At this time last year did I feel this busy, or was it simply that I was floating in an outer body zone brought on by a midlife shift in careers? Who knows? It’s a blur. Where does a trainer go to refuel? (...metaphorically speaking, of course, although if you feel like sharing a location for cheap gas...that would be helpful, too...)
So...I'm making a list of what "centers" me:
• Chocolate?...No, I'm trying to give up the "table treats"...
• Meditation?...Ouch...I'm out of practice. If I actually find fifteen minutes,
I nod off, or I feel guilty about what I'm NOT doing...
• Reading?...That's a good one, but I'm still not caught up on my stack of
professional texts...
• Writing?...How quickly I feel rusty, and I need an occasional (and kind and
loving) audience...
• Blogging?...Hum...Yes, I have experienced the brilliant exchange of insights
and ideas from colleagues, but this means I need to cultivate
the practice and find others willing to "check in" occasionally
to read, respond, and share if they feel like it.
So...I'm thinking our weblog could be such a powerful resource for us as trainers. Say that I have a successful day at a school (Yes, some of those are not a blur...), and I want to tell my trainer friends about what happened and what I did. I have the ability to link you to a text I used or video I showed or PowerPoint I created, and so on. You, on the other hand, can make comments, suggestions, additions, pose questions or make corrections. Collective intellect is always better than my own thinking alone.
If you have technology available to you at any of your schools, you might be interested in the Utube clip about the seventy year old man from St. Joseph, MO who joined a first grade class because he wanted to learn how to read. If you click this link, you have to let that video run through and then the pictures of the other videos come up underneath the screen so you can look for the Ellen one. It is 8 minutes long and has a cute conversation with him and he gets 10,000 dollars and is so happy. She talks to him a lot about needing the right teacher to learn to read. I think it was good inspiration to get teachers ready for DRA testing! We closed the day with the two minute clip summary that first shows up when you go to this site.
I'm lucky I have technology available at all of my schools, and I also have people who can help me out with it! Speaking of help, I owe huge thanks to Jennifer who accompanied me to Pleasant Hope last week. She took my group through the steps of running records and gave us an opportunity to practice as part of her demonstration. (I heard a couple of the teachers mumbling in the back, "This is actually interesting!" and "She makes this look easy!") This is something I simply could not have done...THANK YOU, JENNIFER!
So...short of taking another trainer along with you, this might be a great place to seek help, inspiration, and new ideas. Join in! The more the merrier!
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3 comments:
Girl, you are missing you calling ---not that you aren't fantastic at what you are doing---but you writing is awesome. I love reading your blogs. I feel like I am ready Ernest Hemmingway :-)
I did have a sxchool today that had the technology to use my flash drive and project my powerpoint. I put my presentation in PP format just for hand out purposes but was able to go ahead with the actual power point which was ok.
I was a marshfield today and the morning sucked but the afternoon was better. I was going to do the same thing with both groups but tweak the PM a bit but since the AM went so badly I had to revamp and change the PM (without any materials etc.) It went ok but I am really bumbed out so I am headed for Carlos O'Kelly's with Steve to have a few--or more - glasses of refreshments!!!!!
Later
Oh, Jennifer, you are always so kind! I'm going back to P.H. tomorrow and wish I could take you with me again. You were brilliant and saved my life!
I had a day like your Marshfield one...well, actually I've had several of those over the course of time...but I'm thinking particularly about this one teacher last year who really resented my being brought in when
clearly she was far more intelligent. (She even told me she resented me!) WELL...I tried to hang in there and ignore the bad and kill her with kindness...Oh, it was hard. Well, I returned there last week, and I did the "picture this" activity, and she chose the picture of Hailey sticking out her tongue. She shared with the whole group that the picture best represented who she was last year, but that she was actually beginning to enjoy the program!!! Oh, I thought I was going to die!
Oh my gosh, that was huge for this gal to admit how badly she behaved last year. I know I am getting what has been coming to me because when I was teaching, I acted really ugly when "forced" to sit in PD that I had no interest in nor any desire to be there but had to so I can actually understand how they feel but it sure does hurt the feelings a little. Like I told Liz, yesterday was one school, one set of teachers, and one PD day out of 35-40 so it isn't a big deal. Last week, while using the T-shirt strategy, the one questions about what I like about my age right now ---I said I liked the fact that it doesn't bother me whether people like me or not. I believed that last week , but everyone liked me then, HA! so now I will have to GET OVER IT and start practicing my own philosophy of being content with people not liking me :-)
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