Live, Love, & Learn: Philadelphia!!

Brad and I had to go to Philly for a conference for work this week. I left on Thursday afternoon and he followed on Friday afternoon. Let it be said, this is the longest I've been away from Cy and the longest Cy has been away from both of us consecutively. I was nervous but thought it would be a good trial before B & I head to Colorado next month for Spring Break. Cy did great. He stayed with my parents and had a blast. He slept all the way through on Friday night and woke up a few times on Saturday night. Mom said he was missing us a bit on Sunday (we didn't get back until 5) but that he did well overall. This makes me feel so much better!!!

Ok, conference...it was really great. We went to Educon 2.5 at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. SLA is a magnet school in the heart of Philly that has taken traditional education and essentially thrown it out the window. They don't test, they don't lecture, they don't have AP classes, they don't worry about State Standards (although each child in attendance at the school blows the standards away). They have a project based inquiry curriculum that allows the students to somewhat direct their own knowledge based on the questions they find interesting to them. This is not to be confused with a Montessori type school, it's nothing like that, but the kids are taught through scaffolded inquiry in the 9th grade how to learn rather than memorize. I have been toying with this type of education in my classes for a few years but have a hard time really implementing it due to content expectations. So, this conference really helped me to begin to formulate some ideas that I can bring back to my classroom and to the department. I am going to come back to Philly in April or May this year and bring Pascal, Kelly, and maybe Mark, with me so that we can focus on the Bio curriculum for next year and the years to come. I think that will be a valuable trip for us to take together!!

The other side of the weekend was the awesome quality time B and I got to spend together, child free!! We stayed in this wonderful hotel and it was Restaurant Week in Philly so we ate at some delicious places. On Thursday night I went to The Capital with Jamie, Dan, and Paul. I thought it was going to be a Pub type setting but it was a pretty upscale steakhouse. It was delicious. The way Restaurant Week works in Philly is that there is a set price of $35pp and you get 3 - 4 courses, depending on the establishment. At The Capital, I ordered the Fresh Greens salad, Salmon over green beans with pearled onions, and finished it off with an Espresso Chocolate cake (I ate the whole thing, I couldn't help myself!). On Friday, we went to Novita Bistro which was this adorable little Mediterranean restaurant. I chose to start with the sauteed muscles, another salmon dish (I LOVE salmon), and the baklava for dessert which I gave to B after a bite or two. On Saturday night, we were supposed to go to Amuse which is an upscale French restaurant but after an elongated happy hour with everyone in our hotel room, we were all feeling a little tired and just wanted to wander down to the Irish Pub in the bar for a sandwich. When we arrived, they were totally booked for the night so we went to Asia on the Boulevard which was good too. It was not part of restaurant week but I had a delicious Chicken and Broccoli dish with brown rice. Super yummy!

I also got to run 3 of the 4 days we were there so I was happy about that. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and I am refreshed and ready to head back to school tomorrow!!