Inquiry is not for the weak of heart, but your heart will certainly be built up through the process.
Have a great week!
Daniel
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
EDLD 5301 - Research, What I've learned in Week 2
Teacher training is a tricky Rubicon to be sure. There are so many different things that need study, and so many different ideas about what needs to be learned that a principal has to wade through for themselves and their staff. I've been through twelve years of in-service training, some good and some bad. A few years ago I walked into a training the week before school started and an educator with 35+ years of education experience said, "Daniel, I've done this for around 35 years in a row. I think I could count the ones I remember and like on one hand. It's just something we have to do." It was a sobering thought that there are so many unhappy educators out there. Strangely enough the in-service that followed that talk was my favorite session ever. The presenter was a former educator that now travels to lead in-service opportunities using comedy to break down walls. Is it practical to have a professional comedian lead each and every teacher training ever: no. I guess my thought here is that what we, as educational leaders, must do is get to know our staff. Knowing who they are, what motivates them, and how they feel cared for and appreciated will give insight into how to best provide meaningful training. At the end of the day that word meaningful seems to be what is truly needed. Training for the sake of training never inspires. Training that is meaningful for the audience will engage and inspire. If the teachers leave inspired then they will be much more likely to inspire their students, which is what our job is all about. My goal as an educator is the have inspired students. That means that I have to constantly learn, refresh, train, and seek personal inspiration that can share with my students. As a principal my job will be to inspire my teaching staff, which will be an even tougher trick as they not only teach students, but also have lives and families to negotiate.
Inquiry is not for the weak of heart, but your heart will certainly be built up through the process.
Have a great week!
Daniel
Inquiry is not for the weak of heart, but your heart will certainly be built up through the process.
Have a great week!
Daniel
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Daniel, you are so right! I too looked upon staff development as an opportunity to get caught up on some grading and/or sleep or just simply a time to tune out! I acted just like some of my students do, I was there to get through the day and earn the credit. I too now feel the pain of how to inspire teachers during in service and make it worth their time. I never thought of it from a principal's perspective. I am blessed in my current district where my leaders have done the unthinkable. They simply asked us, individually, exactly what we wanted from staff development. Since then, we have been engaged in meaningful staff development/in service opportunities. The part I really learned from that encounter is the fact they didn't send out a survey (yes, we filled one out), they ASKED us AND followed through with our request. I intend to file that experience away and maybe you can too for our future schools!
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts on in-service are great. I had a corporate career before becoming a teacher and every industry has the "great" and the "is it time to go yet" trainings. For the most part I enjoy the in-service days and this year I get to be a part of presenting (yeah me!) I hope that I can be someone that others want to learn from and not think "is it time to go yet?"
ReplyDeleteYou are a great blogger! You seem to have a way with words and I love all your videos. I hope to get my act together and learn how you did all that. Your ideas on inservice hit the mark. I had an experience with a veteran teacher similar to yours. Later I confided to a friend and asked her to put me out to pasture or shoot me if I ever lost my love for teaching. Kids lose when teachers forget why they chose the profession in the first place. Part of my internship plan includes a morning of leading inservice. I am planning a fun, engaging activity on personality profiles. I am no comedian, but I hope to inspire them to understand each other better.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, you should become a writer! You are completely right and it is very sad that so many teachers dread coming to work everyday. Especially sad when you think about the impact that they aren't making on our students because they are miserable. Comedy might not be needed in every professional development, but variation would be nice. During our in-service, I will be presenting and plan on keeping the staff engaged and interested. I am doing a team building exercise which I hope will want them to understand that we are all here for the same reason: to teach our future.
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