A few weeks ago I (Kyla Kiburis) had an opportunity to hear 3 of my favorite educational guru’s speak: Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul and Jimmy Casas.  I have read several of their books and I was excited to hear them in person. It was an awesome day, they were so engaging I was surprised when they announced it was lunchtime (for those of you that know me...that really says something!) The day was so full of great information, I have actually had a hard time deciding what my biggest takeaway was, so I  have narrowed it down to one nugget from each speaker:

Jeffery Zoul talked about the importance of growing each day.  Making sure that you have a personal learning network. It made me wonder, what kind of PLNs do our teachers have?  What is my PLN? AND...how can I expand that? Twitter is a great platform for learning and I am working on becoming a more proficient twitter user.  I need to set a goal to actually jump in and take the risk to tackle Twitter.

Jimmy Casas challenged us to keep the enthusiasm of August all year and he suggested that if we lose our purpose, we lose our excitement for our jobs.  In the beginning, it is right in our heart but it moves to our gut as the crazy year goes along. How can we keep our purpose at the forefront or rekindle it as needed throughout the year?

Todd Witaker shared my favorite quote of the day by Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better.  Then when you know better, do better” He said we should be embarrassed about what we did 5 years ago...wow...that really makes you think!  What are we doing to innovate and change our classrooms to be better? We know so much more about this generation of kids and we know that we need to prepare them for jobs that have not even been created...so we have to take the risk, get out of our comfort zones and be better teachers, they deserve it!

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