My Professional Development Day

Last Friday was a day off from school for the students and a day devoted to professional development for the teachers. In other words, it was a day devoted to making ourselves better teachers.

I was given permission to craft my own professional development day and I chose to sit in on two classrooms in other cities. I chose a 7th grade math class in Lawrence and a 7th grade science class in Haverhill - both public schools.

It was an interesting experience. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a public school and I didn’t realize how accustomed to The Hellenic I had become until I walked into The Arlington School in Lawrence and was greeted by a police officer. I was a little jarred by the scale of the operation. They have nearly 600 students in the middle school and more in the elementary part of the building. 

The classes I observed at The Arlington School were much larger and, out of necessity, much more disciplined. 

The classroom is on the third floor and the windows are frosted to reduce distractions. The students have assigned seats. They are expected to come to class completely prepared to work. 

There were no bathroom breaks, no ready supply of pencils, no trips upstairs to get homework or books. They came in, started working on the problem on the board and worked until the very last moment of the class time. 

There is precious little small talk between students once the teacher begins the class. When they went over problems, there was no shouting out the answers - instead, they raised their hands and said in a normal tone and volume, “I disagree."

Each Friday, the math classes focus on problems the student’s will see on the MCAS tests. They do example problems in the same format that they will find on the test. 

There is a heavy emphasis on the tests and the student's performance on them. The school’s overall performance numbers are painted on the wall near the front door and are posted in the classroom. They are very serious about improving proficiency as measured by the standardized tests.

It’s a very different experience from The Hellenic to be sure and it was well worth my time to see a different teacher and classroom in action.