I have spoken with a lot of individuals about my Kenan experience since being accepted into the program and attending the three Professional Advancement Institutes. And, I always come back to the same response to their questions: Kenan has been the most valuable professional development experience I have ever undertaken both as a teacher and as a professional, in general. For some Kenan Fellows, that might seem like an obvious statement when they think about the kind of professional development we are normally required to attend, but I believe my sentiment about this holds a little more weight than most teachers. Now, I am not saying this because I am full of myself, I am saying this because I entered a career in education via the lateral entry route. In other words, I didn’t begin my career by earning a degree in education, I have experience in other industries to compare the Kenan experience with and I still say it is the most useful training program I have ever undertaken.
When compared to traditional PD teachers take, or are more commonly required to tolerate, Kenan has been both eye opening and a breath of fresh air. When I attend PD either in my school or in my district, I see outdated concepts being handed down to the masses as though they were the tablets containing the ten commandments. These trainers, who teachers are required to listen to, bring “new” theories and techniques that teachers should implement in their classrooms to better prepare the youth of today for the world of tomorrow when in actuality, they are recycling old methodologies under new names and not fooling anybody in the room with their feigned enthusiasm for what they are preaching. Everyone knows this is probably not the first time the techniques we are hearing about have been touted as the next big thing in education, though under a different name. As I look around the room during these sessions, teachers are commonly talking with coworkers, grading student work or working on future lesson plans. In short, nobody is paying attention and everyone is wasting their time just to check a box as completed on another bureaucratic form.
I have experienced the same thing in other industries. When I was in the Air Force many years ago, PD involved occasional forced training, most of which was useless. To stay current on information about one’s job, you had to earn the next level of career field qualification or risk being discharged. Earning qualification involved refreshing one’s memory of facts about their current job and necessary skills so you could pass an exam. Does this model of training remind anyone of any current policies? Was this training useful in terms of staying enlisted/employed? Sure. But was it useful in terms of better preparing one to do their job? Not in the least.
Just before entering teaching, I worked as a one-man IT department for a small nonprofit research organization. While there, they had me take a variety of classes to help me better understand how to meet my job responsibilities using tools that I did not learn about in my undergraduate degree program. These included taking a course at the local community college, where I quickly realized that some of us taking the class were clearly already more knowledgeable about the course materials than the professor who was teaching us. I also took some classes at an independent learning center designed to teach technology skills for certifications. While I did walk away from these sessions with a few useful ideas, in general, they didn’t teach me anything I couldn’t have easily picked up from a book or spending a little time searching the Internet.
So, after these kinds of experiences, I was expecting that Kenan would most likely follow the same sort of experience. Pleasantly, I was very much incorrect. Kenan introduced me to passionate, intelligent peers who would inspire and transform me with both their spirit and their knowledge. The Kenan experience showed me that although there are a lot of old, recycled instructional methodologies out there, not everything falls into this category. There are plenty of interesting, innovative and challenging techniques that teachers can employ and promote, even if their districts or schools don’t understand the importance or usefulness of such techniques. And, instead of seeing myself as just another cog in the giant machine that is public education, I now realize just how important it is for teachers to stand up and make changes to the system from inside if we really want the way schools operate to change and improve both for ourselves and our students’ futures.
So, if you remember from above, I mentioned taking part in three different Professional Advancement Institutes as part of the program and you might wonder what I found to be useful about these professional development experiences. While all three institutes shared important information that has helped me grow personally and professionally, the one that really had the most profound affect on me was the first institute which took place at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) located in Cullowhee, NC. During this week-long session, I was taken out of my normal environment and treated like a professional while allowed the time to become acquainted with the other Fellows as well as what Kenan is all about. It was similar to a boot camp for me, with no distractions so I could focus on learning new tools and techniques to improve how I both instruct and interact with my students. Friendships with other Fellows formed quickly and while some of the things we learned about seemed foreign to me, they inspired me to try new things in my classroom. I walked away from this training with more ideas and tools that I have implemented this year than the other two sessions combined! It was here that I learned how to properly use Twitter and the importance of teaching my students to do so as well. It was this PA taught me about Sketchnotes, which I have written about in this blog a number of times and used successfully with all levels of students. I found resources in various technologies such as Chronozoom and the usefulness of creating infographics. While the other institutes were useful in terms of better understanding both the business and politics of teaching, the first institute was useful in improving how my classroom operates…and I found this information/experience invaluable.
In summary, I have recommended a number of teachers apply to take part in this program and will continue to do so. I am thrilled to call myself a Kenan Fellow and think this experience would benefit all teachers, regardless of their specific discipline or areas of interest in teaching.