Conference Time and A Few Good Books

Tomorrow is the P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho, always a fun place to pick up some new info and make new friends. This year's theme is "Diversify to Unify." I'll be presenting on teaching narrative writing using Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books as an inspiration. We'll learn to link story pages electronically, so readers can choose their own paths. On Wednesday, I'll present on Faith and the Public School Teacher. There are already lots of educators signed up to attend, so I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

While I haven't had much time for blogging over the last several months, I have been growing as a teacher, a mom, and a reader. Let me share just three of the books I've enjoyed and learned from recently.

A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty 
by Joni Eareckson Tada

A Place of Healing

We're all familiar with Tada's diving accident when she was a teenager because of her book Joni and the ministry she has had since becoming a quadriplegic. In her 2010 book, A Place of Healing, she shares how the heart-shattering new experience of severe, chronic pain has led her to trust God in new ways. I highly recommend this book for any believer, but specifically for those suffering from persistent pain, whether it be physical or otherwise. Visit Joni & Friends to learn more about Tada's ministries.


Reclaiming Surrendered Ground: Protecting Your Family from Spiritual Attacks
by Jim Logan

Reclaiming Surrendered Ground

The Amazon description of this book claims it will "help you and your family:

• Become alert to the enemy and his tactics
• Discover your areas of vulnerability
• Live freely in Christ's victory."

I definitely found that statement to be true when I read Reclaiming Surrendered Ground. If you're raising a family for Christ, give this book a thoughtful read.


The Parables of Jesus 
by Tomie dePaola

The Parables of Jesus

My children and I (and, when I taught Kindergarten, my students) have always loved Tomie dePaola's books with their thoughtful narratives and exquisite, accessible illustrations. In The Parables of Jesus, dePaola retells familiar stories Jesus told in a traditional manner, accompanying them with his gorgeous art. Good for short storytime sessions or a cover-to-cover read. As always with picture books, I recommend the paperback or hardback versions, since it can be difficult to appreciate the illustrations fully in an ebook format.



What are you reading these days? Share your picks for educators and other people of faith in the comments!

Follow me, Amy, on Goodreads.

P20 Conference 2018: Looking Forward to Another Awesome Experience!

Along with my awesome coworkers, I accepted the Rilla Award this month.

Another P20 Educator Conference is almost here, and I'm excited to be presening Faith and the Public School Teacher twice! My first session is July 10 at 11:10 a.m., and my second is on the 11th at 1:30. I'm psyched to update my presentation using some of my newly-acquired tech skills and bring encouragement to a new group of teachers this year. Yes, you can hold to a personal faith and teach in the public school! The only trouble is, there are so many other great sessions going on at the same time. I will just have to get the notes! P20 is such a great conference and the keynotes are awesome every year. If you're in the Twin Falls, Idaho, area, sign up!

After taking a year off blogging, there's lots to catch up on. Here are some of the highlights of my teaching life and God's work in my personal walk of faith heading into summer.

• Reading the book of James with my kids
• Seeing some of my freelance writing efforts come to fruition
• Attending a writing conference from the Idaho Writers Guild
• Revising unit plans to fit the Understanding By Design (UBD) template (webinar here)
• Taking "Behavior is Language" class
• Accepting the Rilla award from Silverback Learning Solutions with my school
• Gearing up for the P20 conference at the College of Southern Idaho (see above!)
• Adding fun products to my TPT store
• Gathering engaging resources from around the Web to use in my classroom this year
• Creating and sending a summer survey to my students using Google Forms
• Catching up on reading great books (find me on Goodreads!)

I also have to share that it was a great blessing to lead my first-ever prayer walk before school started last fall. Another teacher and I spent half an hour or so walking around the school campus and praying both silently and out loud for the year ahead. It was wonderful to know that a sister in Christ was praying with me, sharing the burden of seeking grace for our students, staff, and community. It was a year of successes in so many ways, and I love that "two or three" of us (okay, it was two) gathered in His name (Matthew 18:20) to ask God for that at the beginning. Let me encourage you to start something similar at your campus. Remember that it's legal, and it can be a great blessing. Check with your administrators if you have questions.

It's so good to be posting again! 

Blessings on you,

Amy

More Reading:

Conference Fatigue? Six Strategies to Avoid Burnout at Education Conferences

Learning Through Writing: Choose Your Own Adventure

• Want the slideshow? It's yours! Go to https://goo.gl/c49wS5.

Revising a Unit

10 Ways to Be a Teacher-Leader

Shoveling a Path Through the Snowdrifts for New Teachers

More Fun at the P20 Educator Conference 2017

This afternoon I get to present Choose Your Own Adventure: Writing and Publishing Narratives Using Digital Technology at the P20 Educator Conference in Twin Falls. It's always fun to hear other teachers share strategies for teaching writing while we learn to hyperlink and create alternate-path stories. Narrative writing is such an adventure!

Want the slideshow? It's yours! Go to https://goo.gl/c49wS5.

For more encouragement today, one of my favorite conference-related posts is Avoid Burnout and Get the Most Out of an Education Conference. At the P20 conference, I don't expect to feel burnt out. It's only two days, and the sessions have been awesome! Hope you get as much out of your conference as I already have! Share in the comments some of your take-aways. I'd love to hear them!

