Most teachers have had this experience: You’re in a Professional Development workshop, keeping an open mind because the topic is one that you are excited to know more about, when you soon find yourself making this face:
It is the face marking the realization that the presenter will waste your time with irrelevant data, research, and strategies that have no practical grounding in an actual classroom. Indeed, it is clear that the presenter has not been in charge of 32 teenagers in a classroom for a very, very long time, if ever, and all the statistics and theories add up to very little when what is suggested is not feasible with several classes of 32 (or more) teenagers. This is also the face of someone who has so much to get done that you can’t afford to sit in this PD for the next two hours. Or, even worse, the next two days.
Bad PD plagues beginning-of-the-year staff development days, staff meetings, and district mandated professional development days. It doesn’t have to. I offer professional development that shifts schemas for long-lasting, far-reaching, student-centered, teacher-approved supports that are readily applied to however many classes of 32 teenagers you may be teaching the next day. And that makes PD feel more like this:
For more information, email Jessie at: JessieDorinCoaching@gmail.com
Trauma-Embracing Schools 