Inservice is pathetic

Oh boy. We had Inservice today.

Everyone has pre-prepared name tags and we all got introduced and did the usual meet-and-greet. So far so good.

We're teachers so I guess it's video time. Superintendent can't make a proper speech, after all. Powerpoint meets YouTube. How 21st Century.

The video: Did you Know?

Now it's time to split up and discuss the video. All of us had different colors on our nametags. Isn't that clever? All the brown people go here and the light green people go there (not the dark green people – you're in the multipurpose room). Okay, let's read the list again. Red in the library. Not the library I'm pointing to, but the other one.

Every bad teacher stereotype is coming true before my eyes here.

After talking through some buzzwords and pretending that education is changing and that technology will solve everything (and where's my copy of Buzzword Bingo?)

Another video! This time by the local library. Of course, the laptop/projector wouldn't cooperate so the technology that will change the world and the way we teach needed two hard reboots and a flash player install by TWO tech people.

Since we might be getting bored waiting for the TWO tech people (ya think?), the local busybodies came up and told us about their anti-drug initiatives. Kids are doing this, this, this, and this. Sounds more like the adults in this town than the kids. I'm zoning out -- "Soaking hair scrunchies in gasoline and sniffing it." – What?!? I'm suddenly awake. Where was I? Someone's definitely high here. Whose kids are doing this? Are we just exaggerating for federal grant money, maybe? Couldn't we concentrate on what they ARE doing instead?

YAY!, the laptop works. So the library WHIZZ! BANG! presentation SHOWED! many kids DOING!!! things. Lots of THINGS, really! Like computers and games and projects !! and water fights and play!! It had snazzy MUSIC and if there had been PUNC!tuaTION! it would all have BEEN exclamation points !!!!!!

The video didn't show any kids reading though. Meaningful? I think so.

The reading grand prize is two tickets to a WWE slugfest. Now, raise hands. Who thinks the kids who read are also interested in the WWE?

Me neither.

Shows over! It's meeting time! Faculty meeting!

Let's review the Student Handbook, page by page. Didn't anybody proofread it? Grammatical mistakes in the paragraph about the National Honor Society – how precious. Sentence fragments and misplaced modifiers in the tardy policy – that'll be trouble. "Can't post student work without written permission from a parent?" What's with that? "We encourage the increased use of technology for improving the learning process for the 21st century student" ... as long as he doesn't want to use his iPod, cellphone, laptop, or other electronic contraband.

Whew. What a day. If it weren't for the stress of dealing with the statistical tomfoolery and pedagogy to make you gag, I would've enjoyed it.

Filed under Humor and Faculty Meetings, but that may be redundant.