Last week's Conference

Last week’s conference was great. I was able to meet up with a wonderful woman, named Lynda, that I met at the February recruitment fair in Iowa. She moved from Thailand to Mauritania, West Africa. I enjoyed being able to talk with her and see her at the conference.
Being that there were over a hundred people there, it was fairly easy to meet and talk with other teachers to discuss education as well as the various countries they came from. It was wonderful to talk with teachers from Nigeria, Guinea, and Ghana.

The keynote speaker for the opening plenary was excellent. He presented on culture in international schools. What struck me was ihs comment on how although we work at International or American schools abroad, we still use an American curriculum, American research, and American strategies. He further explained that since students come from various schools they will not behave in the same manner as we are accustomed to as Americans. This point had a lot of truthfulness with me. I have a student who has different classroom mannerisms maybe because he came from a non-American school. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I pretty much expected him to react and do the same things that I have known so well in an American school system. His discussion gave me a clearer vision in teaching at a school with many various cultures.

The pictures of the dancers come from the Oku Mask dancers of North West Cameroon. During the conference they presented us with an amazing dance from their region. Each of the ten provinces of Cameroon has a particular traditional dance and outfit. I just loved the dried up seeds that they have attached to the bottom of their legs so that when they stomp they make noise. Enjoy. I will have another post later this week.