In general, I don't like the time that we spend going through mandatory trainings. Some of them are excruciatingly long with little to no new information from one year to the next. I understand the reasoning behind the trainings, but the execution certainly doesn't follow best teaching practices. By far the worst one today was the 90 minute training that had a timer for each page that had to count down before I could click for the next page. The idea was to make certain that people taking the course could not just click through the videos; however, even when the video was over, I had to scroll through the entire written transcript to find the button to move on. Meanwhile, the videos were filled with unnecessary pauses, transitions, and other time sinks that made me quite irritated with its creators well before the session was over.
Even on the trainings that allowed me to quickly click through the slides, I still took the time to read through the information--catching numerous spelling and grammatical errors. Particularly painful were the district-made slides that were clearly just copied and pasted from a state source without any thought to formatting. This was especially an issue for long lists that should have been set up like bullet points for easier reading rather than clumping them all together into a single block "paragraph."
Despite my frustrations with the district's learning packages, I was much more impressed with the DEED's required trainings this year. They finally updated their data, using information from as recent as 2022 rather than relying on facts that are a decade or more old. Unfortunately, that recent data was rather terrifying for the state of Alaska. Sexual abuse and assault, suicides, and drug abuse (especially alcohol) are all significantly higher since the last time I did these trainings. Over half of the women in Alaska have been the victims sexual harassment or assault. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder, a completely preventable disability, has been on the rise in recent years. Meanwhile, our underfunded public school system is supposed to be the main line of defense against these issues.
Although many of the training programs felt like a waste of time, I have to admit that I learned a great deal of information today. If anything, I was reminded of the importance of our roles as educators in the lives of our young citizens. For me, it's a type of missionary work--not in the sense of proselytizing, but in service--that is sorely needed in our society.
Even on the trainings that allowed me to quickly click through the slides, I still took the time to read through the information--catching numerous spelling and grammatical errors. Particularly painful were the district-made slides that were clearly just copied and pasted from a state source without any thought to formatting. This was especially an issue for long lists that should have been set up like bullet points for easier reading rather than clumping them all together into a single block "paragraph."
Despite my frustrations with the district's learning packages, I was much more impressed with the DEED's required trainings this year. They finally updated their data, using information from as recent as 2022 rather than relying on facts that are a decade or more old. Unfortunately, that recent data was rather terrifying for the state of Alaska. Sexual abuse and assault, suicides, and drug abuse (especially alcohol) are all significantly higher since the last time I did these trainings. Over half of the women in Alaska have been the victims sexual harassment or assault. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder, a completely preventable disability, has been on the rise in recent years. Meanwhile, our underfunded public school system is supposed to be the main line of defense against these issues.
Although many of the training programs felt like a waste of time, I have to admit that I learned a great deal of information today. If anything, I was reminded of the importance of our roles as educators in the lives of our young citizens. For me, it's a type of missionary work--not in the sense of proselytizing, but in service--that is sorely needed in our society.
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