Education Minnesota Summer Seminar 2005

It's been a busy couple of weeks! It began last week with a trip to St. Joseph, MN for Education Minnesota's annual Summer Seminar. Last year was my first time at the event, and I found it professionally invigorating and just plain fun. So, an East Grand Forks colleague of mine (who also attended last year) and I encouraged a couple other teachers to accompany us this year, and it was, again, worthwhile. Here's the skinny on my time at the seminar:

Monday, August 1
We left East Grand Forks around 7:00 A.M. and arrived at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph around 11:00 A.M. We registered and ate lunch before hearing a welcome address from Education Minnesota President Judy Schaubach, followed by ice cream. My first session that afternoon was "Conversations for Better Relationships." The content reminded me a lot of the communications component of the human relations course that I have taught at Northland Community and Technical College. How much could we cover in one hour-and-a-half session? But we focused on listening carefully in order to avoid and/or diffuse conflict via better conversations. After supper (a picnic on the lawn), we had an evening forum on the education issues arising from the recently completed special session of MN's legislature.

Tuesday, August 2
All three of my sessions this day (with breaks for meals and ice cream, of course) were really installments of what otherwise would have been one lengthy session called "Membership Vitality Program (MVP)." We discussed ways to keep the teachers within our education associations involved and feeling connected, and we shared ideas for doing that from our own experiences. I came away with lots of practical resources. In the evening we just had to take part in bingo, of course (everyone does, you know), where I won nothing. However, my friends--a married couple--each won a free single room at next year's conference! Ironic.

Wednesday, August 3
The two remaining sessions of the Summer Seminar were this morning, and both of mine were interesting. The first was "Educational Research and Dissemination"--an off-putting title for a session that provided me with many resources should our education association ever become ready to take responsibility for offering professional development opportunities to our own members (to refresh our teaching with the latest in research on education issues and classroom practice). The other one was "Community Connections: Working Together," a session on how to get the involvement and support of parents, businesses, local citizens, etc., in and for our schools. There are many resources available through Education Minnesota, and this workshop made me aware of them.

(If you would like access to any of the resources that I collected at the Summer Seminar, please let me know.)

Besides all the cognitive stimulation and motivation to return to teaching after a summer away from it, the Summer Seminar was good for its social benefits, too: reconnecting with colleagues from other districts, making new acquaintances from around the state, and getting to know better my own colleagues with whom I traveled to St. Joseph. It's encouraging to hear what we're all doing in our classrooms and in our districts, and the Summer Seminar is a reliable (i.e., annual) opportunity for exchanging ideas, venting frustrations, etc. My hope is that, each year, more and more educators from East Grand Forks will attend.