Professional Development Doesn’t Have to Suck

PowerPoint glowing in the front of the room with a title on it like, Closing the Achievement Gap! or Effective Questioning in the Classroom! or Lesson Planning for Champions!. A better, more honest title would be, Shitty PowerPoint with Dissertation Amounts of Text on Each Slide that May Cause Suicidal Thoughts!.

The voice inside your head says, “Dear god this is going to take years off my life – years I will never get back.”

You scan the room for an escape route. In the back is the table of shame, nothing but Danish, mini chocolates, some bottled water and coffee – coffee the concentration of dirty dishwater, horrible.  And although you will do your very best to avoid the table of shame for the first hour of this soul-sucking training, by hour two, the power of hunger and boredom set in and you end up ingesting copious amount of mini Snickers and Hershey bars.  Wash it down with some Alcoholics Anonymous quality coffee and congratulations; you have a stomach ache to go with your shame for the next 4 hours. 

To be very clear, I have not only attended this kind of tortuous professional development; I have delivered it. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I recently attended an event that put every conference, professional development and training I have ever attended to shame.

The Title

It wasn’t annoying or something cutesy with an exclamation point at the end of it.  It was called the Instigator Experience and the title alone made us all feel…well, like instigators – like we were standing in front of something ready to knock us into a new way of thinking and doing. 

The Facebook Group

Months before the event, we were engaged in a private Facebook group sharing our ideas, strategies and even frustrations.  By the time we got to the Instigator Experience, we knew each other; someone even said it was like we were attending a reunion. People were coming up to me saying, “Kathleen! I’ve been reading your stuff and I love what you’re doing.  ConversationED is really cool!” That of course, made me feel like a celebrity, which put me in a very good mood.  Facebook groups are powerful places for professional growth.  Unfortunately many educators are afraid to use them. 

The Food

No shame in this game; at the Instigator Experience was protein, coconut water, Perrier, hot tea, coffee (the really dark kind), nuts, bananas, granola bars, oranges, and apples. And that was just for snacking during breaks.  A few of the women and I were getting some hot tea during our first break and we were like, “Ooooooh, ginger!” 

For lunch: food trucks with 3 or 4 different options to choose from including vegan and gluten free items. Just like students, adults need good food in their bellies to learn and pay attention. Those running this show understood that and we were extremely grateful.

The Breaks

I speak for many when I say, physically, I can’t sit for too long. It makes me angry and my ass hurt.

At the Instigator Experience every 20-30 minutes we had a 5-10 minute break to get up, walk around, grab some nuts, drink some Perrier and talk to each other. During the breaks most of us discussed each session and how we would apply it in our work.  This was real professional learning.

The Speakers and Information

Everything shared; everything spoken; everything conveyed was important and APPLICABLE. The speakers were engaging, even using bits of profanity and self-deprecation, which I find to be awesome attributes in people. Very few participants were on cell phones or tablets because this event was magical; there were flutes, snakes, interesting stories, tears and of course practical information we could immediately apply to our businesses.

The Participants

It was a small event, only 60 people. And although in the front of the room were best-selling authors, successful entrepreneurs, and world traveling philanthropists, we got the feeling that we – the participants – were the real show.  We, along with our projects were mentioned several times in opening remarks and throughout speeches, which made us feel significant to the event – like we were the reason everyone was there.  The speakers worked with us one-on-one all day while we sipped tea and ate cashews rolled in coconut, my new favorite thing.

To Be Fair

Access to food trucks, flutes, snakes and coconut water may be challenging for school districts with tiny budgets. However, there are ways to pay attention to detail with your audience in mind. So if you want members of your school or district to employ the initiatives you are pushing in your crappy PowerPoint, remember to pay attention to: 

• Title
• Social Media
• Food
• Breaks (yes there is an S on that because one break is NOT enough)
• Speakers and Information
• Participants

I also recommend cashews rolled in coconut.  Yum.