Professional Development

Professional development are two words that strike fear in the hearts of pretty much every educator I know. It's a gamble- you are either going to spend hours of you life being bored out of your skull, or actually get a chance to learn a little something you can take back to your classroom. Teachers are HORRIBLE students. We just struggle with all that sustained focus. I was a horrendous student in college and grad school as my dear friend Sara Lynn can attest. She wanted to throttle me in Research Methods with my favorite professor, Kerry, every day. My goal was to get the professor as off topic as possible so that class was more entertaining. For the studious folk like Sara, this was torturous. I found it amusing. Once in grad school I was so off in la la land, I actually missed a professor yelling at me for not paying attention. Yeah, I know. Awful. How can someone like that actually get a B.A. in Sociology and History from an A list school (GO HAMILTON!!! It's a damn good school in all actuality- check it's rankings. I'm not lying) and an M.S.Ed? Um, here's the secret... I really adored what I was learning. It was interesting. What was not so interesting was having someone yak about it in lecture format. Give me some VAKT people! So it's no surprise that I have been working with marginalized populations of students since 1997. (#ohmygodIamsooldIcan'tevenusehashtagsright) Mostly, kids with high levels of emotional and behavioral needs combined with a myriad of learning and cognitive challenges. Sounds like fun, right? For me, yes, but for 90% of the teacher world- well, they would disagree. I think the right term now is more "at-risk youth" (which is sort of a dumb term too, isn't every adolescent EVERYWHERE at risk?) If you asked my parents they would think maybe I was more at risk- aside from three years in a regular old public school system, I have always had to be both CALM-V and CPI certified (fancy terms for verbal de-escalation and physical management of children who are struggling to maintain safety-restraints, basically). I have been assaulted numerous times. I have been called every single name that exists, including many that were made up in the heat of the moment. I have had to go to court and press charges. I have provided testimony in cases. This is the yucky stuff.

I have also gotten to witness students graduate, attend college, create lives for themselves- that's the good stuff.

I love going to work every morning (and not just because I get to drive to work post daycare drop off in absolute silence). I genuinely like my co-workers. I love IEP's and paperwork (really, I just love what they represent and provide for the kids). But it's MARCH. March is UGLY with "marginalized"populations. Enter professional development day! Wahoo! No students for eight hours! A chance to learn! Collaborate! Um, drink coffee calmly and whilst still hot.

Well, I was prepared yesterday. I had heard great things about our presenters, Martha and Michael, and the Positive Youth Development material. I was downright excited. Check out what they do so amazingly well. It was like fireworks. OMG THEY GET WHAT WE DO EVERY DAY. Like REALLY GET IT. If there was a double caps lock key I would use it. They get that we are teachers but are so thoroughly seated in a clinical world that it looks different in the classroom. They get that sometimes progress is measured in ways other than MCAS scores (don't even get me started) or report cards. They get that sometimes what our children need is way more important than learning how to spell serendipity or charybdis. It was awesome. Invigorating. Exciting. We went over time about fifteen minutes and NO. ONE. LEFT. Yeah, that's HUGE. We lingered. I honestly didn't want to leave. It was a full day training and honestly, I felt like I was only there ten minutes.

And now it's 4:17 in the morning and I have been awake since 3 am thinking about all the things I want to incorporate into my curriculum. My kids still need to know the difference between "your" and "you're", and be as academically prepared for the real world as possible- but maybe that means spelling charybdis wrong. And that's OK, especially if it means that they graduate feeling empowered.