This past week, teachers from all over the world gathered in Chicago, Illinois, for the 2025 National Conference for Keyboard Pedagogy, also known as NCKP: The Piano Conference. This biennial conference is always held in the same location at the Westin Hotel and Conference Center in Lombard, Illinois, in the western suburbs of Chicago.
Although I’ve been attending since 2015, this is only the second event that has taken place since I launched the podcast in 2022. If you’re interested, I also did a wrap-up session from the 2023 conference back in episode 79 with my mastermind friends Christina Whitlock, Kate Boyd, and Janna Williamson. I’ll link to that in the show notes.
This year, I roped in one of my other favorite conference buddies slash roomies, Joy Morin. We recorded from our hotel room at 7:30 am Saturday, so I could take off by 8-8:15.
We tried to reflect on the event from different angles this time around, so if you go back and listen to episode 79, you’ll be hearing a whole other side of NCKP reflections.
Whether you attended the conference, lived vicariously through social media coverage, or have never been part of an event like this and are curious to hear more, I think you’ll enjoy hearing our thoughts today.
I’m Amy Chaplin, and this is episode 164 of The Piano Pantry Podcast, a space where you can always take a little breath, get a little smile, and feel a bit of solidarity in what you do in living life as a studio music teacher. Enjoy my chat with Joy!
Amy: Well, welcome to the podcast. Joy. I am so excited to be doing this with you. We are in our conference hotel room at like seven 30 in the morning on Saturday morning because I am heading out. But we wanted to just recap everything for everybody and just chat a little bit about our experience.
Joy: Yeah, happy to be here. This is fun to be on your podcast from our hotel room this time.
Amy: So why don’t you go ahead and just let everybody know who you are and tell us about your history of, you know, being an NCKB attendee. Is it your first time? LOL
Joy: Not my first time. My name is. Joy Morin, and I’m a piano teacher based outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan in a town called Saline. I have a blog that you might know me from, called Color in My Piano. Yeah, this is not my first NCKP. I was, uh, reflecting with someone yesterday, trying to remember when my first NCKP was, and it may have been 2015, uh, was the first time. And this is a conference. That comes about every two years ,so I’m on a streak currently of attending each one since 2015,
Amy: I think we were talking about it, so I don’t know if maybe you were chatting with someone else too, but we determined that 2015 was the first year that we kind of really connected. I think that’s the first year that I roomed with you and a friend that you were already rooming with, because I was looking for someone, and you offered to let us be a room of three. And that was the year, if anybody remembers, that we had a fire alarm go off at 5:00 AM, and we had to exit the building.
Joy: Yes. They evacuated a couple of floors of the hotel, I think; Then they checked it out and made sure there was no danger. And then wasn’t it a hairdryer that somebody used? I think it was something caught fire or something.
Amy: So anyone else that’s been attending since 2015, if you remember? Yes. That was one of the things that stuck out from that conference. Yeah. Right. So we are both pretty seasoned conference attendees.
Same, I think I’ve been to every NCKP since 2015. I thought it would be fun to just reflect a bit on how our participation and experience have changed over the years. So why don’t you go first?
Joy: Sure. Yeah. I think, my first, uh, national level conference I think was actually an MTNA one before that, that, uh, NCKP in 2015. But I definitely was hooked whatever year that was and kind of told myself I wanted to always. Kind of budget the money and be able to go to national conferences, you know, when I wanted to. And it, yeah, I just remember those first few national level conferences just being just so amazing. They just kind of blow your mind with just all the ideas coming from all these different bright minds of piano teachers from all over the place.
And, you know, I think I typed notes furiously from every session and, and just, you know, attended every little bit of the schedule that I possibly could and. Anyway, and I, I still find conferences to be just incredibly inspiring and invigorating, and I love meeting new teachers and seeing the same teachers, you know, friends, each year, you know, at the conference.
And, but as far as how it’s changed a little bit, I do think, after attending a few of these national-level conferences, you. You are a little, I don’t know how to say it without making it sound negative. Not that you’re less wowed exactly, but you, you’re a little more familiar with the variety of ideas that are kind of floating around out there from different people.
And, so it’s still absolutely very inspiring and everything, but I, I definitely found that, you know, I don’t need to take. Exact notes about everything, mate.
