Stephani Stephenson on mon 9 apr 01
Lisa wrote: "However, this was a professional education conference."....
Lisa , I think you might be assuming students KNOW what NCECA is all
about, or assume that their instructors are involved and communicate
about NCECA or even that, at a certain stage of life, one understands or
views the professional aspects of the conference.
You must remember that there are perspectives other than the very
seasoned perspectives represented by those on the list who are career
NCECA participants.
The first time I went to NCECA as a student I had never heard of it ,
hadn't seen a poster and didn't even know what the letters meant.
I knew the conference had something to do with education but I though
that meant that some of the people who were professors probably had a
meeting or something like that during the conference. It was close by,
geographically, and our instructor told us we should try to get there
simply because we could see some really great ceramics.
I probably was pretty earthy looking myself at that period of time. It
was the style of the day. I was just a student of my time, just as the
students are today. But who cares? The only people I knew were a few
other students. Some of us looked dopey, some scruffy, some scholarly,
some flashy, some self consciously hip, so what?
We didn't stay at a big hotel but at a friend of a friend's dive
apartment. I had never seen the inside of a conference room or a nice
hotel.
We probably looked like we didn't have much money because we didn't.
Six of us had crammed into my 1964 Impala, sweet old freeway sled that
it was, to get to the conference. We HAD to hang out in the corridors
and stairways because we couldn't afford to eat nice dinners in the
hotel restaurants or hang out at the hotel bar, and because we drove to
the conference first thing in the morning and couldn't get back to the
dive apartment till evening.
We had packs because, since we didn't have rooms at the hotel, we had to
haul everything around all day, including our food for the day.
But I wandered in, and quite anonymously and freely had a fantastic
experience. Didn't think anyone was looking at me, and I was so
engrossed in the lectures and exhibits, I didn't really think about how
I looked too much. The conference opened my eyes to what was possible
with clay. I really did not know there was so much out there. I learned
so much and just soaked it all up.
Call it innocence, call it ignorance, call it who cares?
Now days the savvy ones may dress up and of course it is good sense to
dress and act professionally as soon as you can. But , good heavens,
they will all be in the career lane of life soon enough. Give the kids
a break.
I especially think it is ironic to hear boomers clamoring about
inappropriately dressed young uns
Is that hypocritical or what!?
respectfully submitted,
Stephani Stephenson
Alchemie Studio
Leucadia CA
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