Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Ocracoke - Leadership, Creativity, and Change











Our state is indeed fortunate to have the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, a place where teachers are celebrated and can grow professionally with their peers. 6,000 teachers attend the seminars offered at NCCAT per year. Opening in 1983, the center was a vision of a Teacher of the Year from Clinton City Schools named Jean Powell who dreamed of a place where teachers could go and study. Beginning in the mountains of Cullowhee, NCCAT has recently opened a campus on Ocracoke Island, one of our state's famous Outer Banks. Our team is excited to be here learning more about leadership in a seminar entitled Leadership, Creativity, and Change. We are joining District Teachers of the Year from all over the state - what a dynamic group of educators!

We began our trip with long drives to the coast of North Carolina. But our travels weren't over. We still had a 2 1/2 hour ferry ride to the Outer Banks! That's a long time to be over the water, but when we saw the lighthouse and the beautiful NCCAT campus, it was all worth it!

We began with a "getting to know you" activity. We all wrote five things about ourselves and shared them with five different people. Then we had to each sit in the "spotlight" while those five people talked about us. Teachers of the Year are sure a talented bunch. We have singers and dancers here, a math teacher and a chorus teacher, folks who have grown children, baby children, and animal children (even a bird!) The intros made us even more excited about the week.

Next, we went to dinner and found out something important: the food here is fantastic! We were presented with a treat from the sea, crab cakes, and since many of us had missed lunch (there isn't much to eat between Greenville and the ferry) we were happy teachers!

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