Raising Wild Hearts

Innovative Educators Network Conference Takeaways

• Ryann Watkin

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Takeaways from the inaugural Innovative Educators Network Conference 2024! Find out more about The InEd Network here: https://www.innovativeeducatorsnetwork.com/


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Speaker 1:

Hey friends, welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. This is my third attempt at recording this episode. Oh my gosh. And somebody once told me. It was me last week on the episode when I said perfection is not an option. Yeah, I need to give my own advice. No, I'm having various technical difficulties and yeah, this is just like little learning curve in my new studio here in our new home. So we've been moved into our new house for about five weeks and finally I have like a little corner of the house that I'm going to call my recording studio, but it's really just like a desk and a chair and a microphone and a computer and a computer, which is great. So, yeah, I'm coming to you from the Raising Wild Hearts recording studio. Yay for that. I'm really pumped to be kind of on the path to normalcy after feeling like we were on a very strange vacation for a while.

Speaker 1:

Moving is so weird, like moving is just the weirdest, and it had been a while since I moved and yeah, so we were in our home our prior home for like seven years. I was pregnant with my second daughter when we moved in, so it was very sentimental, which I don't think I've talked about yet. But the whole, probably like three days leading up to moving, I was like just totally crying a lot and you know it was just, it was letting go. It was very much like a letting go and it was nostalgic and you know we had to say goodbye to dear friends who were neighbors, but we only are 30 minutes away, just 30 minutes south of where we were. But it was, it was hard. We had a beloved babysitter there who all three of my kids just like fell in love with. She babysat them a couple nights before we moved and I texted her and I said, how did bedtime go? And she's like, oh, lots of tears. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry that the kids were, you know, fussy for you and she's like, not from them, from me, she was. They were all crying together that they were sad to be leaving their favorite babysitter. So yeah, but in those you know, super hard times, those like super sentimental times, there's just so much to be thankful for and so much to savor, like, even though it was really sad and it was hard and it felt challenging. You know the perspective and now it's much easier to say this than it was during the whole process. But you know, so many of the blessings come forward in the challenging end of chapter type things. So yeah, I'm all that to say. I'm very excited to be getting posted up, as I like to say, in my new location, so yay for that. I have a little starter office and a little starter studio going on. So let's jump in to what we're gonna talk about today.

Speaker 1:

This weekend I attended the inaugural Innovative Educators Network Conference 2024 at the Museum of Science and Discovery in Fort Lauderdale and it was absolutely phenomenal. Attending conferences is one of my favorite things to do. I really love attending and speaking to different people from different backgrounds. I love learning, so I love breakout sessions and just kind of learning from experts. I love listening to keynote speeches. I love the whole vibe. I love the goodie bags with all the pencils and the note pads and all the flyers. I love everything about going to conferences.

Speaker 1:

And on this particular day it was this past Saturday on January. What was the date? Whatever, today's the 22nd, I don't know. I'm a homeschooling parent. You think I could do like two days math. Whatever, it was Saturday the 20th. I'm like looking at the calendar, if I'm super honest, saturday the 20th and yeah, it was great and I, very last minute, I had it in my calendar but I knew my husband had work plans he had this like company retreat this whole week basically and so I knew he was gonna be busy and so I thought, oh, I'll just skip that conference. I wish I could go. But oh well, and wouldn't you know, I woke up and I got the email from the conference great job, innovative educators network. I got the email from them saying come join us today, kids welcome. And I was like, oh, kids welcome. All right, kids, pack up your stuff. We're going to the museum. And I didn't at first tell my two big kids what we were doing because I knew they would think it was a drag, like conference what. But so anyway, I got all of us ready and we went. Actually, I left the toddler with grandma, so that was very helpful.

