Always in Training

Confession: Every time I see a post about "editable" documents, I immediately think it says "edible".  And I'm all "Why on earth are we eating documents?" for a ridiculous amount of unnecessary seconds.  Clearly, dieting is affecting my brain in disturbing ways.

Yes.  Diet.  I suppose I could file this under a Monday Made It- although, truth be told, it looks like I used ALL of this summer's Mondays to make the twenty extra pounds I seem to have put on.  I did make myself one of those jars with pebbles deals on Pinterest where you have a pebble for each pound you want to lose in one jar, and then you plink them over to the other jar as you lose them.  I made mine in very teeny soda bottle bottoms though, so I'd feel like I did something.  Which, I have to say, I did manage to lose five pounds my first week doing the weight watchers thing.  I will be lucky to lose one pound this week though, as I've been sitting on my butt in training, and falling off the wagon to a bag of Hershey's Treasures, and, um, I sort of also made those nutella frosted crescent rolls I saw on Pinterest.  The saving grace is that Pillsbury only puts eight crescent rolls in a tube.

Confession Number 2: Not too long ago in my life I was sporting a good 220.  And then I went on this no gluten, no dairy, no anything except cardboard diet for my son with Autism.  The thought was, if nothing he couldn't eat was in the house, he'd deal with the diet better. Rubbish.  He pitched a major fit anyway.  But, happy accident, it did drop me down to a generally stable 160.  But I weighed myself a week ago, and gahhhhhhhh, I went crazy with the baking this summer.  And the raw frosting eating.  And the cheesecake, and whatnot.  When I realized the pants I was wearing were my maternity pants- I decided something had to be done.  So hey- if I can drop two pounds a week, I'll be 140 by Christmas.  So we'll see.

Training though.  This is where my mind actually is today.  It's one thing when you go to a workshop and you learn how to divide your kids into workable groups, or how to incorporate the pan flute into your math lessons, or how your kids will become better thinkers if you take time to massage each other's soles three times a day- but the intensive training where you're being downloaded with a 1000 page program in two and a half sessions pretty much leaves my brain zapped.

Admittedly, I am trying very hard to be a bit of an over-achiever at this training because I took on this PYP program as being my grade level duty for the next year.  And I want to make sure I am doing it right, and a bang-up smash of a job of it, and make everyone happy.  You know that annoying teacher who keeps asking questions during training?  That one who is clearly waaaaay too into it?  The one who volunteers to share first right away every time? Yeah, that would be me these past two days.  Dudes, I even ate lunch with the trainer today to get extra help.  And it has not been the least bit subtle.  I have already noticed that both the trainers make a point of coming near whatever group I'm with for every task, and I know it's because I'm doing the whole super participation thing.  If I wasn't me right now, sitting in that training, I would totally loathe me.  I would have made up a nasty nickname for me and been drawing horrible cartoons about me to giggle over with my friends. If I had ended up in a group with me, I would be cursing my rotten luck. Ah, well, just another thing to add to the list to discuss in therapy...

One thing I have not preferred about this training, and any training for that matter, is the need of the trainers to treat us as children.  Clap once if you can hear me.  Clap twice if you can hear me.  Let's go around the circle and introduce ourselves by using a food that the first letter of our first name begins with.  Hello, I'm Heather Horseradish.  Okay, we didn't do the horseradish thing- this time- but I have had to do that as an adult.  And I can still remember being partnered with Tammy Taco.  But in my horrific role as the over-achiever this training, I guess I kinda can see WHY the trainers are doing that.  Because, ahem, we are ACTING like children.  Seriously, there was a constant low hum of adults talking to each other OFF TOPIC I might add, and clicking of cell phones being texted upon, and a good half of the folks not even bothering to turn and face the presenters.  For my over-achieving self, it was down right distracting.  I'm smirking though, because I am usually NOT the overachiever in these settings.  I'm the one drawing cartoons, remember?

And this leads me to this thought that I'm going to leave off with- if we get so mad when students do this to us, why do we do it to other adults?
*Is it because we are being forced to go to this training?
Wellllllll, aren't the kids being forced to come to class?
*Is it because the topic does not interest us?
Um, yeah, and I expect every second grader to be interested in erosion.
*Is it because the presenters are not conveying the information in a way that is engaging or valuable to me?  Ok, peeps, seriously- do you think you're on fire every day up there in the classroom?  Surely you must stink once in a while with the delivery?

So what should I take away from this ah-ha moment?  I am being an over-achiever in this particular setting because I have a vested interest in doing a task related to this information to the best of my ability. Without this information, I cannot do that task.  So maybe, the thing that's missing from my lessons when I'm getting ignored by the kids, is that they don't have a task - that they think is important- that cannot be accomplished successfully without the information I have to offer. Now, how do I go about making that happen?

Thoughts anyone?