Boy, Did I Feel Old!

I attended a foreign language conference in Minneapolis last week. It was a good conference, but I felt like a neanderthal much of the time.

Man, teachers are young! The majority of the attendees were size 2 with beautiful long hair and skinny jeans...and they spoke with great enthusiasm and knowledge. The profession is in good hands.

Man, keeping up with technology is daunting! I took two half-day workshops on Podcasting and Using Technology for Assessment. Wiki pages, podcasts, voice threads, and other applications are now in my vocabulary, but my brain hurt after being bombarded with so many new ideas. It's not your old foreign language classroom.

Man, it was lonely. I attended by myself and, except for two other "oldies" who kindly invited me to join them at lunch on Thursday, I knew no one at the conference. During my career, conferences were a giant party as I attended with good friends and met other friends while there. People in Minneapolis were cordial, but my "buddies" have moved out of this realm.

Man, it was nice to re-connect. Although I was alone at the conference, I had the joy of spending my evenings with my good friend Barb. Although we were very close when we taught together in our twenties and thirties and continued that friendship after I left that school, it has been harder to maintain our relationship since she moved to Minneapolis a few years ago. Like any great freindship, however, we re-connected as though no time had passed. (And I didn't feel at all old at her house!)

Man, it was inspiring. I almost didn't go to the keynote speaker. Who cares about a woman who is CEO of a major international firm? What does that have to do with me? Well, it had everything to do with me. Marilyn Carlson Nelson, of the Carlson Company that owns Radisson, TGI Fridays CarlsonLit travel, etc. etc became an un-likely hero. She told story after story of being a woman leader when it was mighty hard to do so in the early 60's. A story from her early childhood really stuck with me. I hope I was half as good at inspiring my children as her father was in this story.

On the way home from church when Marilyn was in 7th grade, she announced to her parents that she wasn't going to go to Sunday School any more. The kids spent the hour throwing spit wads and being disruptive. She told her parents she would learn more by listening to the sermon with the adults.

Expecting praise from her parents, she was shocked when her father pulled the car over and was angry with her. He told her that, if there was a problem with the Sunday School, she should fix it.

How could a 12 year old fix a Sunday School?

Her mother arranged a meeting with the Superintendent of the Sunday School and Marilyn and the "super" had a conversation which led to actually "fixing" the Sunday School.

What a message! If you've got a problem....fix it!