An annual ritual each year in school districts, one in which staff are told to mark their calendars, is the half-day workshop. Depending on the state, districts are permitted a certain number of these days, which, for purposes of funding will be counted as full attendance days. The professed purpose of these days is to provide teachers with time and expertise to further “strengthen teacher practice.” What follows is a brief description of the typical workshop parameters that run in direct opposition to strengthening teacher practice:
Purposes
The announced purpose of these workshops is to strengthen teacher practice. In reality, the purpose of these workshops falls into three managerial purposes: program implementation; compliance regulations; the technique of the day. Although district and building administrators convince themselves that all three purposes serve the strengthening of teacher practice, in reality, they are designed to achieve a managerial purpose. In the case of program implementation, teachers are handed thick binders and checklists documenting the distribution of materials, schedules of training, list of materials, and, most importantly, procedures for documenting components of program implementation.
The same procedures are followed for complying with governmental mandates. The distinction between both purposes is the source of the request. The source of program implementation is a professional organization. The source of compliance regulations is the county or state.
Lastly, the purpose that has the most promise to advance teaching practice—the technique of the day—is presented a format—lecture, PowerPoint, video—that is thick on theory, thin on practices—educating, modeling, coaching—that are fundamental to learning and practicing a new teaching methodology.
Time
The district will publish in their calendar workshops lasting three-and-one-half hours. In reality a workshop ritual in all districts, one which few administrators will broach, is the much anticipated and thoroughly planned out luncheon at one or more of the favorite dining establishments in the community. By the time all vehicles have returned from lunch, teachers have settled into a particular training venue, and luncheon conversations are trailing off, at best, the district has two hours left to strengthen teacher practice.
Content
Putting aside the managerial purposes—implementation and compliance—the educational purposes and practices of new pedagogies will typically require teachers to change deep cultural beliefs about teaching and learning. For example, recent state and national standards governing science and mathematics are designed to challenge students to think, reason, and make sense of core ideas in both disciplines. The techniques governing these standards are embedded in the instructional task’s students are invited to engage in the classroom.
The tasks laid out in these standards run directly counter to classrooms where teachers in both disciplines ask students to memorize facts or repeat already demonstrates procedures. Few teaching cultures in the country favor or practice instructional regimes that ask students to engage in the kinds of thinking prescribed in state and professional standards. In fact, quite the opposite, most teaching cultures reduce the complexities of science and mathematics to procedural exercises that replicate procedures spelled out in textbooks or worksheets.
Rarely, would you observe in an American classroom the kinds of teaching behaviors—pressing students to justify, explain, or make meaning—that provide students with opportunities to achieve the higher-level cognitive demands written into state and national content standards.
Design
The parameters of workshops days—purposes, content, time—dictate a format consisting of a lot of lecturing from administrators or consultants, a lot of listening by teachers, and little time for questioning or discussions. Even when questions are asked they center on the clarification of procedural matters—timelines, form completion, supervisory responsibilities.
Mood
While teachers certainly feel good about time off from the classroom and the time spent with colleagues at lunch, they do not feel good about the purposes, the content, the time, and the design of the workshop day. The results on the mandatory feedback sheets will give high marks for time with their colleagues and in the comments section of the form the content and format of the workshop is summed up with the most frequent phrase: “what a waste of time.”
Administrators brush off the expected poor reviews of the workshop. They believe they have effectively implemented the tasks associated with putting on a workshop. Although they will not admit this in public, they also believe their faculties lack the professionalism necessary for appreciating the knowledge and skills presented on workshop days. Rarely will an administrator question the purposes, content, and design of a workshops that are commonly panned by their faculties.
In future blogs I will describe in some detail what an effective staff development program would entail. Suffice it to say, that in the decades ahead, faculties will be flooded with outside forces—new technologies, demographic changes, occupational uncertainties—that will demand dramatic changes in how we do school in this nation. The key to adjusting to these forces are effective staff development programs.
Alan C. Jones 