16th Annual VAFEPA Conference, Roanoke, Virginia

We are attending the 16th Annual VAFEPA conference today in Roanoke, Virginia. The theme for this year's conference is; "Engaging Students for a Successful Future". There are about fourteen different definitions for the word; "engage" in the dictionary. How do we "engage" students for a successful future? Do we enter into a contract with them, hold their attention, attact or entangle them, or do we pledge or promise them something. I like the last definition of "engage". What a tremendous responsibility and privilege we have as educators to pledge or promise our students a successful future! Promising our students a successful future requires a lot more than just teaching objectives that are required on a standardized test. We need to enrich the students' capacity for learning, we need to be cognizant of the students' varying physical, emotional, and physchological needs, we need to colloborate with the families and communities of our students, we need to be tolerant, patient, and understanding. This is one promise worth keeping.