Days 19 to 22 - Richard and the conference

We've decided it is easier to just do a single blog for each of us for our days of doing different things in San Francisco.  Here's my experience.

I got to walk through the main lobby of the hotel several times each day - it is very impressive.

Main lobby of the Claremont Hotel

The 34th International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform started on Monday morning and there were about 350 attendees, from 20 other countries and 40 US States (I met people from Nigeria, Ireland, Antigua, Singapore, China (studying in Canada), Germany (working in the USA), and South Africa).  These conferences are great for the people you meet and the things you learn.  I was privileged to meet some really good people and hope to stay in touch with them.

Assembled for the opening ceremony

Three and a half day later the conference finished.

Me with Nelson from Nigeria at the closing ceremony

In between the opening and closing ceremonies I learned some things:
1. Thinking is really, really hard work, but rewarding if you do it properly and persevere.
2. Every domain in which we work has fundamental and powerful concepts - as trainers we need to identify these concepts and help the learners to develop a deep understanding of them.  Too often we lose sight of the fundamental and powerful concepts against a background of facts and trivia.
3. Television is not helping us to think.  I found out about a book, written by a man named Jerry Mander, titled: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.  The surprising thing is that the book was published in 1978.
4. Ralph Nader, now 80 years old, is a most impressive human being.  He gave an excellent talk, stimulating, insightful and well reasoned.  I bought a copy of his latest book, and got to meet him to get him to sign the book.

Ralph Nader gets to meet me - I'm sure he was less impressed than I was by the experience

The workshops conducted during the conference actually required us to work - unlike many conferences where you can just kick back and soak up the experience.

One of the workshops during the conference

It's difficult to get a normal-sized cup of tea in the USA. 

My vat of tea is on the right.

 

 

Tomorrow we'll post Rhonda's experiences from the week.  By for now.