Ed. 3601 Class Log #11

Education 3601 - Drama
Class Log #11 – WestCAST 2010

Unlike the other journal responses I’ve read, that have painted a rather positive picture of WestCAST, and while I realize this entry is meant to highlight how these sessions were going to better me as a teacher, I have to be honest and say I was fairly disappointed with my experience. On the first day when I arrived for the “Welcome/Keynote speaker” I was actually looking forward to the day ahead of me and the opening that took place in the theatre affirmed my spirits. I listened with great interest at what was said and once we were released to start hitting up sessions, I was off to the first session that caught my eye, after a quick coffee of course.

The first session I went to was “Che, King, and Riel: Historic Icons for Critical Literacy”, which over-all had some pretty cool information and ideas, not to mention it was centered around the use of graphic novels in the classroom. Definitely a plus for me since I had been thinking about trying to incorporate graphic novels out in the field, the session was worth checking out.

Considering this response is only supposed to be about half a page in length, I am not going to bother outlining each and every session I subsequently attended, but I will say this: it would have been nice to have gotten something a bit sooner that had the session descriptions contained. Maybe I was not looking hard enough on the website, but the fact we only got a booklet of the WestCAST sessions with descriptions the first day, I found the sessions I did attend really did not do anything for me. Even after having a night to plan for the next day’s sessions, I still felt a bit underwhelmed with what I was presented.

Now do not get me wrong here, I am not trying to bad mouth the presenters or anything personal, and there were a few positive tidbits I took away from the two days, but as a whole I felt a bit lacking. I quite frankly would have preferred to have been able to get out to some sessions pertaining more to drama, but with my confusion with SWATCA and figuring out about those sessions after the fact, I seem to have missed out a bit. Granted I probably should have done more investigating on both WestCAST and SWATCA sessions prior, but with all the other work that was looming I really did not have a chance.

Suffice to say, what I mostly gained from my WestCAST experience is I really need to sit down and look to see EVERYTHING that is being offered at these kinds of events. Had I been more prepared, and frankly if things were just a touch more organized, I am sure I could have come away with this in a much more positive light. Again this is not to say I got nothing out of attending, but what I did get out of it I just wish it was a bit more.