Speaker 1:

But I brought the two big kids to the conference and it was phenomenal, and they were my seven year old was bored and she made sure to say that loudly in a few of the sessions and but we made it. I brought them in iPad, which they listened to in audio book they were into, so I brought the headphone splitter, they got to listen to their audio book and some of the sessions they just kind of sat there and we passed notes back and forth and I think some of it sank in. And I said to my husband, like you know, maybe they, maybe they'll never realize the value that this brought them, but I'm thinking one day, hoping one day, maybe not till they're like 30, they're going to go. I remember this one time when my mom brought me to this conference and this is what I learned from it. Who knows what they got from it, but you know, I think for them to see how committed I am to their education, but then the education of the other children in our community as well. So for them to see my passion and for them to see like, oh, mom is like packing us all up, we're doing like a 25 minute drive, we're going on this daily outing, like this big day outing because she's passionate about something. So they're seeing me follow my passion and I just thought like isn't this the coolest? Like I was very aware of that all day long. I was like sending my husband pictures of, like, oh, the girls first conference, you know.

Speaker 1:

So, whether or not they enjoyed it, I know I did very much and it was at the Museum of Science and Discovery and if you're a local to South Florida and you haven't been, it's pretty cool. So in between sessions we got to play around and they've got otters, which are so cute. We walked out of one of the sessions and there was this big bay window and we looked down and there were these two gorgeous little river otters like swimming in this pool, and so, yeah, anyway, their exhibits there are very neat. It was very fun to explore in between sessions. So I wanna talk to you guys about the conference and kind of like my top three takeaways, because I left feeling so inspired.

Speaker 1:

As you know, I love education. As you know, I'm a longtime educator, ranging from preschool to higher ed and literally almost everything in between. So, yeah, it was really fun, enlightening, engaging and informative and I'm going to share just a few takeaways that I had from the Innovative Educators Network. First, let's see Well, actually no before that if you wanna follow along with their journey, the Innovative Educators Network journey, go to Instagram and follow them at in and in in ed. So I-N-E-D network, yeah, and you can follow along with their journey and just like see what they're up to. I think they've got like a link tree to their website, et cetera, et cetera. Hopefully, at some point later this year they'll be putting out the information for the second annual conference. And if you're in South Florida and you're a parent who's really committed to education, and especially innovative or alternative education, then this is the event for you for sure.

Speaker 1:

I attended both through the lens of an educator and as a parent, and I must say it was very valuable for both. So here are a few of my takeaways from the weekend that I spent with my two big kids at the conference. Number one our goal in educating our children should be I don't like that word should, but let's replace it with the word can Our goal for educating our children can be individuality over compliance or conformity. Now, I don't know what your experience was in your education, but I can reflect on mine and I can remember the very strong suggestion from educators and administrators, even my parents, to conform, to follow the protocol, to just go along, to get along right. So you may have had a similar experience when I attended both public and private school and actually jumped around between the two. I went from public to private, back to public back to private, wait for it back to public, which is where I graduated from. So those were all the jumps that I did throughout my school career and, honestly, I understand why my parents did that. I understand why my mom went back and forth trying to find the right thing, because look at me like I've had the journey, as you guys know. But, yeah, I think that focusing on individually, individuality for our kids is something that is just, it's not promoted, it's not the norm, it's not the standard. But I think the more we start talking about innovative education and that there's a different way to do it, we can start promoting our kids and our communities to be themselves, to really show and use their skills and talents that make them unique. So that was one of the things that I really loved, that I felt inspired by One of the second things this is like always kind of a through line in this podcast and when I talk about homeschooling, but it's the freedom.

Speaker 1:

It's the freedom to double down on your kids' gifts. It's the freedom to take a Wednesday off and go to the beach. It's the freedom to go on vacation whenever you damn well please, not just June, july and August, right? So this freedom piece. Really, it's really one of the reasons that homeschooling though I started reluctant, reluctantly like one of the reasons that I've really come to appreciate the model and for me, I'm that parent who needs and wants the best of both worlds, because I have this podcast, I have other passion projects, I have things that I'm working on, so I like for my kids to have more of a hybrid schedule. Yeah, as you know, my kids go to co-op two to three days a week, so I really find that I have the freedom to do that. You know, like a five day a week schedule would feel like a grind at this point for me and for my kids. So I love that freedom piece and that was definitely reiterated throughout the weekend and it was something that I kind of came back to in my own mind and heart.

