Professional Development Teacher for Educators, Teachers and School Districts. | Arkansas TESTIMONIAL

As a professional development speaker for teachers and educators, I recently had a really fun job in Star City, Arkansas.  I love this job for so many reasons. First the region is gorgeous, second the town was really cool and really made me love rural areas. But finally the teachers and administrators were special. There were some really good people doing amazing work for a student population that really needed support.

Star City Schools, as far as I can tell, offer more social and emotional support for their students than any other district I visited. The students come from often very difficult socioeconomic backgrounds, and REALLY need all of the support the Schools offer.  Yes they teach the kids. Yes they feed the kids. But I was struck with how much more they do than that. Their athletic program is very important largely because it gives the opportunity to the students to basically stay at the school longer or they are safe and welcome. They are able to receive both medical and dental care right at the school. And the teachers, staff, and administrators realize that without this additional support the students would really suffer.

So you can see it really felt like a special school district to me.  With special teachers, administrators, and educators everywhere you look.

My job was to encourage them to continue doing what they are doing. My job was to inspire them to not only continue offering all of the amazing social and emotional support they offered to the kids, but even to see the value and personal meaning of giving even more. Additionally I was reminding them how important it was to offer social and emotional support to their peers and friends. It was a professional development day I will never forget.

One of the most interesting things I did was work with the coaches. In my experience coaches are just like every other human; they are often shy and just hoping to fit in and feel needed. But on the outside they come off as… Well… Coaches. The school was no different.

The coaches came in late, sat in the far back corner, were dressed differently than the rest of the educators because they had their athletic and logo where on, and basically were their own little tribe. At some point the entire coaching staff basically refused to take part in a portion of my presentation. I took a risk and called them out. I asked them why, as educators, they’ve already discounted the program before they have even experienced it. I asked them how, as educators, they react to students in their class who basically disrespect their authority by refusing to take part. It was risky. I very rarely call out anybody in my audience because I know people are shy, introverted, and may have 1 million things going on in their mind that make them look disengaged to me. Generally they have a story I don’t know about.

But again, I took a chance. I got lucky because it paid off. After calling out the head football coach and telling him that because he was a leader, certainly if he started to participate the rest of his coaching staff would follow. He took the hint… OK it was way more than one hint… and got involved. And sure enough his staff followed.

I thought there was a lesson for everybody in the room. We talked about it some as a group and reminded ourselves that teachers and educators call out their students every single day and ask them basically took step out of their comfort zone. I did the same with this professional development day; I asked the teachers to get out of their comfort zone and they were in fact uncomfortable. In the end it was a great reminder about active learning, being OK with things that are new and different, and having a lot of sympathy and empathy for our students when we ask them to do something that feels a little bit weird to them.

It was a fun experience. It was crazy. It was risky. But it worked and I couldn’t have been more happy at the end.

Thanks to everybody in Star City, Arkansas for bringing me out to the professional development day.  If you had 1/10 as much fun as I did it was a very good day in deed!