Professional Development

Professional development is a good thing.  Of course!  I have set several goals for myself since last year and am working on finding ways to meet those goals.  I want to do more integrated math and hands-on math.  (I wish I could say this without jargon!)   I want to continue to emphasize vocabulary and reading for fun.  I want to find ways to broaden the experiences of my students.  I have pursued ways through listservs and a summer class to meet my own goals. 

But when I am told I need to participate in several three hour "warm-up workshops" in October and November,  all on Friday mornings and Thursday afternoons which are not my work hours, I rebel.  I would like to know that these would be very productive in order to give up any personal time for them.  I am not optimistic.  In fact, I am very frustrated.  I carefully drafted an email to my supervisor laying out my concerns and apologizing for my unpleasantness.  He wrote back saying I was never unpleasant and thanked me for being me.  I was relieved at his listening attitude and we will see what will come of it.

I need to be open to learn new things.  I guess I just want to choose the new things I want to learn and that I feel will be useful to me and my students.