What to Do in Seattle While Attending NAISAC12?

The National Independent School Annual Conference kicks off tomorrow at the Washington State Convention Center here in Seattle. Having been fortunate enough to attend a few conferences in other cities, I know that sight seeing isn’t really on the agenda as each day is completely filled. By the time each day is over, most sights are closed or one is usually exhausted from the conference itself. Nonetheless, I’m going to try and give a few tips for those visiting our splendid city this week. Here are my top 5 things to do this week while you’re here.

5. Have dinner with colleagues in the Westlake/South Lake Union District. The theme for the conference is innovation, and you couldn’t be in a better city for it. Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, and Costco are just a few of the innovative companies around here. Amazon has embraced the concept of an urban campus, and what used to be a rarely visited part of town is developing into quite a great spot – and that doesn’t include the 3 million square feet Amazon plans to build in the near future. It’s a short cab ride from downtown or you can ride the South Lake Union Trolley (only tourists do, so go ahead). Here are a few places.

• Flying Fish (Seafood)
• Serious Pie (Seriously good pizza)
• Cuoco (Great Northern Italian)
• Bravehorse Tavern (Gastro Pub)
• Lunchbox Labratory (I haven’t been here, but I hear if you’re into large portions, their plates are monumental)
• There are many more restaurants to explore and enjoy.

4. Visit the Seattle Art Museum on Thursday night for free.

Every first Thursday of the month, Seattle has an art walk. I wouldn’t normally recommend walking at night in the Pioneer Square area, but all the galleries are open to the public until 8pm and its very safe on First Thursdays. You can check out this website for maps and galleries. In addition to the galleries, the Seattle Art Museum is free on the first Thursday of the month. It doesn’t include the current Gaugin exhibit, but there’s plenty of great art throughout the rest of the museum.

3. Visit the Seattle Public Library

Open til 8pm on Wednesday and Thursday, the central branch of the Seattle Public Library is quite an innovation in design and architecture. You might want to watch this TED talk first before your visit.

2. Come share what you’ve learned at edcampIS on Saturday, March 3.

Unwind after the big conference, and instead of listening to big keynotes, listen to other educators and share with each other what you’ve learned. Currently we have over 80 registrants from 16 states, DC, and Canada. To learn more visit edcampis. Also learn more about unconferences by reading an interview of one of the co-organizers, Liz Davis.

1. Go to the Pike Place Market BEFORE the conference. 

That is when the market is most alive with all the deliveries of fish, produce, and other colorful sights. Make sure to bring a camera!

I’m afraid if you haven’t been to Seattle before, it will live up to its reputation of being damp and cold. Just to prove that isn’t the case, I took a picture at school yesterday while the sun was shining. Even in the rain, I love this city, and I hope all visitors have a great conference.

What Is EdCamp IS?

Earlier this summer, I met with some educators from Boston, Philly, and Raleigh who had attended and organized EdCamps before. To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of them until we met. Since this year’s National Association of Independent School’s Annual Conference was going to be in Seattle, they thought it would be great to have an edcamp with a focus on independent schools (IS) on the Saturday following the big national conference. Those I met, the ones who have done this before, were from out of town. They needed a few local people to help and organize the event. Once I learned what edcamps were about, I had to say yes.

So what is an edcamp? I learned that edcamps are ‘unconferences.’ Don’t worry, I also had to look up what the term ‘unconference’ meant. Basically, unconferences are free participant driven conferences where (in this case) educators come with the goal of sharing and presenting something they’ve learned. They also have the option to attend sessions and learn from others. There are no official keynotes. Teachers assemble in the morning and time is given so people can write down what they’d like to share (perhaps it’s an innovative way to use a tech tool in a meaningful way, a reflection on what is considered a best practice, a discussion led by many different teachers on a hot topic in education, perhaps a response to one of the featured speakers from the official conference). These are posted on a schedule. Then everyone moves to the sessions that interest them most.

One hope, is that by scheduling EdCampIS after the NAIS conference, we can get educators from across the country who are here for that to attend. How are these conferences free? Often they involve sponsors to provide space, lunch, t-shirts, etc., however, we are going to have participants lunch on their own as there are lots of great eateries and one of our association schools is providing the venue. We may just need to find a coffee sponsor for the morning gathering. It is in Seattle after all.

Save the date: Saturday, March 3, 2012 at The Northwest School in Seattle (a ten minute walk from the Washington State Convention Center). For more information go to our wiki page.

It’s too soon to tell how many people will attend, but hopefully word will start spreading. In the meantime, you can check out this video of EdCamp Philly. It’s a great overview of an EdCamp event.

You can also check out other EdCamps around the country at the official EdCamp Wiki.

Don’t forget to click on the NAIS conference link above. It’s an official conference, so there are some great topics covered, and a diverse array of featured speakers including: Bill Gates, Amy Chua (Tiger Mom),  and Sarah Kay (I didn’t know I liked poetry slam until I saw her TED talk). I haven’t had much time to post lately, so I’ll include it below. Hopefully both the NAIS conference and the EdCampIS ‘unconference’ will bring many of you to Seattle this winter.

Do Your Homework

The title of this post comes from idea number 48 in the book The Third Teacher. It’s in the chapter called Sustainable Schools.

In order to teach and promote sustainability, it’s important to learn a little bit about the topic – and as I’ve mentioned before (here), it’s not so easy being green. What is easy for me though, is to eat and today I walked to a new eatery for lunch called Homegrown. Here’s the sandwich shop’s ‘theory’:

Our goal at Homegrown is not only to create sandwiches out of sustainable ingredients but also to make sandwich creation sustainable itself.

This goes beyond using fresh, sustainable ingredients in our gourmet sandwiches, salads and soups. Homegrown strives for sustainability as a local business through the green materials we print and serve on, to our rejection of bottled water, to our 100% compostable and recyclable product.

We consider our environmental impact for every ingredient choice, often between two competing theories: eating organic and eating local.

We take the best from both worlds to create our sustainable sandwiches. We like to call this sandwich environmentalism. Enjoy.

Well, the pictures below are the sandwich I had for lunch and the menu board of Homegrown. I think I’m going to like this trend of local and sustainable. I also have to say that this was probably one of the best sandwiches I’ve had. It’s located in the new Melrose Market just minutes from Downtown Seattle in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The space also includes a local butcher, cheese monger, and an organic flower and produce shop. All of these focusing on local and sustainable products. Even the building it is housed in (formerly 2 auto shops built in 1919 and 1925) were preserved.

After heading downtown, I decided to try the fairly new South Lake Union Streetcar. It’s a 1.3 mile streetcar line connecting downtown Seattle to the SouthLake Union area and would get me about half way home. What could be more sustainable than supporting local transit? I thought.

Well when I got to the station, the sign reported that the streetcar would arrive in 12 minutes. I decided to walk. Well, I actually arrived on foot at the same time the streetcar did at its terminus. At a cost of over $50 million, and almost no one riding it, I wonder how sustainable the streetcar really is. Nonetheless, Seattle has agreed to add another streetcar line by 2013. I still don’t see how smaller, more energy efficient/electric buses with fewer stops that ran more frequently wouldn’t be cheaper, scalable, and more sustainable. Oh well, still a lot of homework to do.