This is a somewhat-different post, in that it’s not specifically about what went on in the classroom.  I hope we’ll be able to add some photos and some text to let you know what the kids in our group and Diane and Jeri’s group did during the past 4 days. Do, please, ask your child about it. (Have you subscribed to this blog? If not, you might want to — as you’ll be notified when new things go up here.)

Some personal comments about my perspective on Conference Week:

• I always learn a tremendous amount from the preparation that I do for these meetings. As we engage with your children every day in many different learning activities and social situations, it’s hard to sustain a longitudinal view of their growth. But reviewing their work, revisiting my occasional notes, looking into previous years’ reporting and assessment, and having time away from the daily activities that require more immediate responses and individualized planning all make it possible to think about your child over time and across nominal subject boundaries.
• Parents, as we often say, are the real experts on their own children. And they are also the experts on their family needs, routines, values, and priorities. So our conversation during our conference help me understand those things better —  as well as giving me a chance to suggest things that we might modify in the classroom and/or at home to make both environments run more smoothly.
• I love coming in near the end of the day to see and hear about what our kids are doing. The intense focus on a single over-arching topic ( geography in this most recent block for our students, combined with Diane and Jeri’s 5th grade group) is just what enables many of our students to learn and thrive. Many enjoy the opportunity to go more deeply and to work for a longer block of time than our typical weekly schedule allows.
• Our specialist teachers see our kids much less often than we do in our “home” classroom, and they usually see them in narrower contexts. To spend 4 full days with a group of students as they explore a themed set of topics and go through all the routines of their day (lunchtime, choice time, and more) is often a source of insight and new understanding of each student’s strengths, interests, personality, and learning style.
• Students get a chance to see specialists in a broader way, too. As the PE or art teacher helps you with a math-related task, as the art or music teacher helps you research and write up an investigation, you learn that these people can do more than just one kind of thing.
• Finally, conference week shifts the opportunity (or burden) for planning, collaboration, and implementation to our classroom assistants and our specialists. Much as we might wish it to be otherwise, there is not as much as we would like of close instructional unity between the home classroom and the rich world that our specialists present. But for 4 days twice each year, classroom assistants and specialists come together and enjoy the autonomy, continuity, and flexibility that this break-out block allows.

I’m looking forward to being back in the classroom next week, but I am still reaping the benefits of this out-of-schedule week that our children enjoyed.

Geocaching, anyone? Or how about creating an edible map of our planet?