Earlier this spring, the local chapter of my teacher professional development organization held its first in-person meeting since the pandemic. In the weeks leading up to the conference, I obsessively checked the registration platform almost every hour to see if the number of confirmed attendees had increased beyond his low double digits. Sadly, attendance was still embarrassingly low, so it never gave us the confidence we had hoped for.
In contrast to the chapter’s heyday, when the annual conference attracted hundreds of attendees and competitive speakers and presentation opportunities, the conference’s low turnout is painful and shameful. It felt like a thing.
One might think that after recovering from the pandemic, teachers and educators would crave opportunities to engage with each other in person and share experiences and best practices. Ironically, that seems increasingly far from reality in our classrooms. If anything, it feels like the teacher professional development landscape is dying at a time when we need to be most involved and connected.
As someone who still values professional development (PD) and has seen this decline first-hand, this speaks to the growing anxiety that I currently feel in schools and the local teacher community that should be at the forefront of education. I feel like this is an expression of a growing sense of helplessness. provide it.
Disengagement and disengagement that lead to decline
We knew from the beginning that planning the conference would be an uphill battle. From securing a venue to recruiting speakers to advertising and promotion, it takes a group of dedicated leaders to host these PD conferences each year. Having worked as part of the leadership team for a local PD organization for many years, I planned many conferences and knew what needed to be done, but this year was different.
Despite many long, unnecessary, and unproductive meetings, we struggled to find a focus for the meeting, let alone a venue or an interested audience. The rank and file teachers concluded that there was nothing new or relevant to learn and decided to do something else on Saturday morning instead. Even new and inexperienced teachers felt that their teaching was perfect, and that our poor delivery of PD did not allow them to improve their practice in any meaningful way. It is.
I believe that this shift in thinking is emblematic of the growing gulf between national professional organizations and local teacher communities. Without our local affiliates, there would be no source for K-12 math teacher PD run by and for local teachers. Therefore, the only PD that many teachers receive is often the not-so-inspirational one offered by the school district.
Pandemic exhaustion is also real. Although the classrooms in my building are back to the bustling, vibrant places they were before 2020, I think many of us are still coming to terms with the experience. The increased expectations and scrutiny on teachers is staggering, and many of my colleagues simply don’t have the energy to think about anything other than what’s happening within the walls of their classrooms. As a result, leadership positions remain vacant and meetings remain behind closed doors.
A post-pandemic retreat from active engagement with the wider community has been evident everywhere, but small local chapters like ours have been hit particularly hard. In terms of recruiting speakers, participants, and workshop presenters, we primarily rely on teachers to get the word out to their professional networks and departments to generate interest. If that connection breaks or becomes stale, we’re dead in the water before we even get started.
Since I wasn’t the president or conference chair, I didn’t want to get too bossy or aggressive about what I thought was necessary to make the conference a success. I wanted to create a space for others to share their ideas and practice leadership. However, the stark fact remained that the board of directors was operating at less than half its capacity.
I was once enthusiastic and proud of my involvement in this chapter, but I felt a lack of leadership, direction, irrelevance and low morale, and my growing frustration led me to resign from my position. I began to think of ideas that I had never thought of before.
Static practice and static student performance
Although no one expected our conference to have much of an impact on the local teacher community, even among teachers who attended the workshop sessions and gave positive reviews, the lack of impact was It was solemn and noticeable.
In the weeks following the conference, I peered into the classrooms of several participants in my conference circle, and found little change in their classroom practices, with little change in curriculum or instruction that they had attended the conference to improve. Not even the aspects of it had changed. Similarly, those who attended our parent organization’s large national conference the previous year were buzzing with excitement upon returning home, only to find that their classroom practices remained the same in the long run. I began to suspect that the buzz had more to do with being away from home in an exciting new city than with a desire to implement new best practices.
In the absence of significant teacher-led PD that is independent of the district, teachers have no viable options for on-site PD that is raw, realistic, and responsive to their specific needs and desires. What once motivated teachers to make meaningful changes to improve student learning and engagement had become static and stale before my eyes. I have my own thoughts on how this recognition affects teacher morale, but ultimately it’s always the students who are missing, the ones receiving the backend of PD practices .
The factors contributing to the decline of my beloved local chapter, an organization I have served for many years and received inspiration and support to grow as a teacher, are beyond my control, but I refuse to accept them. Masu. Give up something that still has the potential to be an important professional resource for teachers.
Revitalizing local teacher communities
It is said that successful education is based on successful relationships. This applies not only to teachers who teach students, but also to teachers who teach other teachers.
Friendship of a group of friends and colleagues get itThe friendships that first attracted me to the chapter and made me want to give a big part of myself to it give me hope for a richer future for local chapters and chapters like ours. It’s the same with friendship.
Local chapters like ours have had to adapt and embrace the new realities of teacher professional development, including the digital environment to which most PD has moved since the pandemic. However, whether in-person or virtually, the goal should be to grow professionally and foster a desire to learn again in the community, while being mindful of the specific needs of the local education ecosystem.
Education is too difficult to do alone, and the strength of a local community of teachers determines the quality of education that students receive. The regeneration of these communities should be the mission of professional organizations, especially if they are to survive the new reality.
