You can argue that I should know some of the contents of, or even just about the existence of, some of them, but really, Guidelines For Hazardous Ozone Episodes? Does anyone really read these, except when they need to?
This is one of the things that frustrates me about my current employer. My time, my competence, these are of no value to them. Darren, take your time and read all these policies! Oh, and let's not forget all the "important" trainings that I have to find time for--they're all online trainings. They must be really important! The 45 minutes I spent on the sexual harassment training online was oh so valuable (not). At least I scored 100% on the sexual harassment training, so I am an expert in sexual harassment. I know how to do it perfectly!
What frustrates me is they say something is important, but they don't treat it as important. I'm supposed to treat it as important, but for the suits, these emails and trainings are just checking off a box. Want to train me in something? Pay me for the training. My time is valuable. Don't just tell me to find time in my work day to fit this in, I don't sit around on Facebook all day while students crank out worksheets. I teach, often bell-to-bell. And I conduct at least one formal assessment in each class each week. And I grade those papers and get them back to students with a quickness so they can take advantage of the feedback I offer. Colleagues and students both know I'm anything but a slacker in the classroom.
Our district had planned a (voluntary) training day this week. It was canceled. I'm not complaining about a 4-day weekend for Veteran's Day, but they could have gotten a lot of this training out of the way on that day and paid me for my time rather than expect me to stuff 10 more pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag. Such training would have been better than whatever "social justice" or "equity" training they were considering.
Wow only 45 minutes on the sexual harassment training. Mine was 80 minutes plus a quiz that was downright offensive.
ReplyDeleteHere are selected comments on the training I had to do: 1) I muted the video so I could get actual work done. Some of us have jobs to do that involve actual meaningful tasks. The "quiz" was all common sense and the answers should have been obvious to a marginally literate 6-year-old. Sexual harassment is absolutely a real and legitimate serious workplace problem. This "training", however, is a farce that does nothing to actually address it. Looks like the training was put together by a batch of idiot lawyers to address liability concerns rather than to do anything meaningful. Should successfully waste tens of thousands of hours of educators' time, though!
2) This was the worst training I have ever had to suffer through in my 35 years. The presenter's tone was extremely annoying, hard to listen to, and I felt like I was being talked down to. Her explanations and scenarios were inappropriate -- most of my colleagues, young and older felt the same way. It was way too long and could have been presented more efficiently and professionally. This is a very serious and important topic, but I felt harassed having to sit through this awful course!
3) I found it appauling that someone teaching workplace harassment or sexual misconduct makes joking statements about sexual misconduct, such as my husband is a latino or fingering a man in the audience as examples of what not to do- just to mention two. The video was too long and it seemed an agenda for a group of individuals to push their agenda on our school children. District should remove this video of this women and stick to what the bulletins are about; I have too many things to do than to watch this sad video
Managers where I work were grumbling that the online harassment training was a 2-hour long course. You got off easy!
ReplyDeleteAll of our online trainings have online quizzes associated with them. Of course, there are, uh, "efficient" ways to take those quizzes, e.g. open two screens, one with the videos and one with the quiz (no, I didn't do that).
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling our is 2 hours because someone somewhere mandated 2 hours of harassment training annually.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, Los Angeles mandates that people who work in hospitals receive, I think, 6 hours of fire training every three years. The course would actually take 30-60 minutes done efficiently, but they have to pad it out to meet the requirement.
When it's something stupid, boring, time-consuming, and distracting from productive work, good chance there's a bureaucrat somewhere down the line ordering it.