As you may have heard, this year’s Symposium was a little bit different.

 

Attendees joined virtually from their computers or phones, instead of meeting in classrooms at Percy Julian Middle School. All the workshops and keynote addresses were conducted over Zoom with a team of fearless volunteers helping facilitators take attendance, launch polls, and manage breakout rooms. While this was very different than the dancing, movement, and other forms of hands-on learning that workshop facilitators have utilized in the past, we still had a great time (and there was still socially-distanced movement!) Below, view a promotional video of this year’s Symposium.

 

 

Another highlight from this year is that we had not one, but TWO keynote speakers: Kristin Neff joined us from Austin, Texas and talked about Self-Compassion and how to care for others without losing yourself. Rachel Giannini, of No Small Matter fame, ended the day with her Energizer Keynote, describing why she feels called to be an early childhood educator. Over 200 people joined us for this inspiring and innovative day.

“Self-compassion is like being a good friend to yourself.” -Kristin Neff

With this new Symposium format comes some awesome perks this year.

This year, the keynote surveys have been combined into an overall event evaluation. If you did not have a chance to complete it, you can find the Symposium Evaluation here. If you did not give your feedback on a session you attended, you can find the Workshop Evaluation here.

Lastly, we want to take a moment to give a special shout-out to all the early childhood professionals who were using Zoom for the first time ever to participate in this year’s Symposium. Our children are learning new things every day, but so are our educators. And we want to say thank you to the staff, volunteers, workshop facilitators, and our intrepid Professional Development Committee for making this year a success.

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