2021, August 22: Morocco? Really?

UMF grad, JD, got a new job at BA. I made a comment: So you get to work with PR?! What a killer combination!

JD: Yes, I do! I’m very excited school to start up. And you may get to work with my wife KEB because she will be teaching business at UMF in the Spring! 

 

I get a friend request from KEB. As always, I double check it's the real person by looking at their friends. We have 3 mutual friends. Three? Really?? 

 

I message KEB:  So nice to meet you. I look forward to meeting you in person at UMF. When I looked at your profile to accept your FB friend request it said we had 3 mutual friends. I knew JD would be one. I wasn’t surprised when I saw LB [a professor at UMF]. But I was blown away when I saw EE! How do you know EE? I was one of her 4th grade teachers in Dallas, Texas! What a small world!

 

KEB: Hi Theresa! So nice to meet you too. JD said amazing things about you and I can’t wait to meet you in person. I met EE at a global conference (World Merit) in Morocco. She was one of the speakers/trainers. She was incredibly inspiring. The world is absolutely small!

 

TLO: I love the EE story. She was an amazing and inspiring young woman even in 4th grade. I've loved following her journey since then on FB. It's cracking me up that this particular small world story is so global that you two met on a different continent! What led you to a global conference in Morocco?

 

KEB: That's amazing! I've always volunteered with social action projects in Morocco. I was involved with a few international organizations, and I have organized global events. My interest in SDGs led me to that specific conference where I met EE and so many amazing people from around the world!  

2021, July 8: The Double Whammy

 I got to meet our new HR Leader at UMF, RB, today. But it didn’t start as a business meeting, it started because we both know the amazing JS -- when RB got the job at UMF, she connected us on Facebook. RB knows her from their work at WGU and JS and I were in the same doc program at UNT. And now we are both in Farmington, Maine. But wait! There’s more! Turns out, he lived in Plano when I was in Richardson (his dad was at J C Penney) and we both know TV! RB knew him through his dad and I know him through church choir in Dallas. It’s the double whammy small world story!

PS I just redefined third degree to be more inclusive because of this story. The first part of the story is now included in a third degree definition. The second part of this story was already a second degree event. And the combination makes this a fifth degree story.

 

2021, June 7: I had you for EDU 101!

 My colleague, GO, and I are traveling all over Maine to visit makerspaces. (When you have an awesome project with a great colleague and you get to go visit amazing teachers doing fabulous things, it’s hard to call it “work.”) We were in AL's classroom at Casco Bay High School learning about the amazing work she does there, when a young man in his late 20's appeared in the doorway and started to talk to AL. Then he interrupted himself and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had company. I can come back later." Then he looked right at me and said, "I had you for EDU 101 at UMF!" It's been 12 years since I had SL in that class. I can't believe he recognized me...and behind a mask no less...and that he remembered that he had me and even remembered the course number! He's been at CBHS for 8 years but is moving to Colorado in a few weeks. How awesome that I got to reunite with him before he moved away (and that I can connect him with some people near where he's moving).

2021, March 20: A Virtual Second Degree

I’m participating in an educational technology conference today...in Utah. (Due to COVID, the annual conference for Utah Coalition for Educational Technology (UCET) was held virtually this year.) My students presented during the first two sessions and I moderated the session as they shared their amazing work. Now I’m in a session with one of my favorite ed tech bloggers, Rushton Hurley. He had the audience members introduce themselves and after I said I was from UMF another participant wrote in the chat window that her mom went to UMF! #ucet #ucet21

 

2021 February 20: Let our Farmington be your new Farmington

 

I participated in a Zoom-based EdCamp on Maker Learning today. There were 100 participants from around the world. It was mostly US-based teachers, but there were at least 10 people from other continents. At an EdCamp, the participants decide collectively what are the most important topics to discuss. “Sessions” are established (in our case, Zoom Breakout Rooms), and you then go to the session you want to attend. Instead of a formal presentation by a pre-determined session leader, the participants within a session share their challenges, questions, resources, suggestions, and ideas. I’ve attended many in-person, all-day EdCamps and loved them and this is my second virtual EdCamp. The concept works really well.

Of the 8 sessions determined by today’s participants, I went to the session for Secondary Math. At first, I was the only one there. And just as I considered leaving the room and going to a different session, a high school teacher from New Hampshire joined and we decided to stay and chat with each other. We were later joined by a teacher at an independent (non-public) International Baccalaureate School from Germany, a volunteer from a library in Belgium that has a makerspace, and a high school math teacher from Tennessee. It was a great session.

During the time that it was just the New Hampshire teacher and me, we talked about “Farmington” and she said she used to teach in a town called Farmington. Then I told her about the Farmington Fellows Scholarship for graduates of any Farmington High School not in Maine who get the out-of-state tuition fee waived if they come to UMF and we pay for round-trip . "Let our Farmington be your new Farmington!" is the motto. Plus, recipients receive round-trip travel reimbursement from their Farmington to our Farmington campus each year. She said, “Oh, I know several students who are at UMF who received that scholarship."

 

We have over 1,500 students at UMF and I only know some of the 150 who are in the Secondary Education program. But I do have an advisee, CM, that I happen to know is from Farmington, NH. And so I had to ask... Yep! We have a student in common! "Miss B" is no longer teaching at the school where CM attended but they were at that high school at the same time. Miss B never had my student in one of her classes, but she had many of the friends, including a boyfriend, and definitely knows CM.