I Did It!!!!!

(Posting a picture of her is making me giggle so hard!!)

I've been absent from bloggin' for a week. I have a good reason. Five other fabulous teachers (The Jason Show and Pumpkin Delight being 2 of them) from our district and I have been working very hard over the past 2 1/2 years to become key trainers in GLAD. Last week, all of our hard work finally paid off as we were all 6 certified as key trainers. It wasn't easy though.

For 5 days in a row, the lady above (I will with hold her name to protect the innocent) diligently observed the 6 of us as we taught in a 3rd grade classroom and coached 10 participating teachers. On day 1, she wrote 17 pages of things we did wrong. 17 pages!! Not only that, but the second she walked in, before even saying hello, she pointed around the room and told us which posters were wrong, which ones to take down, and what we were missing all together. And she did it in a not-so -nice tone if I do say so myself!

Oh, did we get ripped. Here's some of the things we heard over the past 5 days:

"How could you have possibly taught that much already? You must have left something out."

"Stop asking rhetorical questions!"

"You don't say "can" you say "will".

"I'll let you know if you suck."

I'm not making this up. It's all true. I left every day last week defeated, exhausted, and plain old grumpy.

Every day, we took her suggestions and put them to practice. Every day the notes got shorter and shorter...but not by much. However, on day 3 we got a compliment! She said,"Your timing is exquisite." That was it. After 3 days of lecture on how inept we all were, she finally gave us a compliment. We had exquisite timing. Well, all right then! Now we are getting somewhere!

Day 4 came to a close and she asked to see us all individually upstairs in the conference room. Gulp! So, one by one, we went upstairs with our tails between our legs prepared for the worst. But, NO!!! It was good news. She certified all of us!! Wahoo!! But, this was not before she made us tell her what our strengths and weaknesses were. Then, she told us what they really were. My strength was my rapport with my team, the teachers, and the students. Also, she said I was credible in front of my audience. My weakness was not using the correct terminology all of the time. I said, "choice" instead of "decision." I can live with that.

In her defense, (Mother GLAD, as we like to call her) I can appreciate her strictness about the program that she designed. She wants to make sure it stays in the true model that it was designed. I respect that. But, boy, what an intense process it was. At the end of the interview, she said, "Welcome to the family." Doesn't that sound a little Tony Soprano-ish? Uh-oh!!