NCGS Day 2

This morning the conference early risers and exercisers started our day with a walk around the Woodley Park neighborhood. We walked to the National Cathedral, which is home to a prestigious girls' school. The cathedral and campus is beautiful.

On our way back to the hotel, we stumbled across the Swiss Embassy. It is very discrete, with only this small sign and the flag outside, but my people are here in DC!

I heard a number of good speakers this morning, and I have been noting the differences between East Coast Prep Schools and or what we call private schools on the West Coast. In California we call our single gender schools "all-girls" or "all-boys" where as in the East they just use girls'. I have mixed feelings about this because the apostrophe gives it a sophistication, that I like, but it also sounds a little entitled. I plan to think about this more because language and labels are powerful.

During lunch, I walked up the street to the National Zoo. The zoo is more like a big park with animal exhibits because it is free and not commercialized. There aren't stands with gifts or food everywhere you turn.

I only had 40 minutes, so I only got to see one animal. The panda was pacing in the back of his pen and was hard to see. He looked hot!

The best speaker of the past two days was Marne Levine, the COO of Instagram. She is a product of a girls' school in Ohio called the Laurel School. Marne is on the left and she was interviewed by the Laurel School's Head of School. 

I enjoyed what Marne had to say because she seemed authentic and real. She gave an interesting perspective of social media use for today's teenage girls. She said that Instagram is a first person narrative, and when you post something you are taking a risk and putting something out there about your life. She hopes to continue to grow social media as a positive community, especially for girls who are learning to use their voices. Her advice was 1. encourage problem solving skills in our students and 2. take your seat at a table (board room, student council, local government) and be heard.