Zoe Girl
8-15-11, 9:27pm
Whew, last week we trained all our staff for the coming school year. It was a big job as the total staff is about 250 people, there are 40 assorted supervisor types that were training the previous 2 weeks to set up the year and plan the training for everyone else. (if you don't know I work with an after school program in a metro area and my section serves schools in high poverty areas so we are grant funded, we are 9 schools and the other 40 or so are parent paid tuition).
My training sections were on our specific math program for the 2 sessions of my staff plus a training on Engagement for all staff of both grant and parent paid sides of the program. I got a grand idea for engagement and then a person wanted to come work with me so we made a great training plan. My idea was to have the staff come in as the kids 2 times, the first time we would suck, (on cell phone, no eye contact, unclear directions, etc) and the 2nd time we would do what we would expect the best way. From that we talked about how they felt as students each time, what type of behavior we may see, and the specifics of engagement (eye contact, names, clear directions, welcoming, etc.). I felt pretty darn awesome first to have such an important training peice as one of the newer people and then just doing the training. I also did math and was happy with that, we started by doing a game about math myths and attitudes and then taught them several games to play with kids.
Okay now it is next week, I have had a couple staff in the building at my level or above stop to comment on my training, I went to one of my sites and my grumpiest staff person told me mine was the best, and then another staff agreed independantly that out of 10 training sessions they attended mine was the best. This is on top of the postive feedback I got as i participated in the supervisor trainings (usually my high energy and creative bursts and outside the box personality are NOT such great traits).
Wow, I am feeling pretty darn good. I am thinking about how to document this for my master portfolio that I keep of career work. I am also thinking ahead to career opportunities that would get me out of poverty wage.
My training sections were on our specific math program for the 2 sessions of my staff plus a training on Engagement for all staff of both grant and parent paid sides of the program. I got a grand idea for engagement and then a person wanted to come work with me so we made a great training plan. My idea was to have the staff come in as the kids 2 times, the first time we would suck, (on cell phone, no eye contact, unclear directions, etc) and the 2nd time we would do what we would expect the best way. From that we talked about how they felt as students each time, what type of behavior we may see, and the specifics of engagement (eye contact, names, clear directions, welcoming, etc.). I felt pretty darn awesome first to have such an important training peice as one of the newer people and then just doing the training. I also did math and was happy with that, we started by doing a game about math myths and attitudes and then taught them several games to play with kids.
Okay now it is next week, I have had a couple staff in the building at my level or above stop to comment on my training, I went to one of my sites and my grumpiest staff person told me mine was the best, and then another staff agreed independantly that out of 10 training sessions they attended mine was the best. This is on top of the postive feedback I got as i participated in the supervisor trainings (usually my high energy and creative bursts and outside the box personality are NOT such great traits).
Wow, I am feeling pretty darn good. I am thinking about how to document this for my master portfolio that I keep of career work. I am also thinking ahead to career opportunities that would get me out of poverty wage.