Amy: That was a very nice way of saying joy. I would not have said it nearly as nicely as you did. LOL
Joy: Thank you. LOL Yeah. So I find myself, you know, I, it’s not that I need to anymore feel like it’s something where I wanna take notes about every single point or, you know, every single session that I’ve sat through and remember everything, but it’s more of sitting and listening and. Uh, seeing how my perspective might change on my teaching, and there are very often little nuggets that I can take away and incorporate into my teaching that do make a difference in a very practical way in my teaching. But yeah, it’s just kind of a little more relaxed feeling as far as like not feeling like I need to write down every single little thing that I might’ve learned.
Amy: Yeah. And I think what’s kind of a little bit different about both of us is you were pretty much at every session, like you went to most every session, but like you said, you weren’t. Really like furiously taking notes. You were just kind of reflecting and just taking in, and I have kind of gone more towards, I just skip more sessions.
Joy: Uhhuh, yes.
Amy: But very similar feelings where, you know, you like in the early days, and it’s, it’s a natural life progression really. I mean, you think about anything in life that you do and you experience more of, you’re just more familiar with it. You’re more comfortable in how you interact with it just changes.
I recall that it was possibly the 2023 conference event. It might’ve even been 2021. Just like noticing myself, you know, wanting to maybe just sit in the lobby for an hour and, you know, work on cleaning up my notes or something like that, and not going to every session. This year for me was very much like, it’s just becoming more and more about the people, like wanting to connect with people that you see online so much, and yeah, just kind of having this big picture overview and just being connected to the profession.
Mm-hmm. And this is actually the first year for me that I felt interested in volunteering. So I was a presider for one of the sessions. I thought, why not? So like, I’ve been doing this for so long, I don’t need to attend every single session. So that was just a really cool feeling to just kind of see that little thing, like, oh, okay, like I’ve been here, done that. You know? So that’s my experience.
So what draws you back every time to NCKP?
Joy: Oh, I just, like I said earlier, I love how inspiring conferences are and just being able to, like you said, be kind of connected with the profession. I love hearing what’s new coming out from publishers or teachers, whether they’re very experienced teachers or young teachers with new ideas, and everyone in between.
So, and NCKP is always a great conference. The leadership, I think, at the Francis Clark Center is really good, and it just shows that when you’ve got some good leadership coming from the top, it just trickles down to everyone. And so it’s just a really well-planned conference. They always put a lot of thought into the programming and have some great headliners, speakers, and things like that.
And the fact that it’s a conference that’s very piano-based is really nice, and they hold it at the same hotel every time, so it’s kind of nice. We were talking about how nice it is to return to that familiarity of knowing where the rooms are. You know, we’re not figuring out, oh wait, where do I go in this giant hotel to find whatever session and what, some room somewhere, and you’re looking at the map, that’s sort of nice to return to a familiar place.
And then finally for me, it’s um, a conference that’s drivable. So it’s within driving distance. It took me about four hours. Um, a little more, more or less, uh, to drive here from home. So that makes it a conference that’s more doable for me to attend.
Amy: And we were talking about some, uh, about that with teacher friends last night that some, you know, she’s like, I, I flew from California.
Amy Elmore, shout out. Yeah. Um, and we’re like, oh, we’re so lucky that we, you know, we are both the same driving distance away from NCKP, so it makes it so much more convenient to, to hop over here. So I’m definitely grateful for that. If anyone is new to this profession and not very familiar with the different organizations,
So, NCKP, this is a biennial conference, held every two years. Like Joy said, it’s at the same location every time. And it’s just, yeah, comforting to come back to the same place. And you kind of start, you know, getting restaurants that you’re familiar with, and which we’ll talk about later, of course.
And then MTNA, the Music Teachers National Conference, is held every year in March-ish, maybe early April, but usually it’s like late March. And that’s more of a, it travels to different locations. And because MTNA, um, they have like competitions going on. As well, um, of different instruments and everything.
They need a really big venue to be able to host all of those things. So the cool thing is they’re just different. Like the MTNA conference, you get to go to cool locations sometimes, like we’ve been to Disney and mm-hmm. You know, Anaheim and New York and different places, and then this is always at the same place.
So it’s just a little different feel. So now, this year at NCKP, they have a slightly different schedule for all the sessions. They had three tracks each hour, and they had a full session running for each of those tracks. And then there were anywhere from two, I would say, to eight half sessions, 25-minute sessions at the same time.
