Last weekend, my wife and I trekked from sunny southern California across the desert to scorched-earth Las Vegas for the 1st-ever Teachers Pay Teachers Conference. Excitement buzzed in the car and in our voices. We stopped to see the World’s Largest Thermometer and took some fun artistic photos out behind the parking lot where desert civilization ended.
I’d never been to a conference like this before, and especially not to one for such an exciting part of my life. Almost 800 teachers-authors streamed into the Venetian to hear keynote speakers — our founder Paul Edelman and the humble phenom of a Kindergarten teacher, Deanna Jump.
TPT Founder, Paul Edelman Humble Phenom Deanna Jump
We attended some amazingly helpful seminars that gave us pointers of areas where we need to develop things doggon’it. Seminars like:
We met a bunch of our fellow teacher / authors. On Conference Eve, we had a blast meeting up with Erin Cobb (and her hubby), AKA Lovin’ Lit >>>
It was so much fun sharing and hearing each other’s TpT journeys and just chatting life there in the late-night halls of the Venetian Palazzo. Then she had to go run through a few last preparations for her seminar the next day. Lisa attended Erin’s talk and she is a genuinely engaging presenter.
At the seminars the next day, it was great to finally get a chance to chat with some of the folks that we’ve been colleagues with, in a way, for almost two years now. It’s the weirdest thing having a store on Teachers Pay Teachers because in one respect, it’s a really solitary journey, but then from another outlook, we’re on the same journey with thousands of other teachers. Here are a few that we got to meet and could actually find a moment amid the excitement for a photo:
We met Page while we checked in the morning of the conference. Lisa and her really clicked as soon as they met. They attended two seminars together and we spent lunch discussing what we were learning about (collaborative talk *wink*).
After the seminars, we moved upstairs to the TpT cocktail party. We got to talk with so many great middle school teacher / authors that made the night a lot of fun. Seriously, everyone we met was super nice. We’re not kidding!
Then the next morning, we took some family photos together before loading the camels for the trek back across the wilderness.
And back home to try to apply all the wonderfully challenging strategies that we’ve learned. We’ve got our work cut out for us. We’ll see you all at the conference again next year, but we’ll definitely be talking with each other between now and then. Cheers!
