Guest Blog: Teacher leader shares experience at Educators Rising Conference
06/28/2019
The 2019 Educators Rising National Conference was an experience like no other. I attended the conference as Northeast Dubois High School’s Teacher Leader, along with student, Miss Taylor Neukam, who is also Indiana’s Children’s Literature Pre-K competition winner. Since Taylor won the Indiana competition, she was eligible to compete and represent Indiana at the national event.
The conference was in our hotel, the Hyatt Regency at Reunion Tower. There were sessions to attend that varied in topics, but essentially all revolved around preparing students for a career in teaching. We even had the opportunity to meet and listen to the 2019 National Teacher of the Year award winner.
Students from all over the United States were present and the enthusiasm for the future of education was intoxicating. The energy levels were high, and as a high school teacher, I loved seeing so many future teachers in one place. There were 20 competitions students were competing in at the national level. We are happy to report that Indiana was a semi-finalist and top 10 in the nation in the Children’s Literature Pre-K competition! Taylor represented her school and Indiana well!
While in Dallas, we explored the downtown, the Deep Ellum Arts District and enjoyed fabulous Texas BBQ. We spent some time at Six Flags over Texas for some roller coaster experiences. We even journeyed to Fort Worth to see the running of the Long Horns and experience the Texas Stockyards. Taylor and I are both rural farm girls, so this experience was amazing!
We both highly recommend continuing to support Educators Rising for high school students that are thinking about becoming an educator. This was a very enjoyable and educational adventure that would not have been possible without the support of ISTA. We thank ISTA and hope more schools join us next year for the 2020 Educators Rising Adventures.
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Amy Mitchell is a FACS teacher with Northeast Dubois. She is president of the Northeast Dubois Classroom Teachers Association and an Educators Rising Teacher Leader for her school corporation.