American National Art Education Association organized their 65th national convention i New York in beginning of March. I was glad to join the other 6999 participants. (Can you imagine 7000 people, all interested in art education, gathered at the same place at the same time?) The hotels Hilton and Sheraton, and the street between them, were crowded by teachers, artists, researchers….
I was happy that my presentation was accepted to be one of the 1000 parallel sessions, and honoured that about 20 people found their way to the basement of hotel Sheraton on March 3rd. Remarkably, two of them were my father- and mother in law who also live in Norway but happened to be in New York the same weekend – actually at the same hotel. How strange is that? Two years ago, when I attended NAEA conference in Baltimore I also experienced a strange coincidences: The first person I randomly mat at the conference, was Maureen, an art teacher K-4, who happen to speak my mother tongue and, as we later found out, was married to a man who grew up in the same neighbourhood in Zemun in Serbia where I grew up!
I appreciate that Maureen, as well as Ana, came to my presentation in New York. Ana Marjanovic-Shane is Assistant Professor of Education at Chestnut Hill College. I had never met Ana before, but we exchanged a few mails about six months ago regarding the book “Vygotsky and Creativity” which she coedited.
Ana teaches and researches within psychology and seems to share my interest in art, creativity and negotiation of meaning. Additionally, we share the same mother though none of us has used it in everyday life for the last 20 years or so. During the lunch with Maureen and Ana, I experienced how difficult it was to have a professional conversation in Serbian because my vocabulary had become too narrow for the knowledge I acquired in adolthood. One the other side, Maureen amazed me with her competence in Serbian which she has learned from her husband.
I was happy that my presentation was accepted to be one of the 1000 parallel sessions, and honoured that about 20 people found their way to the basement of hotel Sheraton on March 3rd. Remarkably, two of them were my father- and mother in law who also live in Norway but happened to be in New York the same weekend – actually at the same hotel. How strange is that? Two years ago, when I attended NAEA conference in Baltimore I also experienced a strange coincidences: The first person I randomly mat at the conference, was Maureen, an art teacher K-4, who happen to speak my mother tongue and, as we later found out, was married to a man who grew up in the same neighbourhood in Zemun in Serbia where I grew up!
I appreciate that Maureen, as well as Ana, came to my presentation in New York. Ana Marjanovic-Shane is Assistant Professor of Education at Chestnut Hill College. I had never met Ana before, but we exchanged a few mails about six months ago regarding the book “Vygotsky and Creativity” which she coedited.
Ana teaches and researches within psychology and seems to share my interest in art, creativity and negotiation of meaning. Additionally, we share the same mother though none of us has used it in everyday life for the last 20 years or so. During the lunch with Maureen and Ana, I experienced how difficult it was to have a professional conversation in Serbian because my vocabulary had become too narrow for the knowledge I acquired in adolthood. One the other side, Maureen amazed me with her competence in Serbian which she has learned from her husband.
