Pam Minard: Exciting Features of the 2022 Conference

00:00:00 Molly Rauh
Hello and welcome back to this CCIRAA Literacy Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Molly Rauh with my co-host...

00:00:08 Jessica Rickert
...Jessica Richert. Today's podcast features Pam Minard CCIRAs 2022 conference chair. We chatted a lot about the exciting opportunities, both learning and fun to get you rejuvenated. Join us on the journey to literacy and learning at the 2022 CCIRA conference, Feb 10, the 11th and 12th. All right, we have Pam Minard back on to talk about the conference. She had previously promoted the conference, but now we're moving the conference to from 2021 to 2022. So we're really excited to hear about some speakers and different things, because the conference is just around the corner. So Pam, tell us again about your thinking behind the theme of Journey.

00:00:57 Pam Minard
Sure, my initial thinking was that journey that I see my students going through becoming literate in their lives, and how it's not just a quick journey. It can take a while. And then I thought about the journey in my own - journeys as a reader, as a teacher, as a bike rider. And just, you know, just takes time. When I first started mountain biking, I spent more time on the ground than I did on the seat of my bike, but I didn't give up, and that's what I want for my students. I want them to feel the challenge, but not give up. So that's kind of where my thinking was in 2019 when I chose the theme of Journey. Now, as we're moving into 2022 Journeys taken on a whole different meaning. And that is the Journey of covid and the postponement and the journey that we're all going through collectively across the world, not only in literate lives, but in our lives. So I could not, you know, I could not have picked a better conference theme that related to both education, personal lives and what's happening in the world than "journey." So we continue on like we always do.

00:02:18 Molly Rauh
Well, I like the analogy that you mentioned with your biking mountain biking, and how you spent more time with your butt on the ground, then on the seat. And I feel like we're all feeling that as teachers right now, like the world has changed a little bit, and we're feeling a lot of hard days. But, you know...

00:02:37 Pam Minard
Right.

00:02:37 Molly Rauh
We get back on, and we keep writing. And so I really like that. I think that suits the world we're in right now, and the what you've dealt with trying to revise this conference now for, you know, first, to put it online. And then now again, to put it back in person, but I'm excited for you that we get to be in person and we get to have, you know, a real face-to-face conference with presenters. So my first question for you is, what are - I'm not, I'm not going to narrow you to 1 because that's just mean, three presenters and there's probably 50 to 100 that you're excited about, but three prisoners you're really excited to see at your conference this year.

00:03:18 Pam Minard
Okay, I did a lot of thinking about this this morning. And of course, while I was inviting presenters who has been act impactful in my life as a teacher, and I have to say, above all else, Ellin Oliver Keene. I would say, if you have not had the opportunity to sit in the room and listen to her speak, it's just a session that cannot be missed. I feel like every teacher has to experience Ellin Oliver Keene. Just to tell you a little bit about her. She's a local. She's from Colorado. She has been a staff developer, nonprofit director, adjunct professor. She's been with Denver's PEBC for about 16 years, the Public Education and Business Coalition. She works with schools in the United States and abroad. She has an emphasis on long-term school-based PD and strategic planning for literacy. That is a mouthful that might sound intimidating to listen to somebody talk about this. But every time I have heard her, it's just such common sense. And she's so easy to listen to and has so many great ideas. So on top of all of that, that she's, that she does interactive life, she's also written some books. She's been a co-author. I met her through a book 20 years ago, The Mosaic of Thought. It's been rewritten, not rewritten, but added to in the past 20 years. But I had no idea that that's who she was until I met her through CCIRA and then realized, oh my gosh, you made an impact on me 20 years ago. So that is my number one advice to conference attendees, whether you're a new teacher, middle of your career, end of your career: she is absolutely should be on your list if you haven't heard her. She speaking on Friday again, only one session, and it's from 915 to 10:45 , it's session 308. That's my number one recommendation. Shall I keep going?