Um, so this is kind of a two-part question on the schedule. Um, and I don’t know that that was like perfect. I don’t think it was exactly that way every single hour. Correct me if I’m wrong. Mm-hmm. But I think it was roughly that. Mm-hmm. Um, so first, do you. Do you like seeing them move to having more 25-minute sessions, and you know, not having every session be a full session?
And then second, how do you feel about the number of sessions that we had to choose from all at once? So lots to talk about here, I think.
Joy: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I, um, yeah, it, I think definitely it’s a common thread of conversation, and when you attend a conference like this, where you just feel like, oh, there’s so many choices.
How do I choose which session to attend? And at one point in the schedule, I counted the 11 choices, and I thought, Oh, how am I ever gonna choose which one to go to? There are so many that sound good. And so, um, it’s, it’s, it’s funny because it’s something that, mm-hmm. I think. Um, conference attendees probably complain about, and I don’t know if the, uh, I assume that some of that feedback probably goes into the conference survey after the event.
Um, but it’s one of those things where, like, you, you also wouldn’t wanna go the other way. You don’t actually really probably wanna only have two or three to choose from. You probably actually, you know, it increases, to me it increases the value of the event to feel that there are so many great sessions to choose from.
And chances are there’s gonna be something that I’m gonna like and want to attend. Versus if there’s maybe only two choices or something, then they, it may, may not be, um, sessions as relevant to what I’m looking for or, or interested in. So I, I think overall it’s a really good thing. I mean, I hope that they don’t, um, increase it I future years and have more than like 10 or 11, uh, sessions at the same time to choose from.
But, um, I think overall the, I think it’s good having lots of choice, and I also think it’s great that really what a conference like this does is, is provide a platform for piano teachers to be able to share their ideas with each other. And so that’s a great service, I think, to offer as well. So I think it’s wonderful.
To be given this opportunity to present to so many people throughout the conference. As for the trend toward shorter sessions that we’ve seen at conferences, there are definitely more 25-minute sessions than full 50-minute sessions. Um, I, it’s interesting, you know, you know, people always talk about the shorter attention spans of today, you know, and that things are more fast paced and, um, I don’t know.
So I, I do think it’s good they, they still have the variety of, that. There are still some 50-minute sessions and, um. I think no matter whether it’s a 25-minute session or a 50-minute session, either way, the presenters have to kind of make sure that they’re using their time well, you know, and providing, um, good information and the time that they’re allotted.
There’s always that feeling of not enough time to share what you wanted to say. So, the best presenters are prepared to really use their time effectively. Um, either way. And so anyway, I do think the, uh, increased number of 25 minutes. Sessions are a good thing. I think it kind of forces everyone to be more concise about their ideas and really think about what they want to get across.
And I also think it’s kind of nice to be able to get up and, you know, move to another room and walk around a little bit more through the day so that it’s not just in, in one place for, you know, almost an hour at a time before you’re shifting to the next session. So that’s my 2 cents on that. I’m curious to know what you think.
Amy: Yeah. I think that the committee has been listening because I feel like the last N-C-K-P-I remember like starting to see more shorter sessions and really liking that and just giving that feedback. I don’t know that I was the only person saying that. Um, so I definitely can see a difference. So I think that, you know, they’re taking in what people, you know, share in the feedback forms and listening.
So, as far as the number of sessions, it was interesting. I agree with you. I think that’s a really great point, that it gives us so much more variety. And I was just conversing a bit yesterday with um, Lee Lavis and Samantha Coates. Brilliant ladies. And of course, they had great thoughts on this. Um, and I was just saying, oh, you know, my session went really well.
I was happy with the people there, you know, considering that there were 11 sessions at the same time. Mm-hmm. And they said, Well, think about this. Like, would you rather not present, you know, not get chosen, or, you know, present, get a chance to present, and only have 10 people there? So it’s kind of like a give and take.
Are we ever happy? Yeah. Right. What’s, I don’t think there’s ever a perfect solution. Right? So I just thought it was a really interesting way to think about it. So thank you, ladies. LOL I’m kind of with you. I think you know about 10, 11 might be pushing it, 12 might be pushing it, but eight to 10 to me, I think, is kind of a nice number.
And like you said, it just gives you plenty of variety to choose from. As far as the length of the sessions, I personally like the shorter sessions. It really forces. Presenters need to really think about getting their points across and pruning it, and like really trimming things down and focusing on the most important part.
