This past weekend I was at Williams, participating in the second conference for Williams alumni who are teachers. About 60 alums came to the conference, about half in private and half in public schools, ranging from the class of ‘56 to the class of ‘07.

There were three lectures, by Professor Ed Burger of the math department, and by two alums: Lucy Calkins ‘73, who has improved the writing curriculum for students in many major urban school districts (and who has a son who is currently a sophomore at Williams); and Matthew Wheelock ‘92, who founded Live It Learn It, which takes Washington, D.C. students on field trips and provides curricular materials to go with the trips. There were also three discussion sessions, with three choices during each session, which were led by alums and allowed participants to discuss difficulties and innovations in teaching. Here is the schedule of events.

According to an alum that I met at the event, the first alumni teachers’ conference occurred four years ago, and it was a great success. I thought this conference was quite good, and it was nice to meet other Ephs who teach. Sometimes people think that it is wasteful to spend all that money on a Williams education only to be a teacher, but these people seem to be great teachers who are working very hard to improve the educations of their students, especially in public schools.

While in Williamstown, I was surprised to run into David Kane on Spring Street. I did not recognize him because he was wearing a hat, and also because I had not read EphBlog in the previous eight hours, so I had missed his post saying he would be there this weekend. I also took many pictures and also videos, which I will be sharing with you over the next few weeks.

I was somewhat shocked at extent of construction on the Stetson-Sawyer project. Current Eph readers of EphBlog, you didn’t tell us! I will be posting pictures to update the rest of you on the construction progress, starting tomorrow.