
The first workshop I attended was titled
“Hands on Learning” presented by a teacher from Mount Pleasant High
School. I may have enjoyed it more, and
gotten more out of it if I hadn’t been confused about what the point of it was
the whole time. Although, I admit that I
probably should’ve read the description of it before I went, because I probably
wouldn’t have chosen it as my first workshop choice. In this workshop we learned about water
pressure, ocean currents, and other density driven Earth processes. We used pressure blocks to show how pressure
affects ocean currents.

My next event was better. I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot. My next one was called “Teaching while
Brown”. This workshop was presented by
two “students of color, turned STEM teachers” and their experiences in the
classroom. The
presenters were David Upegui a science teacher at Central Falls High school and
Jonathan Acosta a teacher at Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy Middle
school. They were also related, an uncle and a nephew. They talked about their experiences and
struggles in working to make a successful classroom in a struggling area. They were great presenters and had a very
engaging presentation that was very culturally relevant also relevant to our
class discussions.
They began by asking us about our favorite teachers, what made them so good as a teacher, and the impact they had on us. The point of this was to show that the physical appearance of the teacher didn't usually make a difference to us. They talked about their classrooms and the success of their students. They both had extremely successful students, who you could just tell that they were proud of.

After lunch, the last part of the day was the keynote address by Dr. Christopher Emdin. He was a great speaker, who was very lively and he really grabbed our attention and made us listen attentively. He talked a lot about making students interested in learning and how we can do that in our classrooms. One of the ways that he explained this was by rapping. He talked about how some students may have trouble with memorizing facts, but they may be able to remember it by rapping, or putting it to a beat and we, as future educators need to respect the knowledge the student have no matter what the form they present it. He talked a lot about the idea of #HipHopEd He talked about the segregation in schools and how it affects the education that some students get.
