Professional Development as a Home-grown Product

(This is a narrative that describes the value of self-directed, home-grown professional development and is a companion piece to the one that follows)

What was your best, most memorable, professional development experience? Hopefully, you’ve had so many you’d have a hard time choosing just one; you might even have to make a list. Here are a few of my favourite experiences.

While I was still a student-teacher, the school where I was interning had a PD day. The small staff met with a local consultant, focusing on the writing process. Throughout the course of the day, the woman, guided us through an uncomplicated, straight forward approach to teaching the elements of clear, organized, effective paragraph writing. We practiced the strategies as she demonstrated to us that the particular method could work with students at kindergarten level, in an oral fashion, up to an adult - CEO - level of written communication. Since that time I have been able to teach this concept to a wide range of students, every year, often seeing the results appearing in one form or another on the students’ annual Highest Level of Achievement Testing (HLAT) writing tests.

Not that long after, at the beginning of my career, as a music teacher, I attended the annual Karl Orff workshops lead by a local teacher and music consultant, Judy Sills. The meetings were always enjoyable and wholly practical. The musicality of the event was also inspiring and fun as I found myself in impromptu orchestras, playing simple arrangements on marimbas, xylophones and a whole host of Orff instruments with a large group of fellow teacher-musicians. Sessions began early Saturday mornings and went to long into the afternoon, and I always came away with countless ready-for-next-week lessons and concepts to engage my elementary music students for months to come.

Attending the English Language Arts Council (ELAC) conference in Jasper, Alberta, a few years back, also is high on my list of favourite PD experiences. (ELAC is a branch of the ATA Specialist Councils which provides numerous PD opportunities to Alberta teachers throughout the year). I came back from the conference with an inspired approach to literature circles. This particular strategy had been demonstrated to me by a guest presenter, a high school teacher from Edmonton. I immediately introduced the approach to my Junior High students and watched them undertake writing to each other about their novels with a new enthusiasm.

At the same conference my eyes where opened to the power of the graphic novel by a Calgary teacher who wrote in that medium. I was reminded of that experience when recently, caught in a rainstorm in downtown Vancouver, I found myself in a public library reading a graphic novel long past the time the storm had passed.

Finally, there was the year-long sabbatical when I studied the advances in distance education technologies and methodologies which led to a Masters degree in that field. Being that I was studying at a distance with Athabasca University, I was able to spend two semesters of studying and researching without ever having to leave my home. Classmates engaged in on-line conferencing with the professor and with one another and submitted their work as email attachments. I could be ‘in class” and still wearing my pajamas – now that was luxury! I think I was able to spend more time on task without the need to worry about all those incidental chores and peripheral annoyances related to face-to-face meetings. I cannot measure the numerous ways in which my understanding of pedagogy and the concept of life-long learning were expanded. My studies in the field of instructional design, development, and implementation has also enhanced and transformed my personal practice and refined my critical thinking about education.

What ties these experiences together and makes them memorable is that they have had a positive impact on me, on my teaching practice, and on my students’ learning, as well. And, I dare to say that at times, yes, they’ve been fun! They have also, most often, been personally chosen and self-directed experiences and because of that I have been highly motivated to participate and learn. Each one of the above was also a home-grown, made in Alberta, product developed by local teachers, at a local level, within a local context.

(The article which follows presents a much different approach to the ongoing development of teachers in their practice.)

Staff Development as a Costly, American, Off-the-shelf Product

(This is an article I wrote for our Local magazine a couple of years ago which, I believe, continues to have relevance)

"Over the years, a lot of good things have been done in the name of professional development. So have a lot of rotten things.” (Guskey, T. R., Evaluating Professional Development, 2000).

A New York City teacher’s complaint offers an example of what may be the worst of professional development:

"You see, part of being a teacher is having the opportunity of professional development (PD). Another part is being forced to partake in PD that you don't necessarily want, need, or will do anything for your children. The Dept. of Ed. WASTES hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on useless PD... I am often disgusted at how publishing companies and curriculum designers get rich off of these huge contracts with the NYC public schools... They make millions of dollars off of our kids.” (peaceintheclassroom.blogspot.com)

Her exasperation is clearly evident but what she describes is probably more correctly referred to as Staff Development (SD), not PD.

