My Best Friend Bill

This summer after working on curriculum teams I decided to spend a couple of days going to a training call Literary Design Collaboration.  This is a program developed by the Colorado Legacy Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.  It is all about bringing literacy in content areas.  I decided it would be helpful in my role as Master and the state is really pushing literacy in all areas thanks to a new teacher evaluation rubric that is coming out because of State Bill 191.  I have to admit that the fact that the training was in Loveland and they paid for a hotel room all by yourself and all your food, may have persuaded me as well.  I joked the whole weekend that our good friend Bill needed to buy us steak for dinner!

Speed forward two months and the Gates Foundation decides to come visit Eagle County Schools.  I swore then that Bill Gates was coming... and he did not.  I was scheduled for them to spend about 5 min in my room watching me teach like they did everyone in our building that went through the training in the last two years.  I happened to not be teaching the hour they were there so my principal asked me to help him take them around giving the tour and taking them from class to class.  That turned out to be the luckiest tour of my life!  We ended up with about 10 min of dead time in the middle of the tour so they start drilling my principal and I with questions about all the new things that are happening in our state.  I was not ready for it at all, but I held my own.

Turned out that they really liked me and requested me to be apart of a group of 9 teachers who were going to be a part of a discussion when they brought the heads of their departments back.  They were so secretive about the whole thing, so I decided once again that Bill Gates was coming.  My principal said he thought it was a 25% chance.  I get to the HS where we were meeting they take me into the room and I sit down at the seat with my name tag.  I look across the table and two name tags, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates stare back at me.  I got to spend an hour and half with the two of them and 8 other teachers talking about education.  It is very surreal to think that I was in the room with the 2nd wealthiest man in the world, one of the greatest minds of our time and he listened to what I thought for just a little while.  Definitely one of those highlight days of my career. 

They were very cool people.  They prepped us before they came in with things like no pictures, no autographs, and to not call them Mr. and Mrs. Gates, to call them Bill and Melinda.  They were very down to earth and geniuenly wanted to know our point of view.  You could really tell that education is a passion of Mrs. Gates (I just can't call her Melinda!)

They had a professional photographer that took pics.  I have been waiting on them to arrive. They sent me one:)

Pretty cool day at work:)