Almost up to bat, detoured by inservice

Beginning of the semester, no matter how many hours you put in during the summer- it seems like there is not enough time to get what you want done - well .... done. Then in the interest of showing that our time is not "wasted" the powers that be throw in an inservice. Pretty much regardless of content, and regardless of presenter - there are two times inservices will NOT be useful and quite the contrary cause resentment (in the case of having one at the end of the school year) and resentment and PANIC(at the very beginning of the school year.)

the two ladies who presented did have good stuff to teach us. The basic content of the time together was about the national core standards: which emphasize using content, rather than solely focusing on the content itself. So using and showing a deeper understanding of content rather that spit out facts. Rote memory that kind of stuff. O.K. step in the right direction from the past ten years where multiple choice answers were the law. Really it is what good teachers use all the time. I probably will write about this later on. HOWEVER - this is how the morning went.

We were told to be in the gym from 8:00 to 8:30. The superintendent spoke and it lasted about 5 minutes. (He talked about being out of ayp jail- a very good thing, and kind of a beginning of the year pep talk.) Then told the secondary teachers that we have to be back at 8:45. So about 40 minutes wasted. We should have started our inservice then.

Then the presenters presented- and did two of my pet peeves- 1)READ us the information straight off of the overhead..... UMMMMM I can read and 2) gave us WAY too much time to do our "tasks" so basically what should have taken maybe 45 minutes to a little over an hour dragged on for close to 3 hours. YES I KNOW IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY --- but why should it?

Putting a positive spin on this however- I will always try not to do that to my students (yes sometimes I get long winded and im sure some students think I waste their time) but it does reinforce that concept of NOT doing something for the sheer sake of fillin up time.

Finally got into my classroom around noon. I definately don't have everything ready, but a good start tomorrow. I am excited for this new school year. I am excited about the new schedule. It will be a great year!