#21 Inane workshops

After long days in class where it feels like you are the only human in class doing any thinking, it sometimes does a world of good to just be a passive recipient of information where you can switch off a bit. Others call them workshops.

It sometimes scares me that the very people who teach teachers how to teach are themselves some of the world's worst, most unreflective, self-indulgent people. They prattle on without caring about your engagement, content to talk from slides that contain enough words to flood an orthographic Orchard Road. Perhaps this is some big, self-conscious joke they're playing on us, a satire of us as teachers, if you will. After all, sometimes we, too, prattle on absorbedly, without a care in the world.

Anyway, this is the cue to mentally wind down and switch off, absorbing information through cognitive osmosis, a time to give those worn-out synapses a chance to regenerate. How interesting: our students can't wait to be teachers, but us teachers can't wait to be students. The grass, as they say, is decidedly greener either side of the teacher's table.

Note: PE workshops are totally different though.