Desert TrailBack to school grump: #aps shared it’s back to #school PD and it’s 1) Gathering the thousands of APS teachers into a room, and 2) listening to a keynote speaker talk about #studentengagement when he works at a #charterschool that declines #IEP students. So, 1) Wear a mask, people, because this sounds like how we start the 2025-26 #COVID outbreak, and 2)This #elementary #teacher will let you all know how #hiphop is going to magically get parents to take their 7 year old to school. 1/3
IT’s especially frustrating because #studentengagement *IS* critical, especially with all these dry AF mandatory curriculums. But I’ve noticed a tendency to discipline the room rather than the individual in these trainings- principals should pull staff with trouble engaging, and work with them, not turn us all off by forcing us to watch YouTube videos of an East Coast principal dancing with his students. 2/3
It also seems pretty disingenuous to talk about student engagement but disregard the staggering #poverty and #trauma of many of our students, the crumbling buildings (how many schools in APS were built in/prior to 1950), failing a/c, the loss of support staff like #interventionists that mean that #teachers are wearing even more hats, busy addressing #maslow rather than #mathematics. Anyway, grump over for now. 3/3