RIASCD, PTA and reception at the Rhode Island Foundation.

This past week was a very busy one but very much enjoyed. On Thursday I had the honor to speak at the annual PTA Spring Convention Meeting. I was accompanied by my friend and colleague Peter Boland, who is now an officer of the PTA. It was so refreshing to see so many parents from all over the state so involved in education. Parent-teacher relationships is such an important key to the success of students. I shared with them my story and also my gratitude for their dedication.

Friday night I attended a reception to honor and highlight the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and undocumented immigrant Jose Vargus. He revealed his unauthorized status in recent articles he wrote for the New York Times Magazine and Time magazine. In September 2011, Rhode Island's Board of Governors for Higher Education approved a policy that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at Rhode Island's colleges if they attended high school in the state for at least three years and graduated. The students must sign an affadavit stating they are pursuing legal status. The policy went into effect in 2012.

Saturday morning I delivered the keynote to pre-service teachers at the RIASCD 10th Annual Pre-Service Conference. I offer the following excerpt from my speech:

Relationships are the “stuff of humans”  We do not live in isolation; from birth we interact with others in our lives – parents, siblings, friends, teachers, neighbors, loved ones – and enmesh ourselves in a web of relationships that shape our persons and the trajectory of our lives. We live every day in the context of these relationships. It is because of these very relationships I speak of-- that led me to teaching.

There are three fundamental relationships that you need to nurture as an educator-- teacher-student, teacher-colleague, and teacher-parent/community.

Teachers link together students, other teachers, school administrators, families, and community members to foster the learning success and healthy development of their students.

The most important relationship perhaps is teacher-student. I recently read a study that showed that relationships with students were the most important source of enjoyment and motivation—for teachers.