San Diego here we are!

Lights, camera, action!

Thousands of educators from across the nation are here in San Diego for the NEA Representative Assembly, pumped up and ready to debate and vote on a range of critical issues facing the nation's educators and their students and set Association policy for the coming year.

But first, the music, the invocation, the dancing and the national anthem:

Failure Is Not an Option

Dancing down the aisle to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” Alan Blankstein, president of the HOPE Foundation, invited us to join in. We did. We were engaged.

Back on stage, he got down to business—showing us how to keep all students engaged. Especially the kids who are the most difficult to reach. Interconnect ideas, he said (and demonstrated). Use student interests, music, common knowledge, history, dance.

The solutions are “in the room,” Blankstein said. We just need to work collaboratively to find them.

Sixth grade teacher to sixth grade teacher (Your kids are getting decimals. Mine aren’t. Can I watch you teach them?) All educators in the school. In the district. And the latest new thing -networks of paired schools - one lower and one higher performing school. In his work with paired schools, Blankstein is finding that schools are successful because their mission is to work together and depend on each other to solve problems.

Want to learn more Harnessing Optimism and Potential through Education (HOPE)? Visit the HOPE Foundation Web site.