And I think that’s actually a really valuable exercise for us as presenters as well, to like, okay, you know, how can I be concise and really speak clearly into what I’m trying to say? Mm-hmm. Alright, so let’s move on to some lighter items. What are two or three items that you are always sure to pack when you attend conferences?
Joy: Yeah, for this, I think, um, definitely the clothes. I’m always trying to make sure that I pack clothes that are gonna be comfortable, uh, throughout the day, and wear layers because some of the rooms are definitely colder than other rooms at a conference. So I like to be flexible and be able to have a layer handy if I want it.
Um, yeah, clothes that are comfortable, but also maybe a little bit, um, professional, you know, business casual kind of thing. Um, and then I always bring snacks and food for myself to make sure I can kind of keep my energy constant through the day, a, a long conference day. Um, and then I often like to bring my.
Uh, electric hot pot, uh, like a tea, uh, kettle kind of thing, so that in the morning I can have a good breakfast of some instant oatmeal. Those are the things I always bring consistently to conferences like this. Yeah.
Amy: Um, this year, for the first time, I actually brought my coffee, and it wasn’t like a French press or anything, although I have a friend who said they actually brought a French press and made really nice coffee every morning.
Wow. I’m like, that’s a brilliant idea. But I’ve just got these little packets. It’s called Bio Coffee. It’s a non-alkaline, like low-acid type of coffee, and it was perfect. And I was just gonna use the coffee maker to make hot water. But you know, like sometimes you just get like nasty coffee smells.
Mm-hmm. And joy’s like, I’ve got a hot pot. I’m like, yes. Yes. It was perfect. So now I’ll we’ll have to get a hot pot. So that’s one thing. I haven’t always done that, but I will in the future now for sure. It was nice to have my own coffee in the morning, without having to stand in line to get a cup.
And then the second is if I’m presenting, especially an iPad stand, and I’m only pointing this out because I’ve had a lot of people who present like notice and go, oh yeah, I never thought about that. Or, um, and the reason I do it is I don’t like standing behind a podium. I prefer using my iPad for taking notes and my laptop for slides, as it allows me to feel more connected with my audience. I always bring it along, even to NCKP or MTNA.
Wow.
Joy: Even when you fly, do you? Well,
Amy: That’s a good question. I can’t remember, actually. Yeah, I don’t know.
Joy: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I’m totally with you, though. When I present, I like to be kind of closer to the people you know, and kind of front and center, and definitely in the conference rooms, it’s not always quite set up that way.
The podium is very often kind of back in the room, like near the wall or kind of off to the side. So yeah, I think that’s a great idea.
Amy: All right, so because this is the Piano Pantry podcast and we like to talk about food sometimes, and everyone knows that’s important to me, it’s important to all of us.
All right, so let’s talk about some restaurant recommendations. Um, and, and we’ve been, you know, coming here every couple of years, so you kind of start to learn what some of the restaurants are around you, and discover new ones as this area continues to grow and expand. But before we do that, I thought I would just share with everybody, uh, a little peek into what the food situation is like here, especially if you’ve never been so at the hotel, they just have a very small cafe.
It actually used to be a Starbucks last time I was here. I think we were here. It was Starbucks. Yeah. And now it’s just called the Yorktown Cafe. Um, a typical place in a hotel where you can get some drinks, you can maybe grab a muffin, bananas, chips, things like that. Actually, I bought a bottle of sparkling water there the first night, and you just pay for it at the front desk when they’re not actually open.
It’s nice that you can still access it. Oh my gosh. It was $ 6.45. Oh no. I almost put it away. But I was just thirsty. I wanted something cold. It was just like sparkling water, you know? But the way I drank those things, I only like, I drink it over three days. Oh. And we have a refrigerator in our room, so it’s nice that you can keep leftovers.
From meals and stuff like that. So I was like, Oh my goodness, we’re in Chicago – that’s why you bring your own coffee. LOL
So you’ve got that marketplace. But then, other than that, there’s not like a ton of other options. Like in the hotel, there is a couple of restaurants, right.
When you come in, there are actually two, and it’s a little confusing because you walk in and you just think that you’re at the restaurant, but there’s actually another one in the back. So when you first walk in, there’s a bar there and, um. A reception desk or whatever they call it, the host, and that is for Holy mackerel.
