The TD Dream

I have returned from Toronto and it was admittedly one of the best trips I have ever had. I was in Toronto because of the Toronto Dominion bank. TD was celebrating their 15th anniversary of  their scholarship and  they decided to celebrate with all of their alumni. TD invited all 300 members of their scholarship recipients  on their bill. More then half of the TD alumnus replied to this invitation and it quickly became a wonderful weekend of learning, sharing, and reconnecting.

Most of the weekend was focused on education and the reforms that could be brought to education. This topic was of particular interest to me as I have been working on and with education for quite some time. My particular battle is to ensure creativity gets injected in to education. I was very interested in all of the issues going on during the weekend. I was also very excited to hear everyones opinions as they seemed to reassure my notions and my work that I have been doing for quite some time. (I will write more about this at a later date)

One last note about this weekend before I end this post. I was excited to have Erin Gruwell come and speak to the group. Who is Ms. G, you may ask? Well Ms. G is the lady behind the inspirational story of the Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers of course is the story of Ms. G working with a group of "gang" students who were deemed by most of society as some of the bottom feeders to ensure that they would get the education and chances that they deserved as young people. Ms. G encouraged the students to relate their lives to their curriculum and encouraged the students to toast to their new beginnings and to record their feelings and thoughts and to reflect. If you have not seen Freedom Writers the film or read the book I suggest you do.

Finally Ms. G also brought along her team of growing Freedom Writers-what a great group of human beings. All of these teachers are looking for ways to integrate their wonderful abilities and experiences into their classrooms and inspire their kids to do the same.

Rethinking education is a necessity as we have been teaching in the 21st century while using methods from the 18th century.

More to come soon-about education-about the TD renuion