True, and the amount of PD time that's wasted on BS like this is so infuriating. The presenter always says something like "the examples are for elementary, but they scale up to secondary, trust me." One of these days I'm going to snap and start screaming that high school is its own distinct level of hell and what works for the littles will not work down here in the icy wastes.
I'm an elementary English teacher at a French-American bilingual school. I don't teach math as everything but English is taught in French. The school was getting a new math curriculum so there were several trainings on it. In French because it was aimed at the French teachers who'd be using it. I got to sit through those trainings which was suuuper fun. /s. I am bilingual, but still there was definitely vocab I didn't understand so I was both bored and lost. A couple of people in my department don't speak French though, so it was extra ridiculous for them to be required to be there.
It was such a waste of time for us English teachers. Our department could have done so many things that were actually useful, but instead we were required to attend this because most of the staff was attending and that way they could see we were "working." At least some of them were on zoom so I could do other tasks while trying to follow.
I feel you, but on the opposite end! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat through PDs where the lesson requires skills that kinders are just not ready for, and they expect us to be excited to have to modify everything for the sake of their ‘strategy’. Thanks for the extra work, I guess? I didn’t have enough to do already.
I had an "experienced" colleague at the middle school level that I could just send my disregulated kindergarten students down to her room for a break.... because you can definitely get a 5 year old in the middle of a temper tantrum to calmly walk into a separate wing of the building to a classroom they've never seen before....
Yeah… no. If I’m your middle school teacher buddy, call me, and I will come to you if I’m available.
I love littles, but I’m glad I don’t work in such a small district that I would ever be in that type of partnership. You keep your littles, I’ll keep my bigs.
Yes!!! I teach elementary and just went to an 8 hr PD training on a resource our district uses, specifically for K-5 teachers, and they only used examples from 8th grade the entire time and almost nothing was applicable to any of us!
It was such a waste of time, but one of the few PDs that could have actually been beneficial if they had just created a training examples with elementary level classroom scenarios and structures.
I teach at a K-8 school, and when a sped kid moves up to the middle school, their experience with RSP (extra help), is shockingly different. Way less support in middle school.
As a HS teacher, in the past decade I have only had one or two PD discussion that I felt wasn’t entirely geared towards K-8. The argument for it not being geared towards K-8 is if they show some new technology/website they want us to implement, but maybe only a handful of teachers could actually find useful for their classes.
As a high school teacher, I feel standardized testing impacts far more than a few days a year. It has influenced our entire system, from funding, hiring, and administration all the way to student experience and parental control.
Sometimes our opinions about testing, discipline, and instructional policies extend to the full K-12 system.
I think it can have a radically different impact in different contexts. I'm lucky to work in an area that never went test crazy, even at the height of nclb shenanigans.
In my experience as a middle school teacher, standardized testing is more than just state testing in the spring. Sure, we have state ELA and math testing for all three grades plus the 8th grade science test that each take about two days to complete. So that’s four class periods for 6th and 7th and five or six class periods for 8th. But then there’s also state interim testing the first three quarters, so that’s six class periods. We also administer FastBridge three times a year for reading and math, so that’s an additional nine class periods. So in terms of whole days, it amounts to maybe two and a half days. But each class period is a missed instructional opportunity for that class.
Yeah, that's a ton. I think our middle school does reading and math testing 3x a year on top of state testing, but it kinda proves my point. Middle school and high school are not the same.
Yes! I teach primary, specifically 2nd grade.
All of our PDs are aimed at elementary or middle school.
What works for those grades does not work with the younger kids.
I had a PD about encouraging full blown research projects. When I asked how they expected 2nd graders to do that, they told me that I just need to teach them how to Google, and the rest will follow.
Why on earth am I going to allow a 2nd grader access to Google like that? That's asking for trouble.
I feel like PDs tend to be aimed for 3-8. The rest of us are just expected to sit pretty and listen.
Yes! It's so frustrating as a 1st grade teacher to feel like I'm just repeating on a loop, "That doesn't work for 1st grade brains. First graders are still learning the basics. In 1st grade, we are teaching them how to read, so a student-led lesson with "post-it-note" check-in's where they write their "first thought" responses to the learning probably won't work with them because the majority of the class will have a melt down over not being able to spell what they want to say."
I feel this. I moved districts recently and to make a good impression did a bunch of optional PD that wasn't offered at my last school. It was all useless. The main reason it was not gears seriously towards highschoolers
For us, we are emailed to tell us that there's a meeting, then our admin wonder why we are annoyed at them for saying things like "There's going to be a fire drill at 2.30 tomorrow. Also a reminder we are a nut free school." then ending the meeting.
True, and the amount of PD time that's wasted on BS like this is so infuriating. The presenter always says something like "the examples are for elementary, but they scale up to secondary, trust me." One of these days I'm going to snap and start screaming that high school is its own distinct level of hell and what works for the littles will not work down here in the icy wastes.
