First of all- I do not believe in a real purgatory. However, if there were a real purgatory, it would be made up entirely of bus duty, professional classes, and watching paint drying. Our bus duty, mandatory at our school, consists of different positions and responsibilities, each lasting thirty minutes before and thirty minutes after the regular school day. The position I think most qualifies as purgatorial is my current on- the gym. In the gym, all students not eating breakfast sit… silently… for thirty minutes. The teachers walk around… silently… for thirty minutes. I know of few other schools that find this an effective use of their staff’s time or a great way to get their students ready for the day. At the end of the day, teachers are, as they should be, monitoring students as they depart. I just find that making students sit still and quiet for thirty minutes, allowed to only read a book or study, is a way to put students back to sleep, not energize their minds for learning.
Professional development can be a worthy avenue for increasing one’s knowledge in their field of expertise. Sitting for four hours every week listening to a person talk about computers, however, is NOT a way of increasing one’s knowledge. Doing activities that can be actually be of use in a real, live classroom would be worthwhile. Learning how to create blogs and actually expect elementary kids to use them for only educational projects and ideas is ridiculous. Of course they can use a computer, but blogging their ideas about science? It can be encouraged, monitored, and scored, but what are we actually teaching them to do? Write on a computer? I think Word can do that already.
I don’t know. Just my opinions.
