First of all, the NDEO conference in Miami was amazing. lots of very interesting and high quality presentations and the panel I moderated on Men in Dance Education was very well attended and incredibly successful. Many of the workshops that I went to specifically addressing men and boy's issues in dance were very informative.
I also got to connect with many friends, colleagues, dance teachers, and dancing partners that I haven't seen in awhile. I took two movement classes. One on African Dance, which was exhilarating and humbling at the same time and one with the incredible dancer and teacher Lori Bellilove.
I didn't get to see much of Miami other that the downtown area, the bay, and Little Haiti but that is fine with me. I did get to see some of the Ironman competition which was going on just a few blocks from the hotel.
After an exhilarating and informative weekend I came back to teaching and Department of Education bureaucracy that includes the Common Core and the new Danielson Protocols for teacher evaluations. What a mess and how frustrating. The whole thing is just being rolled out in such a manner that it has everyone on edge. From teaching to the new standardized tests to being evaluated on the look of your classroom and the quality of your bulletin boards. Now I know these might be important but how about the "quality" of your teaching and not in 15 minute snippets or even one full period classroom observation, but your overall impact on the students and the school environment. It is just all so frustrating and seems to keep us doing tons of paper work that has little to do with the education of children.
More on these topics as the year unfolds and we get closer to our quality review. In the meantime here is a picture of many of the men who were in attendance this year at the NDEO conference.
