Ethnography exerpt
July 12, 2006
Ethnographer’s Report
8:30 AM The fellows arrive.
Today’s prompt: Staff Development: Who are real candidates? What motivates people to participate? What has been beneficial? If you could design the ideal Staff Development, how should you structure it? What would it be about? What would it look like?
Shannon: “Useful staff developments are as likely as horse feathers. Out of school S.D. requires a lot of bribery.”
Joyce: “Participants are ones who don’t want to take a personal day, but don’t really want to be there. Hmm…this sounds a lot like SI.
Karen M.: Developing Professionals in the College of Education People make decisions that put their butts in that chair. We instill habits and discipline. It’s all about the decisions we make.”
Mike: It takes a lot of time to be a good teacher. Current teaching is more than full-time. Blue collar learning from blue collar teachers.
Laura: Her favorite teacher, Mr. Hundley, admits he slept through most S.D. She has found that few S.D.s were relevant to her.
Karen S.: Must resemble our demos, involving hands-on activities and be engaging. Administrators must be involved to be productive. They should provide breakfast and be patient.
Jason M.: S.D. are too often only played lip service to. Presenters are paid thousands of dollars for telling teachers what they are already know. There need to be long term investments and not incidental meetings.
Kristin: Real candidates receive 35$, free highlighters, and post-it notes. The programs are often the result of counties jumping on a bandwagon. At least one person will complain about any S.D.
Shelly: S.D. are filled with good intentions and poor implementations. S.D. should be structured differently for veteran and new teachers. Most programs are glossed over and still take two days to complete.
Diane: S.D. are in theory remarkable, but it’s useless, a waste of time, and certainly no fun.
Peggy: Why go? Usually for continuing education credits that the district made you get.
Beth Lloyd-Boster (Who teaches Pre-school): S.D. is a pain in the side. I am naturally motivated to attend S.D. sessions. She could attend a dry cleaning convention and take something useful away.
Andrea: Unfortunately, in Cabell County, S.D. is usually crap. The one that arranged the S.D. did not even attend and then had the nerve to ask how it went.
Kara: Boring, useless, and a waste of her time. Money motivates teachers. She also suggested some minor changes on how we could improve upon the current model.
Jason D.: Expressed his disgust
