Another day wasted.
Granted, I don't claim to be know everything about teaching. That couldn't be further from the truth. As most of you would probably agree from your own experience, there's something new everyday. Which begs the questions, why are these in-services always the same material? I sat through 4 and a half hours today of review from every undergrad courses I ever took. I know what my challenges are as a teacher. I know what diversity in a classroom means. I know that boys and girls learn differently and I know that everyday we are seeing more and more students with disabilities or students who are at-risk in general ed classes. Take me to the next level; what can I do with that? How can I help them? How can I manage those issues in my classroom? If you can't make me a better educator with these sessions, please don't waste my time by telling me things I can see looking around any average American school.
...sorry, I just needed that little moment.
I deeply appreciate the efforts of our administrators in putting these days together and I appreciate the time the presenters take to be there. It's just frustrating that they don't seem to understand what our needs are before they plan these sessions.
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4 comments:
I totally agree with you! During the time I worked in Detroit, I could probably count on one hand how many Professional Development days we had that were geared towards our district or Hearing Impaired for that matter. NOT MANY! We would even have Professional Development helping us write out IEP's. Did it help? Was it useful? Absolutely not. It never answered any of our questions and when we walked out of that workshop--we were pretty much back to where we were before-. In the end of February, I am supposed to attend a workshop relating to the Write Source materials. Gathering information from the teachers who have already attended--well, I guess I can look forward to learning not much of anything when it comes to helping our students learn to write. I remember always getting frustrated when we had our in-district or in-house workshops within our own school and it didn't even relate to Hearing Impaired--and we were a Deaf Ed school when all of the Hearing Impaired teachers were invited! As you can see--I was very frustrated at that and hoped that throughout the six years that I was there--I would hope to learn something more about how to teach my Hearing Impaired youngsters. Now, the workshop I will be going for the Write Source--let's see if they are able to adapt it for my Hearing Impaired students or not. Let's see if they answer all the questions that we need when we go. I will keep you posted!
We all need these moments....
I agree that the in-services have good intentions, but they are mostly review of the previous ones. I have an idea for you....What if you were to start presenting? You could use this blog, have people ask questions about "what works" and "what doesn't", then you could present the answers. Only if there were enough time, right!? Maybe this is a calling for you. I'm thinking, in between homework, life, and more homework, you could fit this in....right? :)
I completely agree... sometimes in service is so frustrating because there are so many other things you could be doing that seem actually worth while. This year my district started aligning our curriculum k-12, so that has been some well-spent in service time, but I totally understand your troubles!
Are you able to offer suggestions to your administration about what sort of professional development you would like? It doesn't mean that you will necessarily be granted your wish, but it might help administration to know what sort of information teachers would like more of. The district has to pay for the speaker. So, why waste all that money if it is not something the teachers want or need to know?
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