Jun 2, 2010
Be forewarned: Dialogue Education can spoil you for the average professional conference! Those of you who’ve been involved in Dialogue Education learning events know what I’m talking about: you attend a conference full of talking head panel discussions and you end up spending every session redesigning the curriculum (if you can call it that!).
I used to feel sort of guilty about that, but no longer! I finally realized I was doing some great learning while redesigning those sessions. (If you’ve not been involved in Dialogue Education, check us out!) I’m a creative writer and every year the big writers conference from the Associated Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is held in a big American city.
The last one I attended was in New York and there were more than 9,000 attendees. What’s amazing to me is that the endless selection of learning sessions that span several days must be panel discussions. It’s in the rules. Only panels. Hmm. Time to rebel!
A friend and I applied to “present” at the next AWP conference in Washington, DC and we have a secret mission – to revolutionize the conference by introducing Dialogue Education. We want to create a buzz big enough that people will spread the word and begin to ask what made our session so fantastic. We hope the organizers catch wind of it (or, better yet, we’ll try to get them in the room!) and decide to put an end to the era of talking heads. At the very least we know the participants will have a great learning experience.
Have you been a Dialogue Education rebel? Do share!
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This blog is written by Joan Dempsey.