Keeping your “edge” and useless teacher PD’s!

I am glad to see so many of you read my latest post, “Is your Classroom Data Reliable?” Here you are again, and it’s a good time to read my other posts to give you a better idea of where we are headed with School Goals Work, so please take a look!

Although I did say this week’s “Wednesday Evening Post” would be about data, I put that on hold because I want new and/or struggling teachers to gain a solid footing on keeping their edge! This should always be their #1 priority.

One of my former AP’s nicknamed me “the Edge”. (Thanks Ellen!) Not because I had an edge over other teachers (though I like to believe I did), but that my approach to teaching was always a bit “edgy”. She was right. I was edgy in terms of how I taught, but always in the student’s best interest and I always worked outside of the box. Most days I couldn’t even see the box! She understood my “unique” personality and I made sure to put it front and center every time I was in front of my students. It was my rock to stand on. So my advice to you? Don’t lose who you are in the classroom. Don’t lose your edge!

Today’s topics are about maintaining your edge as a teacher and surviving mindless PD’s. Don’t be concerned by the word edge. I am not implying that I want you to be edgy (def. – nervous and anxious; seem likely to lose control of themselves). It means holding onto your distinctive edge, your unique character, that sets you apart from all other teachers. To hold onto that certain je ne sais quoi that in French means an indescribable, special distinguishing feature of you. The part of you that ten years after retirement students find you on Facebook and still recall you as someone who was willing to go the extra step for the students or was so funny or really ran a tight classroom that allowed learning to happen or who did that weird thing in physics with the bowling ball swinging from the ceiling! It’s who you are and who the kids remember. This is your edge.

All new teachers arrive on the first day of school with unique and interesting personalities. For veteran teachers it is great to meet them and hear what ideas they have for their freshman year of teaching. We remember what it was like. It’s exhilarating to hear what they have planned – fresh as new fallen snow! They are now as we once were – bubbling with excitement about education! If you want to remember these new kids on the block, take notes and pics, because over the next few years they will disappear. They’ll lose that enthusiasm, and the bubbliness will pop! Instead of developing as individuals, they will join the hive mind and fall lockstep with ideas they won’t agree with, or even like. Their quest to be unique will fade. Sure, they’ll still want their lessons to be exciting as they dreamed of that first day, but like salmon swimming upstream, chemically imprinted to do what they were born to do, they can swim against the raging forces of nature for just so long. Salmon make their mark, and then they die. So does a teachers’ edge.

The end of their first year teaching rolls around and in four years 50% of these fledgling educators will be gone. In June of year one, those still standing leave the building with grumblings of, “Thank God that’s over! Where are we meeting for drinks?” They’ll go out to the local bar, sit around laughing with their new peers and might even regale them with complaints about things they never thought they would complain about. They don’t want to complain, but everybody else is complaining, so they just go along. Just like the salmon turning to begin its final journey downstream, they think, “What happened to me? Is this the teacher I thought I would be? Is this what being a teacher means?” (Yes, their edge slipping away.)

Next year comes and they arrive happy to see their colleagues, but something is missing. Is it the bubbliness? Worry? Concern? Uncertainty? At the first PD they look around and wonder, “Why are we being shown the same things as last year - and that we already learned in teacher’s college? Why are they wasting our time?” The “PD Beatdown” has begun. They grab another Danish and coffee, settle in, and listen. Not because it is interesting, but because everyone else is listening. Just sitting there, listening. The new fallen snow is melting. Their edge is melting as well.

One of my office managers told me a story about how one of her teachers, when handing back quizzes (low stakes), would choose the lowest grade, fold it several times, take out scissors and cut it into a series of “people holding hands” that we all made as children. He would open it up, make the people dance and sing a song about low grades. She said this was the highlight of each week. The class thought it was hilarious – even the kid whose paper is now dancing! She learned so much in this class and remembered him as being the funniest teacher she ever had! He was a genuine person who showed kids his edge. The truth is that not everyone could pull this off. This was his shtick, his schpiel, his edge and he was obviously good at it. She said the class looked forward to this and it gave incentive to do as good as possible on his quizzes! Contrary to current thinking, kids like things such as this and think they are funny. Children are not as fragile as you might think. They learn about school through you so don’t be a phony. She and her friends still laugh about this so many years later. I am also pretty sure no animals were harmed in the making of this classroom humor. I might have been able to do this, but it wouldn’t have been my edge or style. I had my own personal approaches that were equally entertaining.

Here's one of my own edge stories. At my last school, I started our first NYC Middle School Science Olympiad (SciOly) team. I knew nothing about it other than it would provide great academic competition for the students (which is sorely missing today and is a big reason why our kids are missing out on so much. Anyhoo…) Several of the events are building/engineering competitions. The first year one of these was to build balsa gliders. I bought the balsa wood and Krazy glue for them, gave them the manual and some general instruction and let them roll with it. All of this was done after school, so we had only students who really wanted to be there. One of the boys was diligent in his pursuit of building a glider that would fly as long as possible. He glued the plane, the table, books, and fingers all of which comes off easy enough with acetone. (Don’t ask how a middle school teacher came to possess acetone. That was a bit edgy.) After weeks of building, he produced nothing but trash. In fact, we named his gliders “flying phone books”. He would throw them and they would nosedive into the floor, but he really wanted to make it work and win a medal. I was frustrated because I could see so many of the mistakes he was making. SciOly is supposed to be “hands off” on the part of the teacher. But I was getting a bit edgy, so I picked up the clunker he was working on, got the team’s attention, gave a short talk on the importance of doing research before building gliders and crushed his glider into small pieces with my hands! The class must have thought I had gone mad! I said to Eric, “I couldn’t watch you keep throwing good time and effort after bad. So now you have to start with a clean slate. Go research and build a plane that will medal at competition.” He did research and he did medal! When I retired at the end of 2022, our team had placed 1st in NYC Regionals for 6 consecutive years and I coached the team to the National tournament. * In almost 40 years, it was the first time a NYC Middle School ever made it to Nationals! Bravo Team!!

