As educators and professionals (sometimes also mothers, wives, husbands, etc.) the days leading up to a conference can be hectic. There comes a point when, as you tilt your head back for that second dose of Adivil, you think to yourself, “Why do I do this to myself?” As so many of you I am sure can relate, I am staring bleary eyed at this screen after a near sleepless night. I will not bore you with the tedious details of my life but tell you I am in desperate need of a nap. I and my two SDLC participants will be on the road within the hour. We’ll check in, hopefully grab something to eat and then it begins . . . searching down long stretches of hallway scanning room numbers. Checking our watches (or let’s face it phones because none of us actually wear watches anymore) asking one another “What time is it? Are we late? What was the room number?”
This will be my third PoCC and my second as a student chaperone. I again have two students attending SDLC, but one of them will be functioning as a peer facilitator. It is a labor of love–that’s the answer. It’s the why. When I attended my first conference in 2007, I remember being hit unexpectedly, and on more than one occasion, with a tearing of the eyes–I just knew I had finally stumbled upon something I had been trying to put my finger on, find a voice for. PoCC has helped me develop a vocabulary for the theories I intuitively conceptualized.
When two of our students attended SDLC last year, it was affirming to witness the empowing affect it had on them. And so, we look ahead in antipation of all we already know the conference capable of holding. I am anxious to see the way peer facilitating for one my students will enrich that experience with new meaning.
