There’s a little part of me that wants to give credence and publicity to the adage: “Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.” I don’t quit much but I am SORELY tempted to quit a “professional”-development training I’m taking this week. If this blogging doesn’t provide enough catharsis, I may very well do it.
If/when I ever run a P-D training, here’re the lessons I’m going to live by:
Teachers, even when in a learning role, do not cease to be professionals. We have our BAs; if we were going on in our learning we would be in law school or grad school. We want to learn like we are in law school or grad school. That means no gimmicks, no games, no group work, and no, absolutely no, teacher-voice. If you could end that sentence with "Boys and girls," don't say it. Do not play chimes or a recorder to get my attention, do not make me sing, and do not make me sit on the floor. I teach elementary school, that does not mean I am in it! Only God, not the County Office of Education, can revert teachers to being children.
There is a time and place for “lesson demonstrations:” in front of classes of children, tape-recorded for our professional critique and observation. There is no need for us to pretend to be students to understand how a practice might be implemented. Likewise, we do not need pretend to teach a class to show that we understand how to apply a theory to our practice. Certainly, do not lecture the whole time, but there are ways to let us interact with the material as adults. Any college grad is capable of meta-cognating at such a level where we improve our practice by discussing it, not awkwardly and haphazardly “modeling” it to bored and frustrated peers!
Be meticulously planned, carefully prepared, and absolutely efficient. We’ve all taught bad lessons, we know exactly what they look and sound like from the moment they begin. Like lying to your mother, you will not get away with being unprepared in front of teachers! Similarly, as professional lesson-planners, we know how much time it should take to teach a single concept. Do not take 30 minutes to teach a 5 minute idea, even if someone has budgeted you that. Fight with the budget before you waste our time.
Do not take time to write norms. If you really think I don’t know how to behave at a meeting, why do you trust me to run a classroom? Similarly, for those too-frequent teachers who don’t know how to act at a meeting, don’t imagine that your little poster of “expectations” is going to change their behavior. They know what it takes to be professional, if they’re not doing it, you need to address it. Talking while someone is teaching is universally rude, you don’t need a document to back you up.
Lastly, do not serve bad food. If you can't afford to give us reasonable fare, that's fine, but don't demand we stay at your facility and eat crap. I'm poor, it's summer, but I will shell out $7 to eat like a professional adult.
Monday, July 25, 2005
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18 comments:
I didn't know you taught in Minnesota!
Are you serious? They make grown adults (I hope...) act like students and put one of them in front of the class to "teach" them?
And I thought some of my high school classes where boring...
I thought that being an education professor MEANT being able to take an entire week to cover a 5-minute idea!
On the food--your university probably has an exclusive contract with a company that prohibits decent meals being brought in from the outside. It probably won't comfort you to know that the overcooked spag and mushy broccoli cost $10-$12/head.
You've written a post that will resonate with a large number of classroom teachers throughout the country.
I'm about to be forced through several days of bells, whistles, and other gimmicks as we "ramp-up" for the upcoming school year.
Last year, our administrators had about 30 of us classroom teachers playing a game whereby balloons were thrown into the air and we had to keep them from touching the ground. As balloons hit the floor, one of the admin staff would pop it with a pin.
The whole exercise was supposed to be a symbolic representation of our students.
When I worked in the private sector, such activites would have been thought of as a waste of valuable company resources.
Apart from poor planning, I had all of the same critiques of Institute training (which just finished today). Often times the teacher "modeling" good teaching became blurred with just delivering the information. After feedback, our CS did improve a lot. She put her hair back in a pony tail to signify that she was now Ms. W and then took is down to show that she was back to being our CS.
We had one '04 corps member from NY come to institute for a day to give us a 30 minute workshop on techniques for teaching ESL. She started her session by giving us a "Do Now" activity. When we weren't immediately quiet, she shouted "This is a SILENT indepentent activity. I should see pencils moving and no talking!" After wer discussed the Do Now, she said that that was her modeling how to teach a class. I was so turned off by her at that point, that I no longer cared to listen to what she had to say. I wanted to ask her, "Didn't you just go through institute yourself last year? Is this how you would have wanted a workshop to be presented?"
I couldn't resist linking to this post!
