Report from the national council of teachers of English annual convention.

Report from the national council of teachers of English annual convention. Managing the Institute's booth for the annual NCTE NCTE National Council of Teachers of EnglishNCTE National Centre for Technology in EducationNCTE National Center for Transgender EqualityNCTE National Council for Teacher Education (India)NCTE Network Channel Terminating Equipment conventionin New York City New York City:see New York, city. New York CityCity (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. was a wonderful experience that not only promotedgeneral semantics gen��er��al semantics?n. (used with a sing. verb)A discipline developed by Alfred Korzybski that proposes to improve human behavioral responses through a more critical use of words and symbols. to English teachers English Teachers (airing internationally as Taipei Diaries) is a Canadian documentary television series. The series, which airs on Canada's Life Network and internationally, profiles several young Canadians teaching English as a Second Language in Taipei, Taiwan. , but also reminded me why I amexcited to be a part of this organization. Jackie Parenti, StacyStockdale and I traveled to New York City in mid-November to staff theInstitute's NCTE booth, but we came back to Texas with much morethan we expected. Stacy had been to national teacher conventions before, but Jackieand I had only manned booths for GS at college student activity fairs.We agreed that this conference had a great energy. The teachers whoattended seemed eager to learn new teaching methods and were very openand receptive to learning new ideas. Many teachers came to the convention to buy books and materials fortheir classrooms and to gather new lesson plan and activity ideas (alongwith having a good excuse to visit NYC NYCabbr.New York CityNYCNew York City ). With so many book vendors andcompanies trying to pitch their products, people commented that theInstitute's booth was unique in its presentation and content. It was interesting to watch people skip over other booths andgravitate grav��i��tate?intr.v. grav��i��tat��ed, grav��i��tat��ing, grav��i��tates1. To move in response to the force of gravity.2. To move downward.3. towards ours. The dark purple backdrop of the booth itself canbe very eye-catching, but when you add a spinning Benham Disc, a pile ofnewly-designed brochures, and three energetic young women, you have acombination that not many English teachers wanted to pass up. We had funexplaining general semantics, handing out copies of ETC ETC - ExTendible Compiler. Fortran-like, macro extendible. "ETC - An Extendible Macro-Based Compiler", B.N. Dickman, Proc SJCC 38 (1971). , sellingt-shirts (one teacher even bought t-shirts for her entire department),and directing people to our new website full of information, teacherresources, publications for sale and (coming soon) online courses.Throughout the convention, we heard comments like "this is the mostinteresting booth here," "thank you for being here," and"this is the only booth worth visiting." A number of peoplealso remarked that they were drawn to our booth because our youth andenergy reminded them of their students; they wanted to see why thesethree young ladies would be so committed to something like generalsemantics. Personally, manning the booth reinvigorated my love of generalsemantics. I explained what I could about its principles and history,how it has helped me, and how it could help in the classroom. Seeing therealization and excitement on the faces of the visiting teachersreminded me of why I was initially drawn to general semantics. Although Stacy had been to New York City before, it was the firsttime for Jackie and me, so we did our fair share of sightseeing beforeand after the conference. NYC was amazing in every way, and thediversity and energy of the city was reflected everywhere we went. Stacyand I were fortunate enough to meet with anthropologist, author, curatorof the American Museum of Natural History American Museum of Natural History,incorporated in New York City in 1869 to promote the study of natural science and related subjects. Buildings on its present site were opened in 1877. , and 2005 Alfred KorzybskiMemorial Lecture The distinguished Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture (AKML) series was begun in 1952. It is an annual event sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics in honor of Alfred Korzybski. speaker, Dr. Robert L. Carneiro. Overall, I count the trip as a great success. Because of our boothat the trade show, we have new members, new contacts, new personaloutlooks on GS, and hundreds of teachers who are equipped to beginweaving GS principles into their classrooms to a new generation of eagerminds. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MARISA SLEETER* *Marisa Sleeter has worked in young adult outreach for theInstitute since completing her Berman Scholar internship in August 2007.She graduated from Texas Christian University Texas Christian University,at Fort Worth; Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); coeducational; opened 1873 at Thorp Spring, chartered 1874 as Add Ran Male and Female College. It assumed its present name in 1902 and moved to Fort Worth in 1910. in May 2007.