Every teacher has nerves before the 1st Day of School. There's excitement, but also some mystery. Who are your new students? How will they behave? Will they get along from the beginning or will I need to do more interventions? These are normal, annual questions that run through teacher's minds. But novice teachers have more questions. How do I track progress accurately? What if students get confused in class? What happens if more than one student begins to act up? What if students start a physical fight?
I knew all the questions that a new teacher could ask. The problem was there was no way for me to answer those questions. I wanted to help new teachers, but once the school year starts, I had 100 other admin tasks. What ends up happening? Inexperienced teachers struggle. When they ask a question, the answer they get back isn't very good or helpful. So new teachers "LEARN" that you are on your own. Wow, what a horrible way to run a school system!
If you think about it, this is so backwards and idiotic. Who needs the most help? Newer teachers! Who has more questions? Newer teachers! Who gets the least amount of support? Yep, newer teachers!
That's why the Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 that 1 million teachers quit the profession at the end of that year. This was unacceptable to me. I didn't like this reality. My goal was to develop a program that would prevent teachers from quitting. It had to be THAT GOOD!! It had to provide THAT MUCH VALUE AND SUPPORT!! Otherwise, I would consider the program a failure.
So Teacher Development, aka ("TD") was born. Why is TD 3x better than Professional Development, aka "PD"?
Because TD is teacher-centered, whereas PD is school-centered. When a teacher has a question, in a PD system, you are on your own. When a teacher wants feedback, in a PD system, you are on your own. And when a teacher wants to learn a specific skill to help in the classroom, in a PD system, you are on your own. Do you see the pattern? Do you see the culture of education starting to take shape? So when teachers claim their principals don't know anything or they don't read lesson plans, they may be right, but who cares? The teacher is ALWAYS on their own.
NOT in a TD system! In the TD program, there are 3 layers of support. That's right 3 Layers! The first layer is the Q & A Forum. This is where teachers get to ask questions. It's easy. There is a google form, you open it up and submit your question. Have 1 question? Have 20 questions? It doesn't matter. Ask as many as you want. In a TD program, you are NOT on your own.
The second layer is the Mentor Circle. This is where teachers get to talk, listen and collaborate with other novice teachers. It's easy. We have a private FB group, only for TD teachers. Sometimes, when someone else talks about a similar issue, it sparks creativity or a follow up question. Where do you go with follow up questions? Back to the Q & A Forum. Remember, teachers in the TD program, are NOT on their own.
And then there's the third layer, which is the TD workshops and in-service. This is where teachers can actually learn more about teaching, not technology, not something irrelevant to your job, but "how to become a high performance teacher." You didn't dream about becoming a teacher so you could struggle, you dreamt about inspiring students. That cannot happen in a PD system. In a TD program, you are NEVER on your own!
Let's revisit those WHAT IF's...
What if my lesson plan bombs in class?
Submit a question to the Q & A Forum first, then go into the Mentor Circle and talk about it.
As we build the Video Archive up, you can learn more about high-performance lesson planning (We are in Beta).
Let's take the second WHAT IF...
What if my principal does a walk-through and the kids are yelling at each other?
Scary thought for some of you! First, submit your question to Q & A Forum, then go into the Mentor Circle to talk about it and go find a Video on classroom environment and structure.
See how the TD program is so easy, simple and intuitive?
You have a question, you have a problem, you just need to talk. The TD program has 3 layers of support.
That means 3x more support and 3x more value to you!
This is why TD is 3x Better than PD!
Now that you understand how great the TD program is and I can tell that you are pretty excited about it, can I ask you a special favor?