HA. Great Post. I have several times refused to participate in such trivial, non-realistic waste of time exercises. Don't forget, the poor quality seating we teachers must endure in these professional development sessions, the sudden magnetic draw of many eyes to the person who decides to leave the room in the middle of the lesson (usually for a bathroom break), Having to listen to that horrid phrase, "Research shows us that....." and, sadly, as we have had such meetings at a local (cheap) 'country club', had to endure watching people out frolicing on the golf course, drinking beer and eating real food while we were stuck in these horrid "professional development" sessions.
And then there is always "Don't Read the Power Point Presentation (or the manual) word for word to us and give us a printouts of the slides to boot. I have stack professional journals set aside to read during my inservices next week.
This is why I cling tight to what I call "Teacher Nerd Camps" in the summer. I get most of my good staff development on the outside, the stuff in my building is geared toward the lowest common denominator (which, sadly, is pretty danged low).
Find organizations like the Center for Civic Ed or National Endowment for the Humanities, they put great effort into training any teacher who wants it!
Awesome post! You just gave me some good things to remember when presenting next week - ha!
Fantastic post. Throughout last year, I had to attend 10 different meeting days run by our central office. There was one District facilitator who would say things like:
"All eyes up front" and "I'm waiting until I have everyone's attention" in her first grade teacher voice. Honestly, it made me want to misbehave just for the entertainment!
I taught high school for ten years and it was a commonly bandied truism that teachers make the worst students. I wonder if any of the people saying that ever wondered what would happen if those "worst students" were given a presentation in an adult manner?
Excellent suggestions which I will remember when planning opening of school meetings for teachers.
By the way administrators are by far the worst audience for presenters. Go figure.
Oh,my God, you get food at your professional development???? I thought the inane, mindless , and poorly prepared presentations were just for those of us teaching in Louisiana . This whole state is in corrective action. But I am serious-you get fed at these inservices????????
I thought that going to school was to learn from what we call professionals and not to get offended by a professor that call me twice the "B" word. His explanation when I requested respect, was Oh you are here in the U.S. and will be call a B..... and other names and it depends in the contest that you use it, but your problem is that you are to stubborn to understand it. A culture thing or respect?
You mean you get to go out of the building AND eat crappy food? This is an excellent post, in seriousness, and the ideas are things we should hammer onto those "consultants" districts hire. I left public school teaching for higher education many moons ago, yet I still cringe at the notion of being subjected to professional development. Back in my day, the district would bring in some expensive hired gun who would pretty much do all sorts of little gimmicks like the one you described. It was so bad some of the older teachers would bring their professional reading, the knitting (I think one had a sweater almost done at one point), pretty much anything to pass the time and make the torture less. To make it worse, it all took place in the school itself, because they could get a very pricey consultant, but no chance to leave and the snacks, well, I think the birds in the park might turn their noses on them. I know some of these "Wise people" can make a lot of money, but I don't think I could ever go so low as to make a living insulting fellow teachers, then again, how many of these bureucrats are teachers to start with?
This is definitely a post that will resonate. I got here from Wonk's linking, and I am sure more will likely come. To those being subjected to the pain, I can only say, hang in there. They will eventually let you get back to teaching, which is what you do best.
Don't think that it's that bad everywhere. I was used to inane professional development sucking my time away, but this year I ended up getting some really great stuff. We had more than a week of extraordinarily helpful professional development that has really made a difference in my classroom. Even though I'm in my fifth year of teaching I think that it made me twice as good a teacher as I was before.
The secrets?
1) led by a principal who cared about the students first, really wanted to help the teachers get better, and really knew how to teach.
2) a focus on effective lesson planning
3) time given to allow departments, grade levels, and the whole site to set their own norms for teacher conduct, student conduct, grading, and other expectations. Effort was put into these decisions so that we would be invested in the "rules" and they could be enforced in a meaningful way.
4) Our students were actually brought in! I'd never seen that before, but observing a fishbowl discussion of our students as they evaluated what they had seen in our school and what they wanted to see in the future was an enormous blessing.
5) Most of all, an administration, a faculty, and support staff who actually wanted to make themselves a better school.
Trust me, I used to think that buy-back days always sucked, but they can really be worth it if you can do it right.
I swear to God, two years ago we came in to a staff development meeting to find that there were paper plates full of jelly beans, separated by color, on each table. We were asked to 'move about the room' to find the jelly bean whose color 'spoke to us' most. Then, we got to share, and we learned wht our choice of color meant.
I chose orange, which was the color on my table, because it required the least effort.
But I DID get a lot out of it.
Dan
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