New Orleans is a city of intriguing culture. Most recently it was site of the largest social studies conference in the country held by the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS). It’s a city in which a Thursday can be the reason for celebration, where parades break out in the middle of the street, and bands perform jazz ensembles outside of the local oyster bar.
My name is Nick Liberatore, and after working with izzit.org for a little over a year now, the opportunity to see first-hand how something like this works was refreshing. From an action civics card game designed to teach kids how to incite change in their community to businesses that help teachers organize trips for students, educational prowess was on display. At izzit.org, we focus on helping teachers on a strict budget get the resources they need to effectively teach by engaging children with respectful debate using critical thinking, and the need for this was apparent as well. 
And who doesn't love free stuff? Teachers were, to say the least, grateful for anything that they need not pay for out of pocket!
You can tell right away from talking to the teachers at the conference teach because they love it, and that is extremely important. With the newest smart devices from watches to phones, keeping the attention of children can be a challenge, and one that all teachers recognized.
Attending the NCSS conference was an interesting opportunity for me. Getting to meet teachers and hearing what they had to say about izzit.org was helpful and enlightening. Even better, I was able to share with a lot of teachers who'd never heard about us.
For those who already knew, we offered some lagniappe in the form of extra free DVDs and other conference swag.
Next year's NCSS conference will be held Dec. 2 - 4, 2016 in Washington, D.C. We'll be there, and hopefully we'll see some of you there, too.
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| Nick Liberatore |
