PD in the Most Unlikely Places

A Post on Job-Embedded Professional Development for Teachers

Hi, readers. It's Jared Heath, here, once again.

To continue our conversation on job-embedded pd for teachers, I ran across something last night that I found curious. Actually, my wife found it. Seven weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our first child--a beautiful baby boy. She is now, understandably, highly intrigued by early learning, child psychology, and what makes little boys tick. Last night, she showed me this article: Parenting Boys: What Boys Need from Moms.

from kelleyward.hubpages.com

As she read off some of the items in the article, I immediately (yes, immediately...some say I work too much) thought of you. Here's what the article offers:

• "Recognize gender differences in brain development. The male brain according to Michael Gurian, needs time to “renew, recharge, and reorient itself between tasks by moving to what Dr. Ruben Gur has called a ‘rest state’. “ Boys need moms who appreciate the uniqueness of the male brain and how boys' brains need time to “recharge” throughout the day. Sons need moms to ensure they receive brain breaks during the day where they experience nature, listen to music, read, exercise, or draw."
• "Understand his need for movement. Boys need moms to recognize their kinesthetic nature. Because boys’ brains often go into “rest states” they use movements like tapping a pencil or fidgeting to reorient.
• "Engage in active play. Charades, monopoly, art, sports, digging for worms, climbing, swinging, exploring, or collecting rocks are different activities moms can join in with their sons. Moms can connect with boys love of adventure through story-telling, books, hide and seek, or unstructured play.

Oh, trust me. I know you aren't a parent to your students. There are some needs that parents can fulfill that a teacher never could.

However, there is a great deal of information in here that sure would have made my life as a teacher MUCH more bearable. Like the pencil tapping thing, for example. Not a single professional development session, job-embedded or not, told me about that. But it makes so much sense! If I replaced "mom" with "teacher" in several places in the article, then I have a treasure trove of child psychology information that would have helped me differentiate my instruction and read my class better.

So here's my question--how can you find professional development that is differentiated and really answers my questions? What does it take to actually receive the PD that you need? And how far does "job-embedded" go?

Those are my thoughts. Now I'd like to hear yours.

We can't, and it's the hardest part.

Check in at the webinar’s page for Autism Training Solutions free webinar, “Training Educators to Do Behavior Assessments” on February 29!

It’s me, Jared Heath, again. There’s something you’ve got to know about School Improvement Network and February’s free PD theme, “Behavior and Classroom Management: Make It Work, Make It Last.” To put it simply, we can’t change student behavior. Here's why.

I know we’ve talked a lot about the great advances students have made when teachers use PD 360. I’ve written about it in many places, and I’m proud to work for this company because of it. But whether we’re talking about student behavior, differentiated education, or test scores, it really isn’t PD 360 or School Improvement Network making those changes.

I used to think it was teachers who made the difference. But that’s not really true, either. Is it? And teaching something that you know is so important and watching the concepts and principles bounce right off their heads is the hardest part of teaching that I can fathom.

When I taught, I took too much credit.

I taught ESL classes, and my students were from all over the world. In one class, I had students from Brazil, Japan, China (Cantonese speaking), Taiwan, and several Central American countries. Having been conversational in German, French, Chinese, and Spanish at various points of my life, I understood the frustrations of learning a new language, and as a student of the English language and English literature, I also understood the capricious nature of my native language. I was armed and ready to help these students learn English.

And they did. I was recognized early on for the advances that my students made. I didn’t understand then what that truly meant—I was recognized for the advances that my students made. Now as I look back, I see that any other organization would have had those 20 – 30 students howling for my blood as I received recognition for their accomplishments.

When I didn’t do well in school as a youngster, I also had a bad habit of giving teachers too much credit—it was somehow their fault when I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to.

The truth is that education belongs to the student. As teachers, we are facilitators. As a company, School Improvement Network is a supporter. But the only person who can decide what to do with the training given to her is the little girl with her new pink backpack and her open mind.

February’s free PD theme on schoolimprovement.com is built to help you give students what they need. Many of our students need the right tools to start building better behavior, and it is up to us to provide those tools. But if you will allow me to wax optimistic and don my rose-colored glasses, I feel that we need to believe in kids just a little more and give them a bit more credit.

I would never diminish our roles as educators. I simply discovered as I reflected on my time as a teacher that the more my students knew that I believed in them, the more they learned. And perhaps they even became so much more, because they believed in themselves, too.

What experiences do you have where your students felt empowered? Have you had experiences where the message didn’t get through, or worse, it blew up in your face?

Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Check in at the webinar’s page for Autism Training Solutions free webinar, “Training Educators to Do Teacher Evaluations” on February 29!

When Educators Learn, So Do Their Students

"The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."

Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, aph. 32 (1973)

As educators, it can sometimes be a struggle to instill a desire for learning within students—helping them grow beyond “what do I need to know for this unit or test?” to “what can I learn from this concept and apply it?” The same question can be asked of educators, “Am I taking the time to learn from the concepts around me and applying them in my life?”

Connecticut teacher Larry Shortell recently released his story of continual learning in Summers Off: The Worldwide Adventures of a Schoolteacher. As he visited schools in foreign countries he discovered his American experiences are just as interesting to educators in those countries as theirs are to him.

Although it’s important to learn and practice the latest classroom strategies, educators taking the time to further their learning of non-classroom related topics and explore the everyday concepts in the world is also valuable to students. As educators learn more, they can discover more about how their individual students learn and continue to provide the education their students need.

To learn more about Larry Shortell's journey and how it has impacted his students, click here.