More about MAMLE

If you sat through my feature length film, you already know that I went to MAMLE last week. I went up with my assistant principal and a fellow teacher. It was AWESOME! It was so wonderful to be in a place filled with educators that were all interested in learning more about education and teaching. I hate to sound negative again but, this is just all too rare of a thing in my life. I was so excited to hear people buzzing about making learning more meaningful and engaging more kids. I'm sure there were skeptics in the crowd, I had my own questions about some of what I heard, but overall, people were psyched to discuss middle level education.

I was really most excited about all of Mike Muir's presentations. Mike gave the keynote speech to start things off and I went to three of his presentations during the conference. A lot of what he said is stuff that we all know, but it was stuff that I don't necessarily practice. The best part of what he was saying though, was that he made us promise not to be stressed out about all of that; the stuff we know we should be doing but aren't doing 100% perfectly. He mentioned Mark Springer's Soundings program, which I have been a fan of and used as a guide for a lot of what I do. He reminded us that it took him 20+ years to perfect what he ended up with in Soundings. He is in the process of developing/piloting a program now called Virtual Schools. He said something like "I would never write a book on the project the way it exists now." (Sorry for the horrible misquote!) I liked that a lot because I sure as heck wouldn't write a book on anything that I am doing but, I think I am on the right track and maybe I'll have my book in another 15 years :)

For more about Mike Muir and the Meaningful Engaged Learning work that he is doing, follow the link here:
http://www.mcmel.org/web/Home.html