presentation

I stand in front of 32 teachers, no idea what word might come out of my mouth first. It won’t be welcome. They’re already in the room. Some table groups with initiative work their way through a sheet of thirty word puzzles. Other groups wait obediently for the command to begin.

I’m running a morning session in the year 7 centre for two and a half hours, no breaks, about each teacher looking after their personal health and well-being. Comrade C from Adelaide is preaching collegiality to 42 teachers in the year 8 centre.

Twice the principal leaves to rustle up tardy teachers: the worst place to run PD is the workplace. Better to hold the event in a pub or a field, away from phones, desks, those small important duties someone in their workplace can’t ignore or resist.

I knock off my opening spiel, pair people up using pairing cards, allow them to find a space of their own to talk to each other about personal happiness. I have trouble reassembling them, regrouping them, keeping them on task. A lesson for me.

Ten minutes to run through some slides before setting up the next activity. The words, the illustrating anecdotes, come out nicely. I’m on song but wonder if I sound too preachy, too personal with some stories.

This is what MM presenters call a captive audience, prisoners: they’ve not volunteered to be here. It’s a student-free day, but not a day out of school, not self-directed, but directed by me. Teachers hate taking directions, won’t sit near the front, do anything they would expect of their students.

One woman looks like she’d rather be having the butt-end of a horse-whip inserted sideways up her fundament, another is all but horizontal. The principal nods, answers questions when no one else volunteers a response.

We wrap up on the dot of 11:15 for morning tea. After the break I repeat the first session with the group Comrade C had before morning tea. Again the struggle to get them into the room, make a start. I pair this group up as a carousal, inner and outer circles, run the conversations, feedback to the group, tie the responses together, get a lots of good laughs. Lesson learnt.

This two and a half hour session is split by lunch, a ghastly affair of soggy, meaty pastas and cheesecakes made of saccharine-infused industrial waste. The session reconvenes and chugs along till I run out of puff with ten minutes to go.

It’s a tough gig. Carol, the school’s PD liaison person, reckons we did well; no negative responses from staff. I’ll take it.

Not much debrief as we motor back and through Melbourne. I drop Comrade C at the airport. Day One of a tough week: tick.

Rock on.