Monday, January 26, 2009

Ain't misbehavin'

Had a teacher workday today with a guy who is, in essence, running our school. No, he's not an administrator, but our administration has worshiped at his feet for the past few years, His words drip like liquid gold from his lips, and the ptb of my school absolutely adore him. I suppose he knows his stuff - otherwise, why would we (meaning the ptb) spend good money in a bad economy to have him come, not once, but TWICE in the last 2 years to spend a day with us?

OK - here are my problems with him as a presenter (taking nothing away from his ideas and experience.):
  1. He closes his eyes as he talks. When his eyes are open (which is seldom) he is looking at the ceiling. I find this very disconcerting.
  2. His catchphrases are: "I come in peace" and "I never lie in workshops." Those are the two that annoy me the most - he has others that pop up regularly.
  3. When he wants us to discuss something, he says, "Before I start blabbing away, is this (whatever it was he was just discussing) something you might use? Turn to your best friend and discuss. Go." Then, when he wants us to pay attention to him again, he says, "come back to me. On three, Clap!" Then he counts to three, and like morons we all clap. Sheesh...
  4. If we still are not attentive enough, he says, "come here, this is good, watch this!" I kept threatening to get up and walk toward him when he said this. (my dare money only got up to $20, and then one person at my table said she would give me $20 NOT to, so my net was only $10. Not worth it...)
  5. He has no neck. Nothing he can do about that, I suppose. It's just a physical flaw that bothers me, Seriously, his head sits smack dab on his shoulders - no visible neck.

OK, so we're in the cafeteria with this guy all day today. By 2:00 I am antsy as hell, and start playing with things on our table. For some reason, we have tags with numbers in the middle of each table (our # was 11), and we had a large foam die on the table. We never use either one of these things during the workshop - not real sure why they are there. Anyway, the teacher on my left turns the table tag sideways, and balances the die on top. (When I say tag, I mean like a tepee sign, folded so it stood like an upside-down 'v') So now we have this interesting thing in the middle of our table. I pick up my soda can, and start to balance it on top of the die. Yeah - bad idea. The whole thing comes crashing down. The table full of ptbs are looking at me, and then the no-neck guy makes some crack about kinesthetic learners. I get a case of the church giggles, which are very contagious. My table spends the next 5 minutes or so trying to get ourselves under control.

I think I still have a job.

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