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About The First Five Years Seminar
This seminar will be a set of vigorous, practical, explorative experiences for people in the first five years of their teaching careers. There will be opportunities for sharing, discussion, examination of questions, problems, strategies, hopes, concerns, reflections, plans. We will focus on such areas as these:
- Bringing together a teacher's own personal style and vision with the particular students, materials, colleagues and school he/she is working with
- Getting some useful perspectives on one's self as a teacher and learner
- Strategies for developing as a teacher as one's career unfolds
- Connecting with a wider professional scene than one's own school
- The teacher as counselor: grades and comments, relationships with students
- Colleagueship with other faculty across generations, subject specialties, career histories
- The young teacher's impact on an established school
- Building useful connections with the parents of one's students
- Strategies for not getting trapped in either-or positions (academic rigor or compassionate advice; whole-group activity or individual activity; "liberal" or "conservative": college- prep or learning for personal purposes; competition or cooperation; one teaching style or an alternative one, etc.,) and strategies for transcending those either-or-traps.
- Moving beyond stereotype on who is conservative, liberal, tough, easy, athletic, academic
There will be a variety of approaches to these matters: large and small group discussion, solo work, planning, sharing, role-plays and simulations, presentations, films.
The Seminar will be led by David
Mallery, and there will be a key session led by Dr.
Robert Evans, psychologist, and the Director of the Human
Relations Service in Wellesley, MA. A former high school and pre-school
teacher, he consults to schools nationwide. His area of special interest
is the implementation of school change and resistance to it. His book
on this topic, The
Human Side of School Change, was published by Jossey-Bass
in October '96. His new book, Family
Matters: How Schools Can Cope with the Crisis in Childrearing, was
published by Jossey-Bass in 2004. Dr. Evans is a graduate of the Germantown
Friends School and received his A.B. from Princeton University and
his doctorate from Harvard University.
Date and Time: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, arrival before noon. Lunch. First session starts at 1:30 p.m. promptly. Adjournment will be at 12:00 noon on Friday, April 24, 2009.
Important Note: Only those should apply for this seminar who can arrange to arrive on time and stay the full span of the seminar. We build this seminar together and develop it together, start to finish. Thus there should be no question of someone not being there to start the process, or leaving early, as each person's active part in creating the seminar's content and tone is crucial. That is really the point and meaning of the seminar.
Place: ACE Conference Center, 800 Ridge Pike, Lafayette Hill, PA 19444. Detailed travel information is available on this site.
Cost to the School: $1050.00 for overnight participants. $995.00 for day only participants. Early arrival Tuesday, $150.00.
A detailed program for the seminar and an on-line registration form are available on this site. Please respond as early as possible. Applications will be taken on first-come-first-served basis and space is limited at the Conference Center
