Every year my fabulous team leads various breakout sessions at conferences across the state and nation. The largest event that we all participate in is the annual TCEA conference each February. This year I was honored to be presenting with two of my teammates, Cara and Ashley, at the leadership strand which included district administrators from across the state. Having never presented at the leadership strand, I had no idea what to expect and with the early start time that expectation wasn’t terribly large to begin with. This was my first mistake!
Upon getting setup for the presentation with 10 minutes to spare, which was beautifully put together by my co-presenters, I was staring at a 80-capacity room with a total of 4 seats occupied. After a quick trip to the restroom, I returned to a room that was completely full, people sitting across the front on the ground, the back on the ground and still trying to push into the room from both sets of doors.
The presentation went off without a hitch. The capacity crowd not only hung on every word that I said, they inquired about a repeat or follow up session on the topic and even asked if we could just keep the room for another session right then. Though this probably didn’t sit real well with the next presenter that was ready to get us out of the way, it was a great day to know that what we were doing and how we were doing it were truly revolutionizing education. I wish we had more time and could continue leading and learning with all of those educators. There is still so much to talk about.
