No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This has become a 4-letter word to most educators in the nation. Another typical unfunded/poorly funded mandate from people who have NO idea what it’s like out there “in the trenches.” But I’m not going to spend a long time ranting and raving about Proficiency Tests or OGTs or other results of standardization. I’m going to talk about Professional Development instead. Yes, I can feel you getting bored already. You have no idea how boring it was.

I am a silly woman… Today was a training session about TIPS, the latest and greatest thing that SchoolNet (a loosely attached arm of the Ohio Department of Education) has come up with to make sure our teachers are Highly Qualified (a requirement of NCLB). Rather than the Novice Training (some of which was, indeed for novices, but some of which even *I* don’t do and I’m pretty damn good with computers) or the impractical Practitioner Training that they’d set up, they’re now going to train schools how to do their own Professional Development which will help teachers become Highly Qualified. They call these HQPD (Highly Qualified Professional Development). There will be a number of training sessions throughout the year. But today’s was in Piqua, which is very close. And today’s was held during my Spring Break, so I wouldn’t need a substitute in order to attend. So I went.

I am a silly woman… It was a gorgeous Spring day today… I had lots of fun goof-off things I could have done. But I spent 7 hours of my life being bored by a bunch of jargon and impractical examples. The only good bits were lunch (where I got to complain to my fellow county techs and the two SchoolNet guys that deal with us) and the times when we discussed things in our small groups. Those were the minority of the time. The point of the HQPD that we’re developing is to make teachers better teachers and get kids more engaged. So why not lead by example? I think the SchoolNet folks were somewhat frustrated with the “Tell Don’t Show” method they had to use.

Such a silly woman… I’m now trying to decide if it was better for me to have wasted a Spring Break day for this rather than wasting time to write up detailed sub plans for a sub who may or may not do what I request and may or may not prevent my equipment from being broken into a zillion bits (it’s happened before). Actually, one of the folks at the workshop today was a former sub of mine. (He was actually a decent sub.)

Well, tomorrow I have the time to sit around and goof off. Can’t even go anywhere and spend my money because my car is in for a check up/oil change. (I’m sure Miriam, the car, will find a way to allow me to spend more money that I’d like – hey, she’s 10 years old.)

So, I’m still suffering from the boredom of today’s workshop, so I had to make an icon for other occasions in my life.