It’s Sarah writing, and I’m delighted to report that Nairobi is a happening place to be, and is treating us quite well. The conference is at this amazing complex called “Safari Park”, which has a hotel, five restaurants, three swimming pools, and loads of other amenities. We were all impressed with how large it all was! Here is a picture of the elephant statue in the lobby. Quite a welcome, eh?
So far the conference has been interesting. Our key note speaker Sunday evening was Valerie Bloom, a Jamaican poet, who basically did an interactive poetry reading instead of talking at us. It was a wonderfully enriching and fun experience. I also took an all day session with her today, and came away with a lot of great ideas for helping students write creatively. I’ll definitely be putting those into action A.S.A.P.
Today for our key note we heard from John Joseph, and Australian educator who speaks about four “worlds of the mind” that we each have (identity, concrete, abstract, and future). He uses brain science to explain why it is important to develop each area of intelligence and how knowing about the intelligences can help students understand and take charge of their own learning. It was quite interesting, and he was funny.
Tomorrow I’m going to a workshop on student-led conferences, which is something we aim to implement at school this year, so I’m excited to have a good refresher/extender course to go on! Also, there are “dutch treat” dinners tomorrow evening where teachers from the International School of Kenya here in Nairobi are going to take us to some of their favorite places to eat in the city. I”m excited for that. I hope that it does not take as long as the dinner we had tonight at the Japanese restaurant here at Safari Park. I’ll spare you the details and summarize by saying that it took us four hours to complete the meal...and not by any choice of our own.
Okay, that’s all for now. More tomorrow!
