here are three examples:.

This met my need of wanting to create good materials and meet fellow patriots in the struggle for educational excellence.

But what about the kids? 

I started to create a submission for the 2010 TED conference, and another one at Chautauqua in New York, and, with that question "But what about the kids?" thought, "Why not bring the conference here?  WHY AM I GOING EVERYWHERE?  BRING EVERYTHING HERE!"

So what.

If the conference was here, how does it follow students would benefit.  How ridiculous that sounds even saying it!

And the cost of hosting a conference?  Who would come?  Why would a kid come?

And what would be the take-away if the kid did come?

And the answer came to me ---

The kid does not have to come - not anymore - not in this age of "online get-togethers", GoTo Meeting, etc. 

And the "conference"?  The word conjures up images of all-day events with nothing accomplished.  Instead, imaging a brief meeting introducing an idea, and then the materials downloadable for the student to work with on their own time!

An online discussion forum to provide constant interaction with interested kids and parents.

Perhaps a quarterly get-together for the kids themselves to present their work!

Some tentative ideas ...

Imagine 5th graders writing haiku about science projects, 9th graders programming computers to generate fractals, and 7th graders writing science-fiction-history novels.  10th graders writing their own interpretation of Shakespearean plays and 12th graders exhibits to the "Capitalist Museum" of how the world works.  That's just a start!

For goodness sakes - How the hell can we be talking about illiteracy and drop-out rates in this day and age?

I'm so damn tired of hearing about the educational problems in this country, from math to reading to science, from drop-out rates to violence in schools.  I'm so damn tired of the professional educators unable to solve the problems, and Superintendents changing on a yearly basis, and ad-hoc programs coming and going like some ice-cream "flavor-of-the-month".

We sit on our couch and listen to broadcasters discuss our low ranking in world math competitions, our high drop-out rates, and we accept it like that's the way it's suppose to be.

It's not suppose to be that way.

If this sounds familiar, the feeling inside of me mimics this scene:

But there is something we can do!

Stay tuned!