Staff Development Day #1: Teaching Teachers How To Teach

         There were a few days besides holidays that I looked forward to when I went to school. One was assembly days because we would get shorter class periods and an hour of sitting in the bleachers watching student council do something odd or (once I got my drivers license) just an open hour after school. Another day was a snow day...something I haven't had since I moved out here from Jersey to Vegas. The final day was Staff Development Days - the days when kids had off but teachers still had to go to work for some reason.

          Now I am a teacher, and from around the block I hear that staff development days were the dreaded days for the staff at any school. "They pay people to come in and teach us how to teach," say some begrudged educators. As part of my student-teacher experience, I decided to drop in for these staff development days, a two day experience, and what I saw was...well....

         Alright, day one pretty much sucked. I could only bear it for three hours out of the eight. First, teachers from around the area were herded into the school and then separated by subject area into separate "pens". I joined the English "sheep" in the theater, and there I witnessed some sort of crude irony unfold before my eyes. Here were teachers, infamous for putting students to sleep with boring lectures about seemingly interesting content, falling asleep themselves to another  very pronounced teacher. I hardly remember what was discussed, or rather what I heard (there was not much interaction though the presenter promised it), but I did walk away with a few things, mostly thoughts about the experience:

1.       Teachers are people just like the students

In more ways than one I thought teachers were from a different world when I was growing up. However, I realized that while sitting in that room trying to keep myself awake and watching other teachers doing the same these teachers were students once and they knew the pains of being bored. As teachers we try to engage in our students and become an exciting but educational part of their lives. The effort gets tiring, especially after several years.

2.       Teachers are employees, not superheroes (or mutants)

Just another way of saying takeaway #1 above, but I realize that so much work gets done behind closed school doors. Good teachers are constantly trying to up their game. They weren't born teachers, but rather they work hard at what they do by planning and attending staff development days.

3.       This is how you get your students to not remember anything

Lectures suck. Seriously. Your lecture better be fantastic if you are going to do one.

Overall, I'm probably being a bit harsh. It was a Monday and I didn't get to see my students. Additionally I was just irked because I was maybe expecting something more out of the staff development day because I was a fresh face. I can understand if most teachers who have been doing this for years might seem put-off by the idea of additional training, but even I was a bit taken aback by the seemingly lack of energy not just from the audience but from the presenter.

Of course, this was just day one. I'm happy to say that day two was much MUCH better.