As I type this I'm taking a mental health break during several hours of online training from my school district. I'll earn a couple hundred dollars from completing this 6 hours of training, so I try to care and take it seriously.
But honestly, sometimes we in education like to create new terms just so someone can have something new to write in their EdD thesis. I mean seriously, what is the difference between a "content standard", an "essential standard", a "power standard", and a "building-block standard"? Am I a terrible teacher because I cannot differentiate between those? How bad is it that I don't even care to know the differences?
I get easily overwhelmed in training like this because I'll be asked to do something and think, "That's the stupidest thing on the planet." Or the buzzwords will be so thick in some training that I'll be asked to do something and I'll think, "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here."
What bothers me is that this is supposed to be training but instead it's hoop-jumping.
8 comments:
There are teachers who use this sort of jargon to obfuscate and redirect parents when they complain. I have a friend who actually took some ed courses just so she could translate the jargon and be able to tell her kid's teachers how full of it they were.
It's job security for Educational Organization majors and EdPhDs...
Careful Darren, your Dictator/Governor will come calling because we are supposed to be delivering a "rigorous, online education" this semester. Just wondering how Science and engineering will do anything that is related to those fields without any actual hands on experience. This will be my 25th year of teaching. I have no idea what my administration expects. Reporting tomorrow is going to be interesting.
Our district has been on block schedule for the past 5 years. Previously, we had two 55 minute periods to convey info. That was reduced to one 90 minute period. Now we are asked to have a 70 minute period, but teach it 20 minutes on...30 minutes off...20 minutes on.
Thus we have reduced 110 instructional minutes down to 40. Our superintendent wonders why we have so many students not at grade level.
It's one reason I didn't become a teacher. I took a couple of education classes to try it on for size and found the edubabble to be a real turn-off. I mean, I guess every field has its jargon. But I couldn't handle the pretentious academic words and phrases when simple English sufficed.
Part of the appeal of math is conciseness.
This is why I teach at a private school. We don't have to deal with this BS. However, we deal with other crap.
Hey Darren, we understand, a man's gotta due what a man's gotta do to make the rent! :<)
I completed the training.
Oddly enough, the newly-adopted Social Justice Standards was the most professionally done module of all the training. On the other hand, the standards themselves--NO EFFING WAY am I getting on board with some of them!
Post a Comment