What do teachers do on professional development days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My teacher friend gleefully tells me how she pops by the school long enough to sign in, then walks straight out the back door for a day off. She said all the teachers at her school do this.

Which is exactly why so many people have a problem with non-student days. I hope she doesn't consider herself a professional.

My husband is generally in meetings a lot of the day. Some useful, some not. When not in meetings he gets caught upon grading, planning, copying and whatever else he hasn't had time for.

[Anonymous]

At our private - breakfast, group bonding activity, Dei or climate workshop, lunch, dept meeting and happy hour - people hated all the endless camaraderie. It was exhausting.

[Anonymous]

My days are usually stacked with meetings. Speakers, in house workshops etc. rarely time to actually get work done. The only upside is us being done by 2:30.

[Anonymous]

Is the DCPS PD that is centrally delivered/produced today actually worth it? I think it’s listening to the chancellor and some other speakers, right ?

[Anonymous]

Today at the DCPS training I did 3 separate sessions that introduced me to teaching techniques or materials I could use to enhance my lessons that I would not have otherwise found/had time to explore. There was also a few hours of useless meetings.

For people who say only teachers have PD days. . . Many professionals go to conferences to get training and network. That is analogous.

[Anonymous]

I worked in the corporate world and now teach. There ARE a lot of parallels in terms of useless meetings etc. PD for me often has nothing to do with what I teach - I have to sit through trainings on concepts I will never use with people I never work with. When I used to go to professional conferences, I got to choose who I networked with and what sessions I went to. I learned a lot I could use and strengthened my network. Conferences were also usually somewhere nice with good food, while PD is sitting in an auditorium chair and not allowed to bring in coffee because they don’t trust us to not spill. They take attendance and we have to fill out exit tickets saying what we learned and how we will use it.

One job honestly wasn’t harder than the other. They both had serious challenges and a few perks. But the lack of respect and being treated like a child is insulting and contributes significantly to the burnout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teacher friend gleefully tells me how she pops by the school long enough to sign in, then walks straight out the back door for a day off. She said all the teachers at her school do this.

ugh

Don’t buy it. No teacher does that.

Notice it isn’t even a teacher responding… just someone with a teacher “friend”. PD days aren’t even set up in a way that this could occur, and I’ve worked in multiple districts.

Remember where we are. DCUM posters live to insult teachers.

Let’s be transparent- yes some teachers do this on PD days. It’s the truth. Just like some feds were out sledding while teleworking on snow days this winter. There are people who take opportunities to not work when working from home in every industry. This forum just loves to act like teachers eat bon bons all day on PD days but people who work from home otherwise would NEVER do that. It’s nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Pretend to work for 3 hours, hour for lunch, hour for meetings, go home early without getting noticed.

[Anonymous]

I've never heard of teachers being allowed to do their actual work (lesson planning, organizing the classroom, grading, etc) on PD days so I'm not really sure what to make of the teachers saying these things.
I've been to hundreds of PDs. They have been on everything from learning new curriculum, the science of reading, math games, social emotional learning, etc, etc. Most PDs are realllllllllllllly terrible. In 30 years, I bet I've attended 200-250 PD sessions/days. Of those, only about 20 good ones worth attending. I used to get very angry at the waste of time when I had real work to do. Now, I just enjoy sitting there, spacing out, pretending to listen to the presenter and drinking my coffee while it's still hot.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and PD time is NOT a perk. It's a waste. And it always means my real work has to happen after hours.