Bring Joy Back To The Classroom (Reflection on Day #2 @LSUCHSE #LSUYAL2015)

The greatest thing about Steven Bickmore - the mastermind behind the LSU Young Adult Literature Conference - is that he grew up with literature and landed in a world of young adult book, which includes the raw emotions of adolescences, the sincere passion of youth, and the absolute thrill of connecting kids with stories that will matter to them.

For the second year, Dr. Bickmore offered a phenomenal keynote that share the history behind this year's theme, We Need Diverse Books. In his address, he offered a narrative about a friendship from his own high school experience, how he came to understand the limiting perspectives of traditional, canonized pieces of work, and the necessity for offering less homogeneous readings in our heterogeneous schools. Opposite of banning books...in contrast to pushing traditional literature down the throats of kids who do not want to read it...and on the other side of what Adichie warned as the 'danger of the single story'...are the narratives of many who still need to be read (and even more that to be written).

This is the power of the Young Adult Literature Conference at Louisiana State University and the strength behind Steven Bickmore's pleas and emotions. Not only does he 'profess' the importance of young adult literature, he feels it through every ounce of his body. For the second year in a row, we got to experience this as he presented.

Because of Dr. Bickmore, participants met Kwame Alexander. Because of him, we met Coe Booth and Jacqueline Woodson. Because of him, we'll soon meet Sharon Flake and Sharon Draper. Because of him, we'll collectively have fortunate of intellectual guidance from Jim Blasingame, Joan Kaywell, and Mark Lewis, too.

On day two, I'm reflecting on numerous things, but this morning (day three) I am thinking about the man behind the curtain - Dr. Steven Bickmore. The greatest magicians never let viewers into the magic of what is really going on. He is hosting a phenomenal opportunity by hiding all the hard work it takes to pull off a miraculous experience like this in Baton Rouge.

And so this morning I celebrate him.

In his opening slide, Steven Bickmore features his grandson graduating an early grade with joy, enthusiasm, and hope. His talk encouraged us to find the same in all of our students at every grade as they move from one ever to the next (working hard to fight against the cynicism, apathy, discouragement and frustration that too often comes from our K-12 pipeline of schooling). In other words, we need to ask ourselves, "How do we bring the joy back to learning?"