This past Saturday, May 17th, 2008, Green River was the host institution for the 9th Annual Future Teachers Conference (FTC). The event is planned and conducted by students in Green River’s Teachers of Tomorrow Club, with support from Project TEACH, the Center of Excellence for Careers in Education, and the Green River Foundation

This FTC was the largest ever! Approximately 280 future teachers and current teachers who served as speakers and advisors, met on the Green River campus to share their teaching and learning strategies. Participants came from all over the region and represented high schools, other community colleges, and four year colleges.

This year’s theme was Future Teachers: Charting Our Course. April Jensen started the event with a warm welcome to the Green River campus and words of thanks and congratulations for their choice of teaching as a future career. In keeping with the tradition of connecting future teachers with current teachers, K12 school teachers and administrators from area schools and universities came to speak on a variety of topics. Session titles included What Principals Look for When Hiring, Understanding Poverty and the Impact on Education, Early Intervention – Making an Impact before Kindergarten, Diversity in the Classroom, Discipline Strategies that Work, Teaching in a Multi-age Classroom, Gang Awareness, Art Projects for the Elementary Teacher and Your First Year of Teaching. This year sessions were held in the new Marv Nelson Science Learning Center and our own Marv Nelson presented a session called Engaging Students in Their Science Class. GRCC instructor Pam Reising also presented a session about Project TEACH

Jonathan "Mac" Macaranas, Vice President for Washington Mutual’s Community & External Affairs Division (Corporate & Employee Giving), opened the afternoon session with an inspirational welcome. Mac was joined by five other officials from WaMu.

This year, WaMu once again joined the Washington Education Association as one of the FTC’s premier sponsors. WaMu provided $5000 that helped pay for student registration stipends, $200 stipends for our five TOT club officers and FTC planners, and the keynote speaker. The WaMu registration stipends helped promote the conference at high schools and colleges around the region and were responsible for the larger attendance. This is the 4th year that the Washington Education Association has provided funds that help offset expenses and keep the registration fee low for students who attend.

The afternoon started with an inspirational keynote by Chelonnda Seroyer. Chelonnda is an award winning teacher from Bob Jones High School in Madison, Alabama and a colleague of Dr. Harry Wong, the author of the popular book How to Become an Effective Teacher: The First Days of School. Chelonnda discussed how she used this book as an “instruction manual” to set up her classroom and consequently had a very successful first year. She gave an honest, up close and personal account of her journey into the teaching field by discussing everything from student teaching experiences to her current classroom “happenings”. Chelonnda is one of the featured teachers in the popular series, Classroom Management by Harry and Rosemary Wong: Growing Effective Teachers One at a Time.

This year the FTC was also host to information booths that included Scholastic Books, City University, Central Washington University, Eastern Washington University, WaMu, the Professional Educators Standards Board, and Project TEACH.

A big thank you to the following people: the Teachers of Tomorrow club student planners including officers Brittany Hutchinson, Juliet Kunce, Courtney Thomas, Jennifer Gallagher, and Michelle Evans and all the other TOT club members who helped; all of our speakers and informational booth staff; the Project TEACH staff including Leslie Heizer Newquist , Marilou Christiansen, Jennifer Cooke, Tami Zeitler, Dan McIalwain, and Rose Matthews; April Jensen for doing the welcome address; Brett Carroll for all his hard work in helping with the Science Center logistics; Sean Cooke for stepping in as our photographer; Patty Sherman, Sal Salaguinto, Benita Walters and the entire Scheduling & Conference Office staff; Bart Dowd and the facilities crew for helping us move mounds of boxes; Joanne Tallon for producing the program; the Teachers of Tomorrow Club faculty advisors Pam Reising, Joyce Hammer, David Nelson, and Steve Kinholt; the Green River Foundation; and our premier sponsors, Washington Mutual and the Washington Education Association.

The date for the 10th Annual FTC has already been set, Saturday, May 16th, 2009!

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