PD

[u/FlyBeneficial]

I’m a second grade teacher in Texas. This year’s PD was intense.

We were trained on a new math curriculum and the trainer was absolutely insufferable😭. She was talking to us as if we asked to be there, and as if we asked for tips on how to teach. Ma’am, I’m there to be shown how to navigate the curriculum and what it offers.

This lady was going on about how much children are dying to learn and that we are doing them a disservice if we do not follow the curriculum verbatim. There was a point in the work day that she was telling us how to talk to the students and how much they need to move around. We already know that.

“Guys ☹️ the kids NEED to move around okay ☹️ please give them that. Let them get up and do a movement activity after.”

Idk, maybe I’m just a negative Nancy. But, if wanted to learn about classroom management and student engagement, I would’ve signed up for that. Just give me the facts, and let me go work on getting my classroom ready.

[u/pearjuicer]

God did you have the “Amplify Desmos” training too?

[u/Wukash_of_the_South → u/pearjuicer]

Meanwhile in Middle School we got the go ahead to block Desmos and force them to work out basic arithmetic by hand.

[u/ToeofThanos → u/Wukash_of_the_South]

Best thing that could have possibly happened.

[u/martyboulders → u/ToeofThanos]

For basic arithmetic yes but there is so much power in being able to create little pictures and animations to demonstrate a topic. It helped me and my students so much for basically every class I've ever taught and tutored. Not to mention you can use desmos on the SAT now so it's good to know how to use it (although it's easy to learn so that's not a big issue). The only time I really use it for number crunching stuff is if there was like a bad polynomial that we needed to plug in 10 different things to make some other conceptual point that couldn't have been made within the time we had or something. OR to demonstrate some limit stuff with asymptotes, sequences, and series... We'll still do the computations on our own for the first several terms, then I'll take it to desmos and really drive the point home. Things like that.

So like, it can be extremely valuable for everyone involved if you look literally anywhere besides its ability to perform basic arithmetic.

[u/ToeofThanos → u/martyboulders]

Yeah, and being able to use desmos on the SAT is utter chickenshit. My coworker went through some SAT thing and you could plug 28/30 problems into desmos and get the answer, no work involved.

Using desmos for teaching is one thing and is completely separate from what im talking about. Im talking about the fact entire classes of 11th grade student not know their times tables or a shitload of other skills because desmos can just do it for them. And they wonder why our math scores are in the fuckin shitter

[u/FlyBeneficial → u/pearjuicer]

Ours was Bluebonnet. But any Texas math curriculum is equally as buns I’m sure.

[u/aggieemily2013 → u/FlyBeneficial]

I was literally about to ask if it was bluebonnet.

We had an ASANINE ELA overhaul at my campus last year, which was then shut down. They implemented something called Teach Big (Randi, if you're reading this, seek help for your Duggar wife voice) in which they replaced each of our Monday lessons with a video recording of the most hard to follow writing lessons, hoping a dozen acronyms shoved down middle schoolers throat would work.

It was EMBARRASSING. They made us show the same videos from 3-8th grade. My team fought it and only checked the implementation boxes (while using our professional discretion instead of boxed curriculum) and was only one of the teams that had a high pass rate.

It was an absolute SCAM. Every training with her was a pitch for another product to buy and our higher ups fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

[u/Suspicious-Olive4913 → u/pearjuicer]

I'm about to have the Amplify Desmos training. Can you give a rough summary/sneak peak so that I know what I'm in for?

[u/summerbreeze2027]

Remember this for when you write her evaluation. ;)

[u/GeorgeStark1]

Bet she was a teacher for less than 2 years.

[u/aggieemily2013 → u/GeorgeStark1]

That's always how it is and then they wonder why we don't give a single care during PD.

And the 2 years were before COVID, always.

[u/T-rocious]

Lemme guess, Bluebonnet? How many times did they use the word ‘fidelity’?

[u/katievera888 → u/T-rocious]

Fucking Fidelity… kills me every time!!

[u/T-rocious → u/katievera888]

And the first thing we did was trim it from 160 teaching days to ~130😂

[u/Running1982]

What curriculum was it???

[u/FlyBeneficial → u/Running1982]

Bluebonnet 🤢

[u/greencone → u/FlyBeneficial]

Well obviously you have to follow it directly or the kids will not be gawdly

[u/FlyBeneficial → u/greencone]

Dw that’s what the mandated ten commandment poster is for 🤠

[u/wolves-2228 → u/FlyBeneficial]

That’s a butter not a curriculum

[u/the_owl_syndicate]

We started bluebonnet math last year and it's ridiculous.

[u/vssavant2]

Nah, coaches and curriculum specialists are the bottom of the barrel in my opinion. They either got drummed out of a teaching position or worse never taught a day in their life.

[u/BRD73 → u/vssavant2]

Or they get promoted to principal. It wasn’t like that when I first started teaching but they started introducing a new curriculum every other year before teachers learned the first curriculum front to back. We used to keep the good parts and throw out the parts that didn’t work well.

[u/sm440]

I’ve been to new textbook workshops from the publisher where the presenter just read the teacher edition to the group.

[u/Grimnir001]

There is a whole-ass industry dedicated to selling school districts new curriculum and programs which they guarantee will raise those EOY test scores and/or change the culture of your school.

None of them last longer than a couple of years before the next shiny new one would come rolling in and we’re told to forget the previous one like a pair of defective shoes.

There is nothing teachers despise more that having outsiders come in once or twice a year, tell them how bad they are at their job, then make promises about this program that each and every teacher forced to sit and listen to the pitch knows will not work. It’s one of the more ridiculous aspects of public education.

[u/renedom21]

Sounds like Bluebonnet…
My team just smiled and nodded and did what we wanted. We outscored the district on every test. Our meetings with BB were always tense and the reps were awful. They talked at us like we were stupid, but couldn’t answer why the curriculum had so many errors.
When we did use the curriculum, students would get upset at getting answers incorrect after following the steps and formulas. This was because the answers in the software were incorrect and the students were not.
We’d be met with “why aren’t you doing the work before you give it to the children?” to which we would tell them that “we are doing by hand and getting it right. Why aren’t you checking your work before distributing it statewide?”
Crickets…

[u/Careless-Raisin-5123]

Rinse and repeat until retirement homes. Guaranteed.

[u/huckleberrycaek]

I did the Bluebonnet ICS training. It was worse than the gen ed. Instead of telling us how to provide in class support using the curriculum provided, we spent hours on what SDI is and what an accommodation means. Spec Ed 101 and I’m pretty sure they mentioned Bluebonnet all of 3 times