SOMETHINGS NEVER CHANGE

I’ve been retired for nine years. During the many years in my role as a teacher and leader in education (north of 40 of those years) I attended countless conferences and seemingly endless meetings on all sorts of issues. Meetings were interminable and conference attendance constant. It often seemed that all we ever did was meet and talk or in conferences, sit and listen.

Nine years into retirement and staying at a lodge with conference facilities, I walked past the conference hall prior to the day’s gathering and later during a break out session.

Child protection was the theme with which the gathering is grappling.

Two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was that some topics are everlasting and stand through generations of conferences. And no generation learns about the issue from the ones that have gone before, so each conference is always breaking new ground.

The second thought was one of innate selfishness. “Thank goodness I am no longer a part of this conference endlessness and the fruitlessness that so often ensues.