Pro D

[runaway_fawn]

What in the name of bloody hell was THAT?!

Today was a professional development day. This meant two things:

1. having to work on Saturday
2. gaining new knowledge and skills that benefit me as a teacher

You see it's a basic balance equation: you have the horrible tedium of work on the weekend, the sacrifice of one of your precious days off, in exchange for information you can put to use in one way or another to make your classroom a better learning environment. I could go on here with a lot of purple prose about sacred vows and ancient traditions, but you get the idea.

So. You would think that a private international school set in the competitive academic world that is Beijing would offer some pretty killer professional development opportunities. You'd think it'd be epic, something new, with an edge. Something you could really use.

What did I learn, you ask?



Math manipulatives are a great hands-on way for kids to gain a deeper understanding of math concepts. There are a whole bunch of different kinds. Oh, gee, so MANY different kinds. Here, let us make a list! And did you know you can have the children then RECORD what they learn through the manipulatives? Like, in a book or something. And then it'd be a MATH JOURNAL! And there are actually books and websites that can help you plan these lessons!

...if only Day 1 of Teaching Math 101 hadn't beaten our poor principal to the punch this could have been quite the radical bomb.

Oh, and then we had to Google (in that Chinese without-actual-Google-but-other-search-engines sense) 1:1 iPads because apparently the school is getting 20 new iPads which will give us 34 total and 1:1 iPad would be a nifty thing to maybe consider implementing in the future.

*sigh* I feel like I should be demanding a refund of my Saturday. Is that possible? Can we just rewind and get me back my day? Because, honestly, I could develop my profession more adequately via Google than whatever the heck THAT was.

Blah.