P20 Conference 2017

Amy at the P20 Conference

The P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho is going full steam ahead, and I'm excited to share my presentations. This morning it's Faith and the Public School Teacher, followed by Choose Your Own Adventure tomorrow afternoon.

In today's session I'll give away a copy of Words to Live By: 52 Words That Lead to an Extraordinary Life, a wonderful devotional book by Linda Gilden and my friend Dalene Parker. Don't miss Dalene's first book, Christian Teachers in Public Schools: 13 Essentials for the Classroom.

Looking forward to an awesome conference with my fellow Idaho teachers! May the Lord bless us as we gather tools and strategies for the coming school year.

Words To Live By

What Happened When I Interviewed Hip-Hop Artist MK Asante (And a Truck With a Confederate Flag Drove By)

MK Asante (publicity photo)

MK Asante gave me a few minutes of his time after what he called the "academic high" of his second address to the teachers at the P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho on Wednesday. The interview was an academic high for me, but as it turned out, there was a tone shift, a key change, five minutes in:

"Look at that," Asante interrupts himself. "Wow."

This eminently calm man is bristling.

I look through the green CSI landscaping to where a pickup truck I hadn't noticed is making the turn to exit the campus. Its in-your-face exhaust noise isn't what has MK staring. It's the oversize Confederate flag on display in the back of the truck.

"Is that normal?" he asks. "Is that normal to you?"

It's his first visit to Idaho, and the question is entirely serious.

I look him in the eye. "I'm surprised to see it on CSI campus, honestly, right now."

We couldn't be more different--I'm white, born and raised in the white state of Maine, now living in rural, white Idaho. He's. . .MK Asante, African-American, born in Zimbabwe, grown up on the streets of Philadelphia, acclaimed recording artist, filmmaker, university prof (he's older than he looks).

I have an idea what an Idahoan might mean by flaunting a Confederate flag. Maybe support for states' rights. Maybe just being a rebel. But I want to know what it means to MK Asante. I ask him.

"It means that they support the enslavement of my people. That they wanted to keep my people in slavery. That's what it means."

I sense that he's thinking a lot more than he's saying. From his heightened tension, I wonder if he thinks it's not a coincidence, that someone knew he was going to be speaking here and decided to make a statement. I ask him that, too.

"I really don't know," he says. "I'm in a completely different space, so. . .I don't know. . . ."

Me: "There are a lot of Confederate flags in Idaho."

MKA: "Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. I mean, I don't know. They did just drive right past here with. . .It was like they had it blaring, like, 'Yeah,' like making a statement. But you know, I mean, at the end of the day, not only do I know where I am, like, in terms of being in Idaho, but I know where I am in America. I understand America is a very racist place. You know what I mean? So I'm never surprised by anything that happens in America in terms of racism because slavery was legal in America for three hundred years. . . .But that's what [the Confederate flag] represents to me. It represents people that. . .people that are not my friends."

"Idaho is one of the least racially diverse states," I say. "I think people in Idaho don't realize how. . .front-line that issue is when you live in Philly, or North Carolina [Asante's current home], or wherever."

"Yeah."

Buck by MK Asante

Asante has spoken sincerely and passionately to Idaho teachers at the conference about growing up Black in Philadelphia and about how a culture of racism and the school-to-prison pipeline were facts of life for him. I've also heard him speak (more explicitly, as one would expect) of race issues in a recording from The Breakfast Club, a NYC radio talk show. Race is far from the only thing on this creative young professor's mind (witness his resume and many albums, books, and awards). But as his memoir Buck eloquently narrates, when you grow up Black in Philly, you have to learn two codes: the Black people's code and the White people's code. If you're white, you only have to learn one.

I haven't planned to bring up racial issues in our twenty-minute interview, though. There is no pressing need to talk about it. Asante is here to talk to teachers, who are also the audience for my imagined story. An in-depth treatment of racism in America is not the point of his message or mine this sunny day in July. I'm a teacher-blogger, not a reporter. For so many good reasons, I could leave the issue of race alone.

But racism has come up, and not because I'm asking or Asante is pushing it. The tone, the meaning of the interview has changed.

For a while, we pick up where my questions left off. We talk about "dope" rhyme in hip hop and why the rhythms of Shakespeare and of hip hop are two completely different things.

But Asante comes back to the Confederate flag as we're wrapping up. He needs to say more specifically how seeing the flag affected him.

Asante at the College of Southern Idaho

"We had just come from this thing in here." He motions to the Fine Arts building where he's just given his second keynote talk. "A lot of love and a lot of good energy, and so. . .I must have had my guard down a little bit, you know what I mean? It's so peaceful right here, we're sitting under this beautiful tree. . .So in a lot of ways, my guard's not up in the usual way. It's not like I'm walking down a street that I don't know. . .I'm very much feeling peaceful and, like, at peace.

