Covers

Personalizing the cover of the journal can be easily done with stickers, collage, or paint. We prefer to plaster the cover with stickers that we get from various places. Someone once remarked that the journals are like the old steamer trunks with their labels of the places they've been.

And so, the cover of the journal can become an extension of the journal and the journal keeper by containing evidence of places, personality, and interests. So think about how the cover of your journal reflects the person you are.

NCCAT: Heaven on Earth

The North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT for short) is truly heaven of earth for educators in North Carolina. It is a state funded institution dedicated to the professional development of North Carolina educators. We have had the honor of teaching week long seminars on the visual journal there for the past two years with an invitation for a third in February, 2008. NCCAT is truly a retreat setting nestled in the mountains of the western part of the state near Cullowhee where educators get a truly remarkable opportunity and are treated as true professionals. We feel privileged to be a small part of what they do.

The above two page spread was created during and shortly after our first visit to the center as seminar instructors. The postcard in the upper left shows NCCAT's main building, and as with most of my pages, this started with an initial layer - a draft of the week's schedule.

It is a remarkable place. I wish that every state could have a center like this dedicated to moving education forward.