This past year, my job came under fire. Essentially, this happened because parents complained to my boss. When I went in for my annual contract meeting, I was surprised to learn that my job for the next year was not secure. Maybe, in another post, I will go through all the details and my strong feelings about this experience, but for today, I present this information solely as background for why I am doing professional development this summer. I have been asked to use a specific curriculum for next fall, and, to appease the powers-that-be, I am undertaking professional development specific to that curriculum.
To begin the professional development course, I just read an article titled, Transformative Learning. It went on about how teachers need to provide valuable experiences to help students learn rather than just talking at students. The incredibly ironic part of this is that I was essentially told that I do too much experiential education, too many investigations and explorations, and that I do not do enough lecture and "chalk talk", or notes.
In order to win my job for next year, I made a stark change in my classroom. I was told to lecture more, so I did. I no longer would guide students to understanding of mathematical ideas through open-ended explorations, a practice that is well-known to instill real learning. Instead, I told the students what they needed to know and explicitly told them what to write in their notes.
Now, I am enrolled in a professional development course that my boss wants me to do that is telling me to go back and do it just how I had been doing it.
So what do I do? Do I follow the best practices sot that my students have the best learning experiences possible Or do I teach in a way that ensures I keep my job? Given that I cannot relocate and that this is the only local teaching job for which I qualify, I need the money so I am going to do what I must to keep my job.
That means that I will complete this professional development course so that I can tick that box. And then I will teach in a manner that is totally at odds with what the course is telling me to do so that I keep my job.
