An Intermediate School Principal Remembers the A.E.R.A. Convention (1996)

As principal of an intermediate school I was looking forward to attending the American Educational Research Association Convention (A.E.R.A.) in San Francisco for two important reasons. First, I was looking forward to hobnobbing with intellectuals possessing academic substance. And second, I was relieved to be absent from my intermediate school during what we practitioners refer to as the rutting season. After digesting the airlines morning snack I still felt the same way. However, after spending five days at the convention I can honestly sate that the latter expectation was fulfilled while the former remains in question. For example, while standing in the hotel lobby waiting to register I heard a group of conferees discussing how important it was to be perceptive: We must be perceptive in our lives, work, and dealing with others. Well the most perceptive individual I ran into at this convention was the driver of the airport shuttle. While standing in a small crowd for my bus I thought the driver might not stop where we were so I walked to where he was parked. He looked at me and in an irritated voice said, Buddy, I was going to stop over there so you didn't need to walk the way over here. Take a seat in the back. After checking into the hotel I walked to one of the sites hosting the meetings and immediately experienced difficulty finding the assigned room for the presentation. As I was trying to figure just what Union Square 13, 4 meant, it entered my mind that room selection was some diabolical plot by the American Educational Research Association so that only individuals clever enough to find the room would be qualified to attend the presentation. Luckily I did manage to get where I belonged in time to hear three distinguished individuals discuss Thomas Greenfield's belief in the richness and value of the subjective aspects of educational leadership. However, two of them used the term training of administrators, so I thought they lost it right there. Later that afternoon I attended a session where two individuals were debating the ever elusive reality question. One presenter took the position that reality can be clearly defined and is out there, while the other felt reality was defined by our cultural experiences causing reality to be self determined. As I looked the window I saw two signs which read totally nude women and nude men. I had a feeling that the people entering these establishments had a much different view of reality than the presenters. Also, ones definition of would have been a good example of what these individuals were talking about. During my second day, having mastered the secret code for room selection, I arrived early. As it turned out, the pre-presentation activity was the most interesting aspect of this presentation. This performance involved four presenters and a moderator (Oops, a discussant). Anyway, they were trying to decide who would sit where on the platform. There appeared to be a hierarchical order to this sort of thing with sitting next to the podium being most important. After about five minutes of nervous laughter the decision was made to go boy girl, boy girl, with the presenter from Harvard sitting next to the discussant. The discussant made the statement that all education is political which I found humorous in lieu of what had just taken place. One of the big issues this year seemed to be qualitative research. Proof of this was that a session entitled Standards for Qualitative Inquiry was held in a ballroom. I suspect just warranting a ballroom was evidence that qualitative research had arrived. …