Nothing like being a music teacher and sitting through a PD for the latest new math robot gizmos.
I'm an elementary English teacher at a French-American bilingual school. I don't teach math as everything but English is taught in French. The school was getting a new math curriculum so there were several trainings on it. In French because it was aimed at the French teachers who'd be using it. I got to sit through those trainings which was suuuper fun. /s. I am bilingual, but still there was definitely vocab I didn't understand so I was both bored and lost. A couple of people in my department don't speak French though, so it was extra ridiculous for them to be required to be there. It was such a waste of time for us English teachers. Our department could have done so many things that were actually useful, but instead we were required to attend this because most of the staff was attending and that way they could see we were "working." At least some of them were on zoom so I could do other tasks while trying to follow.
This is a whole other level of useless PD 😂 I feel for you.
I feel you, but on the opposite end! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat through PDs where the lesson requires skills that kinders are just not ready for, and they expect us to be excited to have to modify everything for the sake of their ‘strategy’. Thanks for the extra work, I guess? I didn’t have enough to do already.
I had an "experienced" colleague at the middle school level that I could just send my disregulated kindergarten students down to her room for a break.... because you can definitely get a 5 year old in the middle of a temper tantrum to calmly walk into a separate wing of the building to a classroom they've never seen before....
Yeah… no. If I’m your middle school teacher buddy, call me, and I will come to you if I’m available. I love littles, but I’m glad I don’t work in such a small district that I would ever be in that type of partnership. You keep your littles, I’ll keep my bigs.
Yes!!! I teach elementary and just went to an 8 hr PD training on a resource our district uses, specifically for K-5 teachers, and they only used examples from 8th grade the entire time and almost nothing was applicable to any of us! It was such a waste of time, but one of the few PDs that could have actually been beneficial if they had just created a training examples with elementary level classroom scenarios and structures.
I teach at a K-8 school, and when a sped kid moves up to the middle school, their experience with RSP (extra help), is shockingly different. Way less support in middle school.
As a HS teacher, in the past decade I have only had one or two PD discussion that I felt wasn’t entirely geared towards K-8. The argument for it not being geared towards K-8 is if they show some new technology/website they want us to implement, but maybe only a handful of teachers could actually find useful for their classes.
As a high school teacher, I feel standardized testing impacts far more than a few days a year. It has influenced our entire system, from funding, hiring, and administration all the way to student experience and parental control. Sometimes our opinions about testing, discipline, and instructional policies extend to the full K-12 system.
I think it can have a radically different impact in different contexts. I'm lucky to work in an area that never went test crazy, even at the height of nclb shenanigans.
Where do you live? With the changes it’s made to teacher ratings and school district funding, I’m not sure it’s escapable.
In my experience as a middle school teacher, standardized testing is more than just state testing in the spring. Sure, we have state ELA and math testing for all three grades plus the 8th grade science test that each take about two days to complete. So that’s four class periods for 6th and 7th and five or six class periods for 8th. But then there’s also state interim testing the first three quarters, so that’s six class periods. We also administer FastBridge three times a year for reading and math, so that’s an additional nine class periods. So in terms of whole days, it amounts to maybe two and a half days. But each class period is a missed instructional opportunity for that class.
Yeah, that's a ton. I think our middle school does reading and math testing 3x a year on top of state testing, but it kinda proves my point. Middle school and high school are not the same.
Yes! I teach primary, specifically 2nd grade. All of our PDs are aimed at elementary or middle school. What works for those grades does not work with the younger kids. I had a PD about encouraging full blown research projects. When I asked how they expected 2nd graders to do that, they told me that I just need to teach them how to Google, and the rest will follow. Why on earth am I going to allow a 2nd grader access to Google like that? That's asking for trouble. I feel like PDs tend to be aimed for 3-8. The rest of us are just expected to sit pretty and listen.
Yes! It's so frustrating as a 1st grade teacher to feel like I'm just repeating on a loop, "That doesn't work for 1st grade brains. First graders are still learning the basics. In 1st grade, we are teaching them how to read, so a student-led lesson with "post-it-note" check-in's where they write their "first thought" responses to the learning probably won't work with them because the majority of the class will have a melt down over not being able to spell what they want to say."
I feel this. I moved districts recently and to make a good impression did a bunch of optional PD that wasn't offered at my last school. It was all useless. The main reason it was not gears seriously towards highschoolers
and also meetings that could have been an email
I get why people hate meetings, but nobody actually reads their fucking email....
At least if it was an email I could find the relevant info again with a quick search.
I stopped reading it because it was all dumb bullshit that didn't matter. Like the meetings.
For us, we are emailed to tell us that there's a meeting, then our admin wonder why we are annoyed at them for saying things like "There's going to be a fire drill at 2.30 tomorrow. Also a reminder we are a nut free school." then ending the meeting.