A description of teacher training days that made me laugh and cry.

[madfloridian]

Laugh because of the absurdity of treating professionals like children, even to timing their bathroom breaks during a 7-hour conference.

Cry because I remember so many training days, we called them in-service, that were so similar and so lacking in real content.

From a blog called A Phillie Teacher.

I especially have empathy with the statement at the top of the blog.

"I was a starry-eyed teacher from New Jersey. Now I work for Philadelphia Public Schools."

A Week of PD (professional development

Workshop Format:

* They read every word of every slide to us.

* Every video clip showed irrelevant elementary classrooms and teachers in nice suburban settings. We teach in poor urban high schools.

* We were forbidden to even *look* at our cell phones.

* There was only one break in our 7 hour day, and that is at lunch.

* Bathroom breaks were noted, including the length of time a person took away from training.

And more about Day One:

Day One’s agenda:

Morning: How to arrange desks in your classroom – I kid you not. All morning. First there was a lecture (with brief, irrelevant videos of elementary school classrooms) illustrating various seating choices such as rows vs groups vs semi-circle. Then each group was given large pieces of paper to draw our ideal setups. One by one each group “reported out.” Finally we were subjected to a PowerPoint that restated everything we already covered. Presenter read every. single. word.

Afternoon: Classroom procedures, including how to manage student use of pencil sharpener and Time Outs for students who misbehave. (yes they knew we are high school teachers. They didn’t care. One size fits all!)

If we disagreed with a particular point, we were told we were wrong.

In short, this was awful. I am angry, resentful, bored and tired of being patronized.

Teaching high school teachers with experience how to arrange classroom desks. Reading every. single. word. when it was over.

It is ridiculous they were covering pencil-sharpening 101.

But then those who do the training are not held accountable....the teachers surely are.