The Anchorage Conference

In November, I was told to prepare to go to Anchorage for something called the RTI conference in January. The district was sending me, Carol and Colynn for reasons known only to them. Carol has been in Togiak a few years, Colynn is new this year but has worked in the past for the district and I am fresh off the plane.

The RTI stands for Response to Intervention and is similar to PBIS (Positive Behavior Instructional Support) that we use in our building. It’s all about understanding why children act the way they do, how to help them be the best learners possible, etc.

I found that for me to be the best learner possible at a conference that consisted of way to much sitting and reading along with PowerPoint presentations (because all presenters know that teachers can’t read and listen at the same time-oy) is to ask my best friend to come join me in Anchorage. The district was paying for the room and got a discounted rate so they didn’t care if I added a name to the room list.

Bestie was in right off the bat. She was born in Anchorage and knows that it kinda sucks there in January but was game anyway. We met up at the hotel on Thursday, had a fabulous reunion moment, then settled in to watch tv while I guzzled down Taco Bell.

The first day of the conference was for people who were new to RTI, we got to listen to a day’s worth of Introductionary BlahBlahBlah. The presenters were very excited about their program and although it was interesting and I knew I would come away with some great concepts and things to try, all I could think about what how they kind of sounded like fanatics. Like, this program was going to make education easy. Or that it would change everything, despite funding cuts (even here in Alaska where education is incredibly well funded, they just don’t know it) and poverty-stricken kids and abuse and and and.

That evening, Bestie and I chose not to go to dinner with the crowd but instead wandered into a hole-in-the-wall recommended by her mother. What a great recommendation it turned out to be. Initially, we went to Club Paris for a drink before deciding where to have dinner but the drama of a staff meeting held in the dining room with some of the most cantankerous old timey waitresses sucked us in and we couldn’t bear to leave before the show was done. (Apparently not everyone wears skirts an appropriate length! And some in the number three position were taking tables from 1 and 2!)

It didn’t help that I hadn’t had alcohol in a few weeks so real drinks hit hard. I learned that a true Manhattan is a wonderful thing and that a Moscow Mule is gross even though it comes in a cool copper mug (sorry Beth) and that two in a row on an empty stomach is a bad idea. So we decided to have dinner also and it was one of the top three steaks I have had in my life.

The second day of the conference included a great keynote address by Tricia Skyles on running a balanced classroom. I learned the difference between an Educated Thug and a Safe and Sane Idiot, two terms I love. If only the other sessions were as interesting and relevant. I always marvel at teachers with decades of experience who give long lectures on what not to do with students to keep them engaged but neglect to do any of these things for their adult learners. Hey Reading for Older Students Lady, we get bored too listening to you read to us your PowerPoint! Mix it up a little.

That evening, Bestie and I went with the other Togiak School teachers and a nice woman from New Stuyahok to see Leonardo Di Caprio play with a bear and have dinner at a great little diner that Bestie remembered from her childhood called the Artic Roadrunner. The best fish sandwich I have ever had, especially since it was made with halibut.

By the time we got home, I was entering that wired over-stimulated phase of road trips. We watched some tv and tried to sleep. A few hours later, I was still in that dozy mode and not quite asleep when the bed, the room, the building, the world started to sway. Earthquake! It started out slow and kept going and going. I could feel the building go one direction way too far, jolt and sway back the other way. In a word it was awful, nauseating, terrifying, bad. I hate earthquakes more than anything so as I waited the 14 hours or so for it to stop, I pulled my pillow over my head, thanked god for my nose hose to keep the air flowing and prayed that nothing would fall on my head.

In our room on the floor six we had no damage and once the shaking stopped, Bestie made sure I was okay physically and emotionally.  But it took me many hours to actually fall asleep.

The conference the next day was more stories of the earthquake and people’s reaction to it, which made for a fairly boring all day conversation. The downside to the whole day was that it was Sunday (Anchorage School District has a strange, to me, policy that teachers cannot be released to go to conferences like this one, it hence was scheduled over a weekend) so it was the day Bestie went back to Portland.

After we finally finished the conference, we Togiakians went to the store for all those things we cannot buy in Togiak, like fresh food. I bought as many groceries I could carry, including two kinds of apples for my students and plenty of cheeses for me, though no fancy black truffle pecorino this time, and an eight pack of romaine lettuces. Packing it all into manageable weights for all my luggage took the better part of an hour. I deliberately packed light coming into Anchorage in order to load up on the way home.

The next day was dangerously windy and there was some fear that we wouldn’t make it home the same day. Colynn and I took the later flight in the little tiny plane and it was, hopefully, the worst ride I have ever had. It made me wonder, amidst the terror, why people pay good money to go on roller coasters. I was extra glad I didn’t eat much that day, and took the day after off to recover.

The most important thing I learned going to the RTI conference was the joy of friendship, the camaraderie of disaster survival, and a few new tricks to put into my bag labeled classroom management.