Speaker 1:

And then, of course, another thing that was relevant and another thing that I picked up over the weekend was that school is outdated, like our mainstream model of school was created in conjunction with the Industrial Revolution, and I'm not gonna go into the entire history of the way our public school system was created in this country, partially because I don't know the entire history and partially because it's not the point I'm trying to make. It's just that we're still using a model that is for a different time in history, for a different purpose altogether, and so doesn't really make that much sense to me. It's so interesting because we had, in one of the breakout sessions at the conference, we had, a Socratic discussion, and if you've ever had a Socratic discussion, you may be left wondering why our political debates aren't structured like a Socratic discussion, because there was so much to learn from other people's points of view, and I really, oh gosh, it was one of my favorite things. And so imagine if all the classrooms in the United States or world were filled with Socratic discussions and problem solving and listening to other people's opinions and why they believe, what they believe and why they vote the way they vote and why they make the choices that they make for their families right. So, yeah, that was like a big. It was a big aha moment, big takeaway, where I'm going like, why are we not all having these discussions?

Speaker 1:

And one of the things I often say to my kids is they'll ask me a question and I'll say well, what do you think? Before I even try and formulate an answer, sometimes I'll catch myself as I'm like saying the answer and I'll go oh, what do you think? And they kind of know now to expect that from me, because I want them to use their brains. I don't wanna tell them what to think, I wanna teach them how to think. And so it's such a value with and even if you have to or choose to put your kids in a public or private school, you can still do these things outside of the four walls of the classroom. You can still have Socratic discussions at dinner, you can still choose to do whatever you want with the time that they have at a school. So, anyway, I think it's just such a valuable tool to have in the toolbox to think about how it's pretty outdated and how can we in our own lives, just daily, like make a new way? And it doesn't have to be like starting your own school, but if it's that, then it's great.

Speaker 1:

I mean there were many, many perspectives, microschool and private school and alternative school founders at this conference on Saturday, myself being one of them. I was kind of going around to the different booths in the expo hall going, hey, do you have you know this, this and this in this area in Palm Beach County, and it was like, no, we don't, but we're here and we do this. And so finally, I was like, well, maybe I'll just start my own. One of the big focuses of the conference was like entrepreneurial or, I guess, educational entrepreneurs. So many of these people were coming in with this entrepreneurial mindset. They have children that they want to do it a different way. There's not something that's being offered, that's checking all the boxes for them, and so they make it themselves. I mean, hello, like you can just make what you need if it's not available. Like we are at a time in history where an educational revolution has already started.

Speaker 1:

And if you don't believe me, after you finish listening to this podcast episode, go listen to Carrie McDonald's podcast called Liberated. And there are story, there's story after story after story of Acton Academy founders and micro school founders and founders in traditional systems and teachers in traditional systems who are doing things a different way. So the revolution has started, which is great. That's great news. Yay, so we're taking a system that is outdated, was outdated, and we're making it new. So yay for that. And then I think I already said it, but this is my third go round of the pod, and so I just want to reiterate I'll be back on February 19th for the new episode. So, yeah, I'll have a few weeks off. I'm excited to come back and talk to you guys with some fresh ideas and fresh episodes and fresh interview faces. I'm going to, over the next handful of months and over this next year 2024, attempt to get this pod on YouTube. I'm going to see how simple and or complicated that is and try and figure it out so that way you guys can have some video to watch along too, if that's your jam.

Speaker 1:

And then one more thing thank you for being here, as always. I know many of you are showing up every week and I so appreciate that If you could take 30 to 60 seconds to scroll down, if you're listening on Apple podcast or Spotify, and click that little right review icon and then give five stars if you feel inspired and just write a few words on why you love being here. I've got 19 beautiful reviews. I read them all. I love them all. Thank you so, so much, because it's getting the podcast in front of more hearts and minds. So thanks for being here, thanks for being you. I hope you have an amazing few weeks. I am getting ready to go to the podcast expo 2024 this week, and so I'm anticipating that when I show back up on the mic for that first episode, then I'll have some updates to give you guys, and, yeah, I'm excited to do that. So that's it and bye for now.