Real Talk: Most Professional Development for Teachers is Bad

Why? And more importantly, how do we fix it?

We laugh about the e-card above, but in all honesty, It's because it's true.

For most of two decades, I sat through awful professional development alongside my friends. 

Then I designed my own.

In fact if we were keeping count, I bet that if you have sat through some form of professional development in education you've probably expereinced 9 out of 9 of the following:

• You've been read to off PowerPoints.

• You've sat in a room for 8 hours.

• You've written on chart paper.

• The "Parking Lot."

• The lack of expertise of the person talking.

• The icebreaker.

• The "work with someone you aren't sitting with (even though there may be a really strong reason you aren't sitting with them).

• The lack of applicability to you.

• The fact that you already know literally all of this and there should have been an option to test out.

So the real question is this: Why aren't we consistent?

We hear all the time - from everywhere - personalize learning for students. Meet them where they are. Use "best practices" when we teach. Have a curriculum. Appeal to different learning styles (that research was debunked a long time ago, but for the sake of argument, I will put it there.) Be trauma-informed. Be equitable. Make sure all students have access to the material. Provide necessary background knowledge especially for students from traditionally underserved populations. Honor their mental health. Honor their time at home and don't give excessive amounts of homework. Be there to support them, and never ask them to do something you can't help them do.

I am passionate about every single one of these things. I always have been. I will spend the rest of my career formally and loudly advocating for these things.

I am also passionate about every single one of those things - have always been - and will spend the rest of my career formally and loudly advocating for these things for TEACHERS.

Our brains don't completely change their function and physiological makeup when we walk across the high-school stage.

As a matter of fact, the principles of pedagogy (what works for teaching kids) and andragogy (what works for teaching adults) have some similar characteristics. Adults learn in a certain way and need certain elements of good teaching in order to be engaged, to truly understand the material, and to retain the information so that it's immediately applicable. Adult Learning Theory is fascinating, and not only did it validate how I had felt about professional development for teachers personally, it also gave me a specific, research-based foundation for what I had always wanted from PD.

I wanted teacher-centered professional development. So did my friends. 

Kids want student-centered learning. We do it for them...

We would be remiss to also mention the pieces of our brains that aren't academic. That aren't there to learn how to personalize learning for advanced learners so that they are served, too. 

The pieces that have experienced loss. Trauma. The pieces that are anxious and stressed.

We are becoming more and more sensitive to trauma-informed teaching for students, and hallelujah for that. 

But as it says above - our brains don't completely change their function and physiological makeup when we walk across the high-school stage. Sometimes Grown-Up Rhiannon needs the same pieces of Maslow's Pyramid that Little Rhiannon did. 

If teachers don't feel safe, honored, respected, then they won't learn. They won't be engaged. We know this about students; from research, we also know this about adults.

So, what do we do about it?

We have to change how we do professional development for teachers. And I am not talking about throwing the Good Candy on the tables and getting the nice Sharpie poster markers instead of cheap ones. 

NO CHART PAPER.

We have to systematically overhaul our approach to teaching teachers. 

That's where I come in.

I can help you, and I want to!

I would love to partner with you to support you in effective professional learning for teachers.

The power of professional development can only come to life if it's done right.

Teachers, reach out. I will help you craft a pitch.

Companies, reach out. I will help you make your professional development engaging and effective. I guarantee fewer people will have emergency phone calls all throughout the day. 

Teachers are too important not to support. Their time is too valuable to be wasted by bad PD.

I got you.