The AERA conference 2008 in NY was a week long and I was in Times Square at the Marriott Marquis...
This is the view from the window of my room at the Marriott
The Time in Times Square
In the middle of NY cabs and cars horning people walking, music and noise, a horse like descending from another time....
Times Square was a daily walk (mostly walk between the hotels that hosted the AERA conference). I could name this living one week in Times Square.
I am so very tired. One week at AERA. I am not sure if people are getting better at giving titles to their works or getting worse doing their work, or that I did not choose the right sessions?
At AERA I made myself busy. Lots of business meetings.
I attended a couple of sessions, but was not as impressed as last year....
Hope others don't say the same thing about our work which I presented Friday at noon then got my luggage and jumped into a shuttle bus just to spend the next two hours in traffic jam towards JFK (It really took us 2 hours and 10 minutes to get there from Times Square).
I was glad to see my dear friends:
Sarah Bonner who actually lives in NY (she is a Queens!) and is at Hunter College
Jonathan Schwartz my friend now at U of Hawaii at O'Ahu who flu across the Pacific and US to be in Big Apple
Sarah and I met with Jerry D'Agostino (our former Assessment and Measurements prof at UA) who now is at the Ohio State University.
Sarah and Jerry
We took the subway, visited Museum of Natural science, got to see Hunter College, then we went to downtown and walked a bit on Madison Ave.
After the two hour shuttle bus drive to the JFK, we could see from the plane the sunset beautiful.
Next to me was sitting a 14 years old student from South Coreea who studies abroad. I understand it is not at all uncommon to have students as young as fifth grade to be sent abroad to study in English.
The company that his parents use for his education gave them a spring break trip to NY, visiting the attraction points and of course the prestigious universities. Harry dreams to get in MIT, and I am sure he will!
He asked me why I was in NY and upon telling him that I was at an education conference and did not see all those interest points he visited he asked me what kind of conference and what are people doing there. I tried my best to explain him but he was so very curious that I ended up on teaching him a two hour class in introductory in statistics (talking about mean, median, mode, normal curve and t-test) when we got to the t-test he had some trouble :-)
Of course this is college level topic and he is in eight grade now.
The most interesting and beautiful was that he always asked me more and more and at times he said: "Now let me guess" and he was trying to make sense and really think about the next step and using amazingly logical thinking.
This was the best class I ever taught and he said that this was the best class he ever got!
I was pleasantly surprised to have Harry understanding the basics of the normal curve and regression to the mean, a topic most college students have some problems.
I promised I will send him a book.
We then showed each other the pictures we took in NY. His were better than mine and we promised to e-mail and exchange pictures. So, keep checking back and I'll post his pictures with statue of Liberty and United Nations and some college campuses.
His camera run out of battery and asked me to take a picture of him with his brand new hat, and asked me to let him take a picture of me with the hat as well (I guess was like a friendship exchange or recognition that I taught him interesting things :-))