So what happened to Eric? He medaled more and even came back to coach Gliders/Engineering for the team after he moved onto a NYC Specialized HS. Upon graduation, he attended college for aeronautical engineering and today works in that field. We remain in contact to this day and often laugh about his “flying phonebooks”. Crushing the plane? Spur of the moment and it became part of my edge. Ever since then, students asked me to crush their balsa engineering projects if they knew they were no good. Why? They couldn’t do it. They knew they needed to start from scratch but didn’t have the heart to do it. In speaking with the coaches who took over for me, it seems that the “crushing of inferior or potentially non-medaling gliders” has become something of a tradition for the team!

“How many new teachers will add “glider crusher” to their edge? Will it be you?”

Administrators came in to watch my edge in action. I like to think some remembered when they had an edge, too. These are the best principals to work for. The ones who know you are swimming upstream every day, and if they can give you a little support when trying something new versus a “safer” approach they will. But be forewarned, walking on your edge is like walking a tightrope. Sometimes you cross successfully, but not always. This is one reason why teaching is not for everyone, but if you can keep swimming upstream, you are going to love every day you step inside those school doors!

Don’t let the Borg assimilate you. Resist!

Like the Borg, school will attempt to assimilate you into drones. (Ok, so in addition to Kung Fu Panda references, I like Star Trek mentions as well.) For those of you unfamiliar with Star Trek drones, they were once individuals - nice humanoids with admirable qualities. It is those traits that the Borg found attractive and wanted. As a result, they were assimilated by the Borg into the Collective and forced to function as mindless “drones” who were stripped of all uniqueness and now lack the capacity for individual thought. (Sound familiar teachers?) Once assimilated, drones must continue to contribute to the collective, whether they choose to or not. They are forced to operate within the “hive mind” and it is this surrender that is the central key to life in the Borg Collective. Drones cannot express any individuality, and if they do, well... let’s just say it is not pretty. Best advice? Resist assimilation! Keep your edge!

As far as best career choices are concerned, being a teacher and being a doctor are tops! But there is one intangible “elephant in the room”. It is the ability to develop your personal edge in your own professional setting. The only way to do this is through “Real” Professional Development! This is easy for all other professions, but difficult for teachers as they must rely on weekly, bi-monthly or monthly “professional development” meetings to develop their professional acumen. Sadly, these PD’s do not - and will never - cut it. Educational PD’s are masquerading as something they are not, for they are not developing teachers in any sense of the word professional. How about 3-hour scavenger hunts, “new and lackluster” apps, happiness training, tech training where they can’t the Smartboard working, bean bag meets, personal sharing (share this!), or learning styles (How about our own style? Our own edge?) and so many others I don’t remember.

Someone once said, "If I were do die, I would want to do so during in-service training. The transition from life to death would be seamless."

In the future, I’ll cover PD’s more in depth, but for now I think I speak for the majority of teachers when I say “I'd rather be stranded in the Gobi Desert and groomed to death by meerkats” than ever sit through another PD.

That being said, professional growth and development can happen only via Effective Professional Development which is the second reason I developed the School Goals Work program. The first reason was that I wanted to be a better teacher, and no one (especially those mind-numbing PD’s) was showing me how to do it!

To be who you are and to excel in your career, while maintaining your unique personality, and so often your dignity, you must retain your edge. They say that if you enjoy your work and are good at it, you’ll never work a day in your life. If that is true, I have not worked much throughout my teaching career. I wasn’t a slacker, but I was able to go to work every day loving my job because I was always me. I never lost my edge. Think about why you love your dentist or doctor and I bet you could think of at least one reason right off the top of your head, “He’s so funny!” or “He knows everything about dentistry.” or “He has the best office staff!” These are all part of his or her personal edge. All doctors have an edge.

Having an edge doesn’t mean you are pushing the envelope too far, but it does mean pushing the envelope. You will never hear this in a weekly school PD, but there is no way you will ever be a great teacher by being a safe teacher.

There is no way you will ever be a great teacher by being a safe teacher!

Great teachers straddle the fence between the safe zone and the “danger zone”. Straddling sharpens the edge of a great teacher. Part of a teacher’s edge is trying what others cannot or will not try. When I started the Science Olympiad program, they told me our little city public school team would never make it to Nationals. Six years later, we made it, but not without a trail of many small failures along the way. You will fail, but if you are not failing, you are not trying or learning or honing your edge!

Professional Development seminars for all professionals, including teachers, are critical to our successes, so what is the difference between Professional Development for teachers versus all other professionals?

Education PD’s suck. Yep, I said it. They suck.

There is no other word for them and I said that after 99.99% of the PD’s I was forced to endure for 20+ years of teaching. Teachers don’t pay for in-service PD’s, and as they say, “You get what you pay for.”

New and/or struggling teachers need all the help they can get. They want to thrive, not just survive, but they will never get it from the current version of in-house school professional development. Teacher PD’s do not professionally develop teachers! You will never hear teachers walking out of a PD saying what they learned is going to make them great teachers. Teachers must look outside of schools for real professional development!

My hope is for you to keep your edge and ride the crest your career wave being that edgy educator you dreamed of being from the moment you decided to become a teacher. They will try to take it from you, but don’t let them! I hope my posts will help you to keep your individuality and resist assimilation, because contrary to what they tell you, resistance is not “futile”. Your edge is your individuality!