It’s a little bit, maybe a nicer restaurant. And then if you walk through there, you’re going to get to Harry Kerry’s. And it’s more of like, um, kind of more bar food restaurant. But they also have, I mean, it’s also very nice too, so it’s not like just bar food. Um, if you keep walking those, you actually register for that restaurant, like on the far end, because people can come in from the outside.
So you have to walk through past the bar area to get to that host desk. And then there’s actually a seating area clear in the back behind there, which I think is the first year I actually ever sat back there. Mm-hmm too. And you as well, right? Yeah. So I know one year we all, um, there was a bunch of us that sat outside.
There’s like an outdoor area. We sat there for lunch. And then I’ve sat at the in the bar area in Harry Carey’s. Um, but anyway, so I ate there twice this year, and then there is a big shopping center near me, and a lot of people like to walk to the food court there. And then there’s also a target next door, and a lot of people like to go there and just get food and eat in their rooms.
Joy: Mm-hmm. Lots of great options.
Amy: So let’s talk specifics, though. What about restaurants?
Joy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There are a few different restaurants around. Um, one restaurant that, um, I did not make it to this year, but I think we’ve tended to go to in years in the past is a, there’s a, a Greek restaurant. Do you remember the name of that one? I think it’s just like the Greeks, isn’t it, a Greek Island or a Greek Island?
Amy: Yes, that’s it!
Joy: Greek Island? Yeah. Yeah. Um, that’s one that I kind of just remember and associate with our trips to NCAP. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I, um, enjoy like, um, you know, some, some Greek food, but it’s not at the top of my list. Um, so I didn’t mind missing it this year, but, um, one place I went to this year that I, that turned out to be really good was, um, an Indian restaurant called Desi Accent.
Very good food. Excellent. Yeah, everything that I and the people I was eating with ate, everyone was raving about their food, so I would totally go back there in the future. And then, uh, last night I went with a group of teachers to a restaurant. And you were there too, called Ancho and Agave, which was a Mexican restaurant, as you can probably guess by the title.
And they had really delicious. Tacos and, um, their chips with salsa, like really, uh, really good salsa and kind of unique and um, so yeah, I would totally go back there as well.
Amy: Sounds good. And I know another place that we’ve done a lot over the years is just Chick-fil-A. Oh, yes, of course. It’s kind of been a routine that, you know, because NCKP normally starts around noon, lunchtime.
This year was the first year that they started, like, very early in the morning with the Summit, ’cause that was a whole new, new event. But usually we will drive in the morning, and then we get here about lunchtime. We eat Chick-fil-A, and then we come to our hotel and everything. So that’s always on my list.
This year I ate at Harry Kerry’s actually a couple times. I’ve always, I always enjoy the food in both of the restaurants. Me too. Holy Mackerel. And Harry Kerry’s. And I was talking to some friends about meeting up, and I’m like, I’m totally good with just eating at Harry Kerry’s again. You know? Yeah. So we ate there a second time, and I actually ate the same thing, which for me is so unusual.
Like, I never go and get the same thing twice. And I’m just gonna tell you now, like, write it down for next time you’re here. The Italian meatball starter at Harry Carey’s is like the most divine meatballs I’ve ever had. And honestly, I don’t even like meatballs. Oh. Like for some reason I, they just sounded good that first night.
Mm-hmm. And I ordered them, and like you had them, we shared, you get two giant meatballs and a little like a baguette, you know, crisp thing with some cheese on it. But they’re huge, and like we split it and then we split something else, I think too. Mm-hmm. Um, kept praising salad or something. Yeah. Yeah. And then the second night I went back with a friend, Kate Boyd I, we split that.
And then the crispy Brussels sprouts, it’s like a shareable side. It’s really big. Yu actually probably their shareable sides. Three or four people could probably share it. Um, ’cause at our table, there were four of us and we each got the Brussels sprouts and we were, we had leftovers. So, anyway, I would definitely go back and eat that again.
Joy: Oh yeah, yeah. I agree. I ended up there two times as well at Harry Kerry’s, and both meals were excellent. They have lots of choices on the men,u and it’s very convenient to just walk there.
Amy: Yeah. Okay, so last question is, what is something that you will remember specifically the most from this conference?
