When Trying to Train Teachers Backfires
For the last week or so I’ve found myself on a bit of a mental intermission. I had to relearn how to breathe and not escalate my heart rate. Eleven days ago teachers reported to work for professional development.
I heard the word “scaffold” and the anxiety that had distanced itself from me for the greater part of two months – hit my stomach within seconds. My face began breaking out. My migraines returned.
While I was happy to see my coworkers, many of whom I adore – sitting in a chair for six hours, listening to people so far removed from the classroom about how to be an effective teacher simply makes me nauseous.
Lunch saved me for two straight days of professional development. Not the food, but just the escape from captivity. I had to be there. To not attend meant I’d be attending the same training during Thanksgiving break. I had to be there. I had to listen to words like scaffold, intervention, accommodations and so on.
At the risk of sounding like several students around the world in 2019 – I was bored.
I can use the word “bored” comfortably, because not once in my career have I ever been a boring teacher. I know how to teach. I know how to engage. I know how to nurture minds. I would be content teaching for two more decades if I could just teach without people trying to teach me how to teach. Watching my students develop into independent thinkers and blossom into mindful young adults is worth far more to me than the salary.
Of course without trainings we couldn’t justify the positions of people who get paid more than teachers.
After professional development comes staff development. Teachers transition from district-wide trainings to a more relaxed week of on-campus training. For five days, however, there are meetings on top of meetings, little time to decorate a classroom and absolutely no opportunities to actually make plans to TEACH.
My anxieties danced all around my campus Monday through Thursday. Being around coworkers that I like, and in the presence of administrators who tried making required trainings enjoyable was definitely appreciated. But part of me still resents spending so much time days before the new school year NOT working on school dynamics that actually impact learning.
It has always been this way.
By Friday I found myself completely disconnected from my job as a teacher. I hadn’t finished setting up my classroom. I hadn’t viewed the curriculum. I hadn’t planned a single lesson. I was ready to quit before I even got started. And I’m not a new teacher. Imagine the deer in headlights look I saw when I turned to my shoulder partner, fresh out of college.
Ten years. I’ve found myself wanting out of the profession ten times because of trainings designed to develop me professionally; trainings that in every way possible distance the mind of a teacher from what he or she will actually be teaching.
I wanted to vent on social media, but then I remembered that ‘teachers aren’t allowed to complain because we don’t work during the summer.’ Mind you, I know maybe two teachers out of thousands who do not have second and third jobs.
By midday Friday, I found myself in complete disarray. My face probably told both my colleagues and my administrators that I wouldn’t show up Monday.
It’s now Monday evening. Today was a breeze. I was allowed to do what I know how to do well, without using any of the material I ignored in Professional Development.
I wonder how many teachers didn’t make it to Monday…
*This is my story. Before you tell me how all jobs have training, remember that no other job involves being directly responsible for children. There is absolutely no reason to burn out a teacher before the children arrive.