Although the terms PD and SD are sometimes used interchangeably, SD is what occurs when organizations seek ways to increase the knowledge, skills and attributes of their employees in ways the organization deems appropriate. Arguably, SD is a subset of all those things that make up professional development, but is much narrower in its focus than the broader concept of PD.

I can recall when I have encountered SD and felt frustration similar to that of the teacher from NYC. I’m thinking of those district-wide gatherings where teachers come to hear some speaker from the U.S. address local teachers and administrators on some particular educational topic. He, or she, has authored a book – for sale at the back - offering some particular research-based methodology, opinion, jargon, philosophy, or whatever, on what constitutes “best practice.” “Follow these steps and you’ll have success,” is the implication. I refer to this type of SD as an American, off-the-shelf product.

I find myself somewhat perplexed as I listen. The ideas in question may be research-based but usually fall short of being researched in a scientific, clinical sense. The speaker is often rhetorically gifted and with the style of a “motivational speaker.” She, or he, seems to keep the crowd entertained even though at times I feel as if I am being entertained or manipulated in the same way one may find one’s self entertained or manipulated by an infomercial.

Unfortunately, the message contained in these sessions often focuses too narrowly on what constitutes success in the classroom, i.e., improving high-stakes standardized test scores. Could it be that the high-stakes game of No Child Left Behind, with its focus on improving test scores, has also increased the demand for these staff-development “gurus” across America, and ensured that no consulting company will be left without an eager and anxious consumer?

My critical sensibilities really start tingling when, on occasion, there may even be disparaging references to teachers as being naysayers, laggards, resistant to change and, therefore, problematical . The implication here is that if implementation of a certain initiative proves difficult or less-than-successful, it’s not because of a problem inherent in the plan, or a mismatch of plan to problem; the problem is those teachers of little faith.

To go back to the complaint of our teacher from NYC, there’s the overall cost to consider. Not long ago, I attended a two day assembly for which the tuition was several hundred dollars. Without commenting on the effectiveness of the sessions, what struck me, as I looked around at the hundreds of teachers and administrators from a number of provinces, was the substantial – if not staggering - amount of money that that must be flowing from public education accounts into the coffers of these American consulting companies.

This particular consulting company in question advertises dozens of conferences throughout the United States and Canada each year. With the vast amounts of public education dollars going to these ventures one must ask, are we getting an educational bang for our educational buck? Is it good practice to be using scarce public dollars to fill the coffers of some private, for profit, corporation? Are we receiving significant, on-going benefits or simply crossing PD off the to-do list? Is it a clear vision of professional development that guides these endeavours? The financial cost may be relatively easy to calculate but what of the opportunity cost, i.e., in what fruitful pursuit could teachers be involved if they were not compelled to participate in these other activities?

There may be a better approach to planning and implementing quality, staff development and instilling positive educational change. I call upon another source:

“Change takes root when grown from local seeds planted by those who know the soil, the sky and the prevailing winds. Programs and strategies grown elsewhere usually flounder and founder.” (McKenzie, J. Identifying and Grooming the Pioneers,1998)

Do we really need to go south of the border for our answers? The American context is not necessarily our context? Why would we not choose advice, guidance and leadership from those who understand our local context?

Another article in this issue discusses what can occur when home-grown knowledge and expertise is employed in helping teachers to develop and improve in their practice.

(I'll post the companion article to this, "Professional Development as a Home-grown Product," in the near future.)

Do You Read the ATA News?

The ATA News is a must-read for Alberta teachers! It is the primary vehicle by which the Alberta Teachers' Association communicates with its members. Unfortunately, a large number of teachers are unaware of its content and are not regular readers.

The editorial, by Dennis Theobold, is always informative and insightful; sometimes hard hitting, sometimes whimsical. The Q&A, by Dr. Gordon Thomas, provides information about professional conduct, teachers' contracts, Association policy, and a host of other issues.

Teachers, as busy as they are in their daily lives, need to know the bigger picture of public education and their profession and to keep abreast of the changes that are occuring in their professional environment. Only then can they speak authoritatively when advocating for public education.

Reading the ATA News regularly, and on occasion even discussing what one reads with colleagues, is an effective way of staying-in-the-loop and growing one's professionalism.