Joy: All right. Well, um, for me, I think, uh, the, uh, having a marketplace table this year was something new for me and something I’ll probably associate with this conference. Um, so a marketplace table is, uh, an option. For, um, the exhibiting, um, side of the conference and, uh, the, there, there’s normal exhibit booths that are bigger and involve like a team.
Usually, there are four people or so who kind of are, um, registered for the conference working the booth. Um, and the marketplace table was kind of a newer option that, um, is offered, and it’s like a smaller round table that you just stand at. And so I decided to give that a try this year with some of the materials available on my blog and on my site for the hard copy books, which is keysatplay.com, and give it a try.
And, um, it was fun. I purposely designed my table setup to be self-service, as I wanted to attend all the conference sessions I had planned. And then, just at certain points, I just went and sat at the table so that I could meet. Teachers who might be coming by and browsing the books and so on.
So that was a fun experiment to do. It was kinda my first little bit of dipping my toes in the water of exhibiting and just kind of seeing what that was like, and it was fun. So I, I’ll, I’ll consider it again for sure in the future.
Amy: I think that’s part of the whole natural progression of things, too. It was kind of like, you know, all these years you’ve been coming and now you’re ready for this. Right? So it’s kind of cool to see those kinds of things. For me, actually, the thing that stands out the most, I had actually several things and I decided to just pick one because you gave, you did one too.
So I’ll be fair. Um. So Thursday night after the jazz concert, a bunch of us gathered in the little bar area, like right inside of Holy Mackerel and just, you know, just, just sat and had fun and talked and had some drinks. And so they, so NCKP does a photo contest, and last year our friend Kate Boyd actually won it.
And so I didn’t really pay attention to it the last time. And this year I’m like, I’m gonna submit something. So I submitted a photo, it was like, of Jason Sifford clapping at Joy, like she was in the exhibit hall playing at one of the. I don’t remember.
Joy: It was the Piano Marvel Exhibit.
Amy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he, Jason, and I were standing there chatting, and he’s like clapping for her, and I was taking a video, and I just captured him having this great, you know, hand clap. Anyway, so I submitted that one. And then, we were all having drinks, and I got this drink. It wasn’t a huge drink, but it was really full. Mm-hmm. And it was really bright, you know, colors.
And I just kind of held it up and I was like, Ooh. And Laura says, ‘Let me take a picture.’ And so I just made these like googly eyes, you know, like getting to take my first drink and, you know, in the photo it looks like a huge drink, but it really wasn’t. Um, and so she published that to the, with the contest and I think it may be winning.
Joy: I think it probably still is. Yes.
Amy: So anyways, it’s just. Sometimes those silly little things. Mm-hmm. You know, I don’t wanna seem shallow or anything that I’m not taking away this big like life lesson, but honestly that that was a whole life thing. Like to me, I will always remember that little gathering together. Mm-hmm. It was just so fun. There was a lot of laughter, and it just feels so rejuvenating to just be with your people. Mm-hmm.
The end. Ha!
Joy: Yeah, that was definitely a highlight. Yes. Lots of fun around the table there. And we had just come off from the jazz concert, like you said. I really think that was a great addition to the conference.
I agree to have a jazz concert. I agree. It was super fun. We didn’t stick around the whole time. We were just kind of tired and ready to. Hang out more informally, you know, over drinks and, and everything. But I loved it, and I will consider sitting through the whole thing next time.
Amy: Same. Yeah, I agree. Excellent. Of all the concerts for me, that is the most appealing. So, yes, thank you to those jazz musicians!
All right, cool. Do you have any final thoughts or feelings you’d like to share with the listeners today?
Joy: I think that’s it. Thanks so much for having me do this with you, Amy.
Amy: Yeah. It’s been fun, and I hope to see all of you in a couple of years!
So guess what, friends! I received news the photo officially won the photo contest! I even had friends tell me they unliked the one I submitted of Jason Sifford so the other would win. Too funny. I heard through the grapevine that they announced it as a “celebratory photo” and told the audience that if they checked it out, they would understand why. LOL
Three cheers for my friend Laura Harding, a teacher from Minnesota who appeared on episode #155 for submitting that photo and winning. She won a Francis Clark Center Online Teacher Education Course so it’s a pretty great prize well worth submitting a photo for.
Thanks for the NCKP staff for setting up fun community events like this for us to participate in and connect even more together.
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Enjoy the rest of your summer, friends!
