The Innovative Educators Workshop

A Big Dream

At the start of every new year, my husband and I sit down and create a “dream list” of big things that we want to accomplish over the next 365 days. The goal of the list is that is has to be something BIG, something that is a true passion of ours, and something that is going to challenge and push us our of our comfort zones. Our lists usually only have two or three things on them, but they are dreams that we have grown in our mind and held in our hearts. Once we put them on that list, we are saying that we are ready to tackle them, make them a reality, and are asking our partner for support. A couple of the items we have dreamed and prayed into existence of the years have been to start a local USA swim team, get a doctoral degree, host a winter swim camp, build a house, and start a family. It is one of my favorite new year traditions!

This year, I tossed a really big dream out there. I had been holding on to this dream for YEARS, but this was the year that I finally couldn’t stop thinking about it, it excited me for than it scared me, and I felt there was a true need for it. I wrote down that I wanted to host a series of small workshops for educators. The last year and a half has been hard. COVID-19 has made opportunities to gather, collaborate, and network together in person very difficult. So, the time felt right to offer something like a small teacher workshop in our local area.

This dream may not seem like a “big” thing, but I have had the honor of helping host the Spring Teacher Retreat in French Lick Indiana with a team of educators from all over the East coast for several years, so I know how much work goes into hosting events like this. And, while that event was home to around 500 educators each year, I still knew that a much, much smaller one was going to be a lot of work.

All the Butterflies

When I hit the publish button on the Google Form today, I got nervous again. Nervous because I have NO idea if anyone will actually sign up. This is our trial run…our test to see if our area has a true need for something like this. I got nervous because I would like this first workshop to be the first of many. I would love to be able to host one for new teachers, one for high school teachers, one aspiring administrators, for practicing administrators, for parents, etc. Big dreams….lots of butterflies.

But, thanks to lots of support from my family and friends as well as a lot of prayers and quiet time asking for guidance, I am officially excited to announce that The Innovative Educators Workshop registration is open!

Quick Conference Details

For this first event, we will be focusing on K-8 educators. There are only 25 seats available because we want to spoil and love on teachers, keep the environment personal, and we want each and every educator that comes to feel “seen” and “heard”. The three presenters are local teachers who are currently living the educator life right alongside our attendees. Their sessions are focused on their own personal classroom passions, and each one of them have a lot of excitement and love to share with each teacher in attendance.

If you visit our workshop tab, you can access the list of presenters, session overviews, and registration details. I hope that this small workshop ignites a fire and a passion for local teachers and gives them a chance to gather with others who are just as excited for the amazing job that we have chosen to pursue.

I will report back soon! Hopefully, the next time I share…I will be sharing moments from the workshop and an overview of the exciting time that educators had together!