00:05:24 Jessica Rickert
Well, let me pop in, because I have to emphasize what Pam said, like, I love people that can entertain and educate me, and especially when you're at a conference and you're going from session to session to session. And just like Pam said, like Ellen, is that they she has the research to back her, but she's funny, she's engaging. And yes, it's just things that you can take directly back into your classroom the next day. Always enjoyable and such a hit.

00:05:54 Pam Minard
Yeah. So she's my number one recommendation. Number 2 and 3 are both in the world of writing. And a lot of you might not know, but we do survey our attendees, our board of directors, our local councils for, who do you want to see? So these two people came up with on those lists of who would you like us to invite to the conference? And they are Whitney La Rocca and Brian Kissel. They both really speak a lot to writing. Whitney is the author of Patterns of Power. I've heard great things about her. I've never attended one of her sessions. I plan on attending this year, but she says that her book offers practical classroom, ready advice to take into teaching the conventions of writing to the next level. I know a lot of us struggle with teaching writing, and I am always happy to have some practical strategies to put into my practice with writing. Nicely, she's got two sessions. She's a Thursday presenter. In the morning, she's going to focus on first grade through fifth grade. And then in the afternoon, she's going to focus on pre-k through first grade. So I really like that really narrowed down emphasis of this is what you can do with our first graders that are just learning to write, just wrapping their heads around those ideas of being a literate writing person, to the pre-k's that you're going to be interpreting pictures, that they're drawing and having more rich conversations with them than maybe production of writing. So that's one that I'm definitely going to attend. Again, she's a Thursday speaker. And then Brian is also a Thursday speaker, and he's going to talk again. I love this that they're both really there for the primary, primary students. So Brian's got a session that's K through 2. And then another one that's three through six. So he's going to go a little bit higher, but all about writing and having these conversations that we need to be having with kids about race, gender, ability, language, poverty. So really, I'm really curious to hear both of them. They came highly recommended to me.

00:08:15 Jessica Rickert
And Whitney's going to be on the podcast later in January too. Yeah. So we'll hear more from Whitney. I think Brian's going to write a blog to in January. So we'll get more information for both of them. So those are my two biggie's for writing on Thursday. And then I cannot leave out Angela Myers. I attended. I think it was the 2012 conference. When we had a huge snowstorm, one of our presenters called it snowmageddon in Denver and said, he had never seen a snowmobile riding down the middle of the highway, which was the case in Denver that weekend. But Angela came in as a pinch-hitter, and she was known at the time for a TED Talk that she gave called You Matter. And it was just so emotional. And so awesome to hear her talk about how we all need to matter. So she's been working on this mattering as a topic for several years now, and she's going to speak in a session later in the day on Thursday, called literacy, reimagined and just taking our literate lives, pre-technology into technology. And then her evening session on Thursday will be it's called Mattering is the Agenda. So please, I would encourage everybody to attend that it's from 4:30 to 6:00 . You will probably walk out with wet eyes. She's just an amazing speaker, just makes you have that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when you leave her sessions.

00:09:56 Molly Rauh
Well, and speaking of places, you get warm fuzzy feelings. I feel like one thing that is underutilized by new conference goers is General Sessions. Like some people just don't recognize, like that's there for everybody. You don't have to sign up for it, you just go and you enjoy the great speakers. And I feel like General Sessions, I always get, you know, they're the kinds of sessions that you're either, like laughing out loud. There have been ones where all up dancing around the room, there's probably some video from me, at a conference where I am for once being lively instead of a wallflower . There are, you know, sometimes they get you to cry. I've never teared up so much as I have at General Sessions. So who are some of our great General Session speakers that we get to look forward to?

00:10:50 Pam Minard
I'm glad you brought that up, because Lucy Caulkins is going to open our conference. So that should be amazing. If you haven't had the opportunity to hear Lucy again, I would highly recommend her. She's just a phenomenal speaker again. So, real. So common sense. So, you know, evolutionary, she changes her thinking when it's