Staying classy in San Diego

It is 6:30 local time and I have few hours before picking up the students from their day of fun. I passed Jahaira in the lobby wearing her trademark smile and clapping along with her "Family Group." I kept my eyes peeled for the others and I am confident that they are having a blast.

My day was spent in two of the many excellent workshops offered for the first full day of the conference. My first session was with Steve Jones of Jones Consulting. He filled a huge ballroom with extra people sitting on the walls. Although he may have been "selling" his services, he was at least doing it by showing us how much we could currently contribute to our schools. I also think Harriet Yake would be impressed with his excellent use of Power Point to drive the message home. In short, he illustrated some excellent models of how an organization may understand issues of diversity and identity in more effective ways. In light of the attention school harassment has been receiving in the media, Dr. Jones made some very incisive observations and left us with excellent questions to ponder.

I also attended one of the many Affinity Groups offered throughout the conference. For the past three years, I have thoroughly enjoyed attending the Asian American/Pacific Islander Group and this year was no exception. As a person who is ethnically part Chinese, yet identifies as Caucasian, these sessions are one of the few times there is a space where I feel understood. Like many of the students attending the conference, it is comforting to be reassured that we are not alone in our journey for discovery. At this particular meeting, the facilitators made excellent use of the texting feature on our cell phones to do a spot survey and generate dialogue within our sub-groups. In other words, using the so-called "reality" show's technology for more educational and teachable moments. We did not vote off any facilitators, if that is what some of you are thinking.

My last session of the afternoon was for adoption awareness in our schools. This year, the PoCC had inaugurated their first "Transracial Affinity Group" for adults who are adopted into families of a different ethnicity and/or culture. As teacher and as a prospective adopting parent, this was my session of enlightened self interest. In the absence of Power Point (hooray), the we were given some very interesting and surprising statistics on adopted children. This raw data was then given faces by way of lesson topics that such families have raised concern about: family trees, personal time-lines, name origins, over-night stays, etc. We broke in to smaller groups to discuss the value and effect of such lesson. Serendipitously, the group I was in also settled on the topic of Identity and how important it plays a part in everything we do for our school community.