Gary Marx, CAE, APR, is president of the Center for Public Outreach, an organization he founded in 1998, which provides counsel on future-oriented leadership, communication, education, community, and democracy.  He has been called an "intellectual entrepreneur, who is always pursuing ideas" and a "deep generalist."  

Marx served for nearly 20 years as a senior executive for the American Association of School Administrators.  Prior to joining AASA, Marx served as executive director of communications for the 82,000-student Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado and the then 10,000-student Westside Community Schools in Omaha , Nebraska.

Marx is a frequent speaker, workshop leader, and advisor on futures issues for school systems, colleges and universities, civic, community, and technology educators, business, professional, community, and government leaders, and state, national, regional, and international organizations, including the World Future Society, which has included him in its directory of futures thinkers.  His presentations, books, articles, and counsel on trends and other issues stimulate thinking about how organizations and individuals can stay ahead of the curve as they move into the future. 

Marx has done energizing, future-focused presentations in all 50 states and on five continents, including North America, Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe.  He has provided counsel to organizations worldwide. 

"All educators are leaders because of the important role they play in society.  As leaders, we have a choice.  We can simply defend what we have, or we can create what we need." Gary Marx

FRIDAY SESSION

Rachel McAnallen,

aka Ms. Math

Founder of the Institute for Math Mania, Rachel McAnallen is a model teacher extraordinaire, with almost 40 years of experience.  Rachel's high energy and humorous presentation style has captured the hearts of teachers, students and parents throughout New England and across the whole United States.  Affectionately known as Ms. Math, she has traveled as far as South Africa, teaching students and teachers in Johannesburg and the surrounding township of Soweto.  From the Mathematics-in-Residence Program for elementary and secondary students, to teaching "Problem Solving in Mathematics" for Norwich University in Vermont, to presenting workshops at the University of Connecticut's Confratute for teachers of the gifted and talented, wherever she is, Rachel is a dynamo of enthusiasm and playfulness.

            "When it comes to problem solving, we want our students and children to be creative and divergent thinkers but they have been told by us that there is only one way to add, subtract, multiply and divide.  Is it because we ourselves know only one way?  As teachers and parents, have we been trained to rotenize these operations without ever learning the beautiful mathematical processes that underly the whole system?

            I once heard someone define arithmetic as answering the question, and mathematics as questioning the answer.

            It is my belief that most of us were taught arithmetic and not mathematics.  Consequently, we teach the way we were taught.  Is this how we should be preparing our children for the 21^st century?"