North Point’s Future Educator’s Association (FEA) members gathered at The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) for the annual FEA conference. North Point, many other high school students, as well as some middle school students joined the conference to listen to fellow speakers, partake in workshops, and complete in teaching competitions.
To start off the conference, a few members made a speech about their favorite FEA moment. North Point’s FEA president, Moriah Rochlinski (’11), spoke about a moment that happened last year. She talked about the great experience she and her members had last year, when they were creating original center pieces for the FEA conference 2009. The center pieces were eagle heads made out of pumpkins and were announced the winners.
The keynote speaker at the conference, Rita F. Pierson of North Star Education, intrigued the audience with her lecture about what it means to be a teacher and everything that goes into it. Pierson, who has been an educator for more than 30 years, talked about her experiences with teaching and got audience members involved as well. One tip she gave is “respect between the student and teacher is key.” By Pierson’s helpful tips of everything one needs to become a teacher, she believes that all the members had great potential as future educators.
Once Pierson was finished, all members were off to a variety of workshops. North Point’s members visited a workshop on how to find money for college, and one about how our advances in technology can benefit classrooms. North Point’s Vice Principal, Mrs. Akins, got the chance to teach a workshop about effective communication, which taught students the effectiveness of showing confidence for public speaking.
After all schools were finished with the workshops, everyone gathered around to listen to winners of the several competitions that members were involved in. North Point’s members, Shelby Burton (’12) and Layne Washington (’11) participated in the competitions. Burton created and taught her own lesson plan, while Washington was in an interviewing competition. Burton was titled the winner of the Lesson Planning Competition. Burton will advance to the National competition in Atlanta, Georgia later this year.
The win for North Point helped end the conference on a high note. All members are looking forward for next year’s conference.