Are we not adults?

As a teacher, I am not, and have never been, a fan of regular staff meetings.

To gather a group of people in a room who are already busy and have tons of work to do only to assign them make work projects and ice breaker games drives me INSANE!

Yet another reason I know I could never be a principal – I understand the value of people’s time and refuse to waste it in the name of “professional development”.

I have an aversion to chart paper and markers as they are walked into a staff meeting. 🤮

Perhaps these feelings are part of the reason why I am easily distracted in said meetings. I have had several instances where my love of meetings was obvious (NOT!) to everyone in the room!

The first one was a simple incident where I must have been daydreaming and was brought out of my reverie by my coworker and friend who grabbed my pen and flung it. I did not realize that in my boredom I had drifted off into space and was click click clicking my pen! Oops. Apparently, the pen clicking was more annoying that what was going on in the staff meeting.

As teachers, we are supposed to respect our students – of course – and treat them as such. This means, to me, not speaking down to them or doing things that they will not be comfortable with or interested in. Differentiated instruction only applies from teacher to student, not from administration to teachers. They seem to feel like whatever they would like to share with us is of utmost importance to everyone in the room since it is to them as well. Often we let students choose a group to work in that they will be comfortable with and in which they will produce their best possible work. I have been in schools, however, where we come in to the staff meeting and there are name plates on the tables prescribing where we will sit for the meeting – to avoid having people sit with “friends” and get distracted. In my world, a professional person should be able to handle themselves no matter where they are sitting. * Although, as I say that, I know there are people reading this who have been seated beside me and are often distracted by jokes and side comments – sorry!

I would also argue that I am able to multi-task during a meeting. I am 100% capable of listening to someone drone on while marking student work or trying to plan my next day. I do not have to sit with my hands crossed on the table in front of me holding eye contact with the speaker from start to finish. I have, however, been asked to put my work away and sit and listen. 😠 Can you listen and do something at the same time?

In another school we were given a cardboard triangular prism to set on the desk. On the 3 faces, there were different coloured circles: a green, a yellow and a red. Instead of being adults and speaking our minds and asking questions. we had to rotate our triangles depending on our state of being at a particular moment. If we understood and agreed with what someone was saying, we would face the green side to the speaker. Yellow was for if we had a question about what was being presented. Red was if we disagreed with or did not understand the content being discussed. I needed to have a cube instead of a triangle because I could definitely use some different options : blue for SHUT THE HELL UP, orange for HOW DID YOU GET THIS JOB? and some black for WHEN IS THIS INCESSANT TALKING GOING TO STOP!? My triangle always spent the duration of the staff meeting on the floor!

I did, after all, need to have my hands free to be able to click my pen.

Most recently, we no longer have staff meetings. We now have team huddles because that makes it more bearable ….. ???

Lesson learned? Administration is definitely not for me! Raise your hands all who agree!