"That [the flag] completely changed my energy, like. . .Okay, now I have to be vigilant. Now. . . ." He laughs. "I just need to be aware of where the **** I am, 'cause. . .like I said, that's like a clear sign of, like, 'Yo, we hate you. And we wanna kill you. And we wanna enslave you.'" His voice remains low and calm, even as he says it.

MKA: "That's what it represents to me, so it's like, 'Okay, now I have to make sure that I'm just vigilant and protect myself. I have a family, I got a son, I have a baby on the way. . .You know, the whole Black Lives Matter thing. . .You keep hearing that language: 'Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter,' but it's because there are some people that really don't value Black life."

He goes on. "There were times in this country--and there are still times in this country where. . .you're like a target. So. . .that moment, it made me more vigilant. It made me more aware of my surroundings. And it broke the false sense of security that I might have had, coming out of a kind of a euphoric experience, and being on an academic kind of high. . .On a campus, you're just totally not expecting that, and then when that happens, you're like, okay. . .this **** is real, and even though I'm on this campus. . .that doesn't really matter."

Asante stands. It's time for the folks from CSI to take him to dinner. I thank him one last time, still mulling over what's happened. Something tells me he is, too.

As I head for my car, I'm hoping he won't remember Idaho only for this--won't think our state's population is represented by one random driver of a pickup truck with an in-your-face symbol of. . .Well, who knows what it really means to that driver? God forbid Idahoans should all be judged by the actions of one member of our majority demographic group.

Yet isn't that what people like the young MK Asante, growing up in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Chicago, have received from the bad apples in the white segment of American society?

Asante told teachers in his keynote, rhyming as per usual, "If you make an observation, you have an obligation." Whoever you are, teacher--whoever you are, American, you have an obligation. This issue affects you, whether you noticed the truck with the flag or not.


Find MK Asante on mkasante.com.
Leave a comment below!

Coming Tomorrow: An Interview with Hip-Hop Artist MK Asante

Buck by MK Asante

Don't miss tomorrow's "What Happened When I Interviewed Hip-Hop Artist MK Asante (And a Truck With a Confederate Flag Drove By)."

Asante is the author of several books, including It's Bigger Than Hip Hop and his new memoir, Buck. He is a professor of creative writing and film at Morgan State University and an award-winning recording artist.

When God Wants To Bless You

The P20 Educator Conference was a huge success, and coordinators tell me that the dates are already set for the same week next year. If you're an Idaho teacher and you missed it, plan on attending next year.

The high point of the conference for me was an interview with MK Asante, hip-hop artist, author, university professor, and keynote speaker. After his first keynote, I approached him about interviewing with me, and he was generous enough to give me twenty minutes of his time after the conference. As it turned out, the interview took a surprising twist. I'm going to have to keep you in suspense on that one for a little while, but I'll have stories here soon.

Earlier in the day yesterday, I also had the chance to visit with my friend Janet and marvel about the way that God picks up the threads of our lives--all those "random" things we've done for so long--just when we finally surrender control of it all. What we'd tried to make sense of but couldn't, the trials, the work experiences, the family craziness, God had a plan for all along if we would just let go. For both of us, the winding path of a life spent following the Lord has begun to seem more visible and more compelling lately. The destination and the goodness of it and the way to it seem more designed.

On the drive home from the conference, I had a good hour and a half to think about my eventful days at CSI. I kept thinking, "God must want to bless me. Look what He gave me!" I'll share more about the specific blessings soon. But just think about that. A day when you know God wants to bless you! Maybe that obedient surrender that my friend and I were talking about has to happen first. Then God can bless.

"If you love me, keep my commandments," He says in John 14:15.

And, "'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11).

I believe God offers that love and care to all of mankind. And this one, also from Jeremiah: "'Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'"

Blessings,

Too Much Fun at the P20 Educator Conference in Twin Falls!

Having a blast at the P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho! I have to thank all the people who turned out for my first presentation of Faith and the Public School Teacher. You were all so generous and civil (I say that because we covered some controversial territory!) and didn't complain about my not having enough handouts for the 31 of you who packed the room. Next time I'll request a bigger room and more time! But truly, the discussions were thoughtful and helpful, and I couldn't ask for a better crowd. Thank you to my friends and family who prayed for me!

My earlier presentation on Choose Your Own Adventure: Writing and Publishing Narratives Using Digital Technology was also tons of fun. I gathered lots of ideas from my wonderful attendees on classroom strategies to try, tech stuff, etc. and I even found a new friend who has agreed to guest blog for us soon.

One more quick story before I crash for the night. . .

The College of Southern Idaho has a wonderful planetarium at the Herrett Center. Several of us teachers went and viewed one of the planetarium showings ("Rock on Demand": The 60s, 70s, & 80s) to relax after our busy day at the conference. I had the pleasure of being seated between two adorable children (one of whom went to sleep partway through) and being surrounded by fellow teachers.

Toward the end of the showing, the Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall" came on, and we all started chuckling because the song is a protest against teachers brainwashing their students in a "rigid" school system, to paraphrase Wikipedia. To me it's about a dystopian (or just plain Communist?) society, brainwashing vulnerable school children with government-approved propaganda--not something any of us would approve of. I felt like we had a moment.

Blessings,