You Know that you are a Bureaucracy when.......

The other day I received an email from the folks up at the division office. The Living Sky School Division Glossary of Terms. What have we become now that we need a glossary of terms to operate? Oh yeah, one step closer to a bureaucracy. The document contains 57 items of administrative happiness (kind of like the ketchup but not nearly as tasty and just as messy). To quote the email that it came with it is "designed as a reference tool to decipher many of the acronyms and terms we frequently use in use in education." If we need to decipher the terms then we are using too much jargon. Why do we always feel the need to make ourselves feel more important by fancy terms that just confuse the layman? I would expect better from us - from educators. It is our job to take ideas and concepts and explain them in simpler and easier to understand ways.

There is a blog that I read titled Common Craft - Explanations in Plain English. They create a wonderful line of videos that do exactly what the title says. They explain things - simply and clearly. No extra fluff - just the bare concept. A lot of us can learn from them. Little to no jargon.

A friend and I once put on a session at one of our conferences (the title and content is not really relevant to this conversation). What applies is how we sold ourselves to our participants. At the door to one of the keynotes we hand out our calling cards - Buzzword Bingo handouts. Each square on the bingo chart had a different educational buzzword. Our goal was to get people to really think about the message that was being said. Don't just hear the buzzwords, listen for the meaning and the message. Anyways back to the point - one of the things we discussed was handing out the bingo sheets at a staff meeting (and letting our admin know about it). The purpose was to get them to use less jargon and fewer buzzwords.

The point? Well, lets look something I learned in my first year at the College of Engineering. The KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid. We are educators. Lets keep it simple.

Doodles and Off Task Writing

Sometimes I like when presenters give out handouts. I leave with proof that I was there. I end up with a bag of stuff to show me what I have done. What do I do with them afterwards? I put them into a binder, on a shelf, or into a drawer, and if I am lucky, later when I clean my room, into the recycle bin. I always think that I will go back and read what is in the handout. I don't and I don't expect that to change.

I also take notes. My notes are usually filled with quotes and sayings that caught my ear or eye. If the presenter is engaging all I find is writing on the page. If the presenter really gets me thinking my notes end up all over the page as I jump to new ideas and make my own connections. It is a messy web of writing. If the presentation is mediocre I end up doodling on my notes. If I take very little interest (and it is not quite bad enough to walk out of) I write about something else entirely (like this bit of writing here). The nice thing about writing is that people think that you are on task.

So what do I do with my notes when I am done with them? I put them into a binder, on a shelf, or into a drawer, and if I am lucky, later when I clean my room, into the recycle bin. So why do I take them? I am a bit of a visual and tactile learner. I think and learn best when I either see or do it myself. I remember things that I write down. Well, I remember them better anyways. My notes are often just a thought process. If they were meant to be great works to be saved for posterity they would be legible. Only I can follow or read my notes.

Back to the presenters handouts. There is nothing worse than getting a complete set of PowerPoint handouts at the beginning of a session. At my first off task moment I usually browse through them and then..........rats, none of this is what I was expecting. Do I get up and leave or do I stay and hope that I can get something out of it? Decisions, decisions.

So what is the end result of all these handouts and notes? Well at least I am supporting the forest industry.

Yeehaw Convention Time

First thing that I have to say is that I love conventions. I get to see old acquaintances (I don’t say friends because not all of them are). I also get to learn new ideas. I love hearing people talk about things that they are passionate about. And face it - if you are not passionate about your subject don’t waste my time with a PD session.

I don’t really understand people who skip conventions, especially ones with as many choices as Showcase. (I am not picking on people who use this time to go on a major trip – that in itself is a type of personal development.) Do you already know everything?

It took me almost an hour to pick what sessions I wanted to go to. I had a hard time. There were about 12 sessions I was interested in and only 4 slots that I could attend. I find that to be a happy problem.

I almost skipped an afternoon of my convention once. It was a tiny little convention and there really wasn’t very much that caught my eye. For that one session that I had trouble filling I almost skipped my convention. I was going to go to another division’s convention. It was right next door - with no nametags – or security. I still wish that I had.

Let’s go back to being passionate about your subject. I was a co-facilitator at a convention once. My apologies to anybody who went to the session “Thinking Outside of the Cracker Jack Box – 7 Simple Rules to Liberating Your Inner Child.” A co-worker and I put in a session application just to see how much we could get away with. We wrote a catchy title and vague description filled with lots of education buzz words. The organizing committee never even batted an eye and we were given a conference slot. No questions asked. (They must have been desperate). Our reaction? Uh oh – we got away with it, now what do we do? Well we ran with it. We even had fun. And got paid for it. Oh yeah.

Was I passionate about my subject? Not fanatically. Did I believe in it? Well I believed that the joke was funny and yes I did actually believe in the subject. How did it go over with the audience? Only one person got up and left…… Perhaps I should elaborate. This particular conference did not actually have a lunch break. The expectation was that we would go to 4 out of the 5 sessions and take one off for lunch. So the general consensus among teachers was to take the first four sessions and skip the last one. Guess who was scheduled during session 5 on Friday. Well we managed to attract a half full room and got an audience that participated in the session. I thought that was not too bad. No we did not let them in on the joke.