The Four Stages of a Professional Development Day

Stage 1:
Hope Springs Eternal
"This one’s going to be different!"

Traits

• Donuts, coffee supplied by administration; teachers wearing shorts, blue jeans, chatting
• Session opens with entertainment from high school choir, teachers lean back, close eyes, enjoy early morning nappy-time
• Speaker gives self-effacing introduction; cracks jokes (some actually kind of funny)
• More jokes, several anecdotes; some sincere laughs, occasional honest clapping
• Elementary teachers smiling, nodding at each other
• Guidance counselors whispering to each other, hoping certain teachers are "getting the message"
• Even high school teachers fairly attentive, minimal paper grading, magazine reading
• Cynical comments restricted to "the cynics" (you know who they are); one cynic writes down predictions when vice-principal will make first exit to "check out" something
• Oohs and aahs from techno-illiterate teachers entertained with dissolves and wipes of PowerPoint presentation
• Teacher famed for sleeping during in-services still awake, quietly doing statistics
• Chairs feeling comfy; several teachers experiment with different slouch positions
• Speaker introduces main concepts, a few new easy-to-understand terms

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Stage 2:
Bring on the AV
"It’s deja vu, all over again"

Traits

• First transparency rears its ugly head
• Audience begins to realize this is just common sense or worse...common folly
• Jokes starting to sound suspiciously familiar, forced
• Speaker’s idiosyncratic speaking style surfaces, encourages mimicry among less mature staffers
• Urban legends creeping into speech, being used as "anecdotal evidence"
• Elementary teachers looking around worried, annoyed at coaches
• First "Far Side" cartoon appears on overhead...it’s the same one last speaker used
• Resident sleeper out cold, others beginning to nod off
• Chairs starting to feel cramped, one bold teacher flings legs over seat in front of him
• Terms becoming technical, vague, psycho-babble
• Speaker begins speeding up PowerPoint screen changes, neglects to even read some of them
• Guidance counselors taking names of teachers who aren’t paying attention
• Vice-principal makes first exit, right on schedule; principal soon follows with brow professionally wrinkled in "Something's come up" mode
• Resident cynic begins drafting a Four Stages of In-Service Session

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Stage 3:
Mumbo-Jumbo Land
"We get an hour and a half for lunch, right?"

Traits

• Terminology explosion, abundance of hyphenated words and phrases involving the word "cognitive"
• People communicate with others across the aisle concerning lunch plans by making gestures related to local eating establishments: fishing gestures for the seafood joint, two hands around an imaginary burger for the burger joint, and a chopstick manuvre for the local Chinese restaurants
• Auditorium alive with watch-checking gestures, some members average more than one watch-check per minute; one teacher simply stares at watch
• Cynics entertain each other with comic nonverbal gestures such as eye-rolls, caricature mimicry of speaker, and frozen look of comatose state
• Speaker drones on, beads of sweat appearing on forehead
• Resident sleeping teacher lifeless, feared dead
• Overhead projector use now dominates, audience stirs to attention when a fly is seen walking lethargically across transparencies; bets are taken whether it will make it to the other side or not
• English teacher completes grading research papers; basketball coach puts finishing touches on summer weight-lifting schedule
• Teachers begin exhibiting the same behavior they despise in students: note-passing, talking out loud, reading Mad Magazine; principal -- back from trouble spot -- gives dirty looks
• Lunch break! Spirits soar.

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Stage 4:
Death: aka Jonestown Revisted
"Pass me the Kool-aid, please."

Traits

• Teachers hunker down for post-lunch session
• Speaker repeating stories wholesale, jokes degrading to Reader’s Digest anecdotes
• Actual snoring heard in large quadrant of auditorium; even superintendent fully asleep, eyes moving in dog-like REM state
• Cynicism reaches critical mass — resident cynic has lost his market niche as scores of teachers begin plying their wares
• Speaker demonstrates professional "stretching" skills, spending thirty minutes on one overhead transparency which, to his ignorance, is upsidedown
• Some members of audience begin unintentional TM…staring at wall, chanting "HOME...HOME;" a few actually enter altered states of consciousness; some discover true meaning of life
• Resident-Sleeper’s hibernation ends; he awakes with a start, gathers himself, asks a couple of already-covered questions which the speaker, full of joy, answers at length
• Speaker raises hopes with mention of possible early release, a cough from area where administrators are seated dashes them immediately
• 3:25: Five minutes to go; teachers begin waking up, lots of shuffling of papers; evaluation forms passed out
• 3:30: Nirvana! Teachers so elated they actually write positive comments on evaluation form; "It’s like finally getting out of the car after a l-o-n-g trip," one teacher exclaims
• Administrators awake, vice-principal reenters auditorium, all clap enthusiastically, and comment to each other what a success the day has been
• Dismissal! Teachers race for parking lot; several injured in pile-up at exit gate.