Pear Tree at Vancouver Private School Expo

Paul Romani

We would like to thank all those families that came to visit us at our booth at the Vancouver Private School Expo.
It was Remembrance Day (a silly day for the organisers to book this event), so we weren’t sure what the turn out would be. However, we were talking to all kinds of families from 12pm until the end of the event. In fact, we were still talking to families after every other school had left!
We also got to meet some other people in the education community.
It was an exhausting but rewarding day!

Alexis and Pear Tree’s booth – Click to enlarge

Our favourite visitor – Henry (4)

On a separate note, we wanted to follow up on a promise we made before the event, namely that we would change how education expos should be done.
As you can see from the two pictures above, our booth has been organised as follows:

Open Space: We moved the table moved to the back to create an open space, which makes people feel much more comfortable to approach our booth. Tables create a barrier between you and others.
Bright, colour booth: We decorated the booth with green cloth, not only to recreate the look of Pear Tree’s learning centre, but also to make it colourful and welcoming
Screen displays: We used 2 x 22″ screens to display presentations. However, we were very aware that the people coming to this event would be a mixture of Canadians and overseas visitors. As such, our presentations consisted of 99% photos and 1% text. And, where we did use text, it was translated into Korean and Mandarin.
Welcoming feel: Along with the colour and repositioning of the table, we also put out flowers and refreshments.
Personal appearance: We wanted to avoid the stuffy, pompous image that we expected the other people (read Principals) to dress like. Instead, we went for a modern, fashionable look that matches our educational approach.

Let’s compare that now with the photos below, which we took during the event.

Bad example of trade show exhibitor – Sitting down and using laptop

Bad example of trade show exhibitor

Gone home long before the end of the show!

Notice the man and woman on the left and right. Without naming names, these two people – particularly the man) did so much wrong:

The man turned up after the show had begun! Talk about not interested!
He put no effort whatsoever into the appearance of his booth, but instead laid out a series of brown envelopes, presumably containing literature. How boring!
Both the man and woman spent basically the entire event sat down on their chairs on their laptops. Again, this just says to folks: “I’m not interested.”
Neither made their booths seem welcoming – although the woman did cover her table with a tartan tablecloth.
They didn’t move their tables.
Both were among the first to leave the event before the event had even finished.

Bear in mind that these two people were both principals of their respective schools. If we consider that the way we live and act represent our beliefs of how things should be done, what does this say about their idea of education?

Now if you don’t think that these people are doing anything wrong, have a look at this YouTube video: