Day #1 Staff Training

Morning ... morning ... Everything ok? We’re starting the morning kind of fast, even though it’s still early. We’ve lot on our mind to be figuring through.

Basically, what happened was that I was in Sr. Tess’ office on one errand or another, but it was clear she was processing something else. As it turned out the the staff had been confused by the communication she’d sent out. So, to avoid further confusion, Sr. Tess decided to change the order of things. Instead of us starting the Staff Training in July, she decided we should start it in three hours from that point.

Man-o-man ... That’s like stuff that’ll stop a person in their tracks!

We knew that we shouldn’t panic, but that took all kinds of effort. We also knew that between one point and another that we were going to need to be taking care of the client’s lunch and ours. Tracing the steps our mind took might be too difficult, but in general we had to condense some thoughts.  Quickly.

Sr. had talked about us introducing our selves to the group (as the "teacher"), she wanted to go into staff schedules, she wanted us to talk about their planning books, she wanted us to talk about procedures, survey the staff’s needs and have them take a test. Then she stated that she would have the other Q come in for five minutes, and that she was going to speak for 15 minutes.

We just sat back in the chair, jotting down these notes trying to think ... keep smiling and nodding your head. She would believe everything was fine. Our mind might have been thinking, "Yeah, right ... I can do all that in 40 minutes!" We’ve been processing thoughts to starting these sessions, but our mind has been all over the place with the belief we had a month to straighten it out.

We weren’t prepared to introduce the material, written out for their scheduling needs, nor had we studied critically yet their "Planning Books." The one thing we did have in our favor is that we could figure out the immediate first need was to cover "objectives." I had developed a form a couple of years past called the "Objectives and Outcome Plan," that would be new to most of them, so I knew in which direction I was heading. I knew that the Skillful Teacher book had a chapter on objectives and I knew that their planning book utilized the same "Bloom’s Taxonomy" as I had in my Plan.

We decided we should write an agenda for the meeting to help not only them, but ourselves. We had figured in our mind that although she wanted us to mention many items that the most critical first lesson would be on objectives. We had resources we thought we’d better list too. We knew we’d have to use information from the State, the book, "The Skillful Teacher, the new Developmental Collection (our books not ordered yet), and the staff’s experiences. None of which we’d studied yet.

So, with Objectives in mind we started to work through in our minds what our objectives were going to be ... We figured that we should ask them what objectives mean to them, or to at minimal best they should present as a quiz type item, an objective they might hold for their group, or a member of their group. We also wanted to convey our formatting of objectives. For example, we think it proper to always start with the phrase, "I will, or the individual will, or the group will, or so-and-so will." There were a few other things, and the first "take-home" test consisted of basically listing a learning objective for the individuals in their group.

The time of 1 pm came too quickly. I think we were in a state of shock when we took our place at the table with the other six people. One of the DSP’s was missing. I realized quickly that the other Q wasn’t ready with her 5 minutes any more than we were ready with ours. Sr. Tess went down her list of things she wanted to talk about clearly and calmly, but by this time of course what was on her mind was completely different from what was on our mind and some of our minds were racing. Funny, I think we were wearing the same silly grin like the dog in the back window whose head nods up and down.

I also, remember the sense of relief/fear watching first the other Q, then Sr. leave the room, still thinking, "Yeah, right ... I can do this ... I can sound like a professional!"

I’ve spoken to each of the DSPs individually and on a number of occasions I’ve spoken to them as a group, but this was all different. I felt as if I hadn’t known any of them. They’d gotten a chance to gel with each other for over a year, but I was new to "their world." The first thing I did was to move my seating. I had realized that the four of them had all congregated at the end of the table ... away from the Administrative Team.

Authority is a funny thing. I wanted to present as if I were an authority on "something" and I was being given serious attention by them, but assuming the role was very, very strange. I suppose I was ready in that I was sitting in the same room with them and my vocal chords proved that they could speak. What was happening in our mind was pretty jumbly. I had to think thoughts like, "Hey you ... just present what was on the paper!" It’s here where we will remind our wonderful readers that ... WE ARE A MULTIPLE! NOTHING WORKS IN OUR MIND AS IT IS SUPPOSED TO!"

Yeeks, we just got a little scary there. Sorry about that. Umm, this is what is known as background chatter. Someone is a bit dismayed at the whole general turn of events. Ok, ok ... shhh, calm down now.

Let’s get past the first stumbly event of having to express with real words, this is our agenda ... baring of course that we’d not been able to think it through any more than the immediate first meeting. I think we have going for us is that in general I think the staff likes us. Just most of the time, I think we confuse them. AND, most of the time I figure we each stay out of each others business.

I think the most time and most critical of the session revolved around our first "worksheet" with them. I’d explained very carefully, that we didn’t have good memory ... this is something we’ve probably already told them, but it was our lead into saying that we would be writing things down on paper as people were speaking and that we’d refer back to it as the session developed and that we’d write some notes from it as a summary of the meeting to be given to them after the meeting. That was a good idea.

Hehe - My gentleman friend James (the little cartoon person that lives in my computer reminding me of stuff), just told us we were incredibly smart! Good man that James!!

What we wrote down was an objective each of them had for their group, or a member of their group. Each staff responded to this request. During the session with them, I worked one-on-one with them trying to convey something that I wasn’t really understanding. In general, they’d each come up with something that was very vague. I don’t think it was understandable to us because it had been so vague we couldn’t conceptualize what was it that they wanted and because their terminology was so different from ours. (We hadn’t worked out exactly what we wanted ... we just had a sense of what was right and none of them had matched up.)

We called on the DSP from the first group first. She was to our immediate right. She took about 3 minutes explain her objective before we cut her off. We said, "Too long." Later we rewrote her objective to read, "The group will learn through observing and processing thoughts about plants and flowers, what they survive on, and what their parts are. The DSP fromthe third group objective was converted into the statement, "Theindividual will be able to know his address." The job coach said basically, "The individuals will go to work independently," and the DSP from the fourth group said, "The individuals will be interested in the materials."

What I asked them up front was ... what exactly were they trying to teach with each of their goals? What was the actual lesson being taught? And, what happened differently from the start of each objective to the last? So we stumbled around that area for a while. I think we’ll repeat here that the first sessions real objective was to get to know one another. I figured that we presented in general, jumbly.

We did one more exercise before the session ended we presented a stuffed bear and asked them if they knew how to introduce themselves to the bear. The first three looked pretty confused, but the fourth staff (the youngest by at least 10 years), the DSP from the fourth group confessed that when she was a kid she used to play with stuff animals and that she would just pick the animal up, say hi and give it a big hug. We smiled and said, "Very good."

Then we stated that our objective was to have the staff "know" the bear a little bit. So, I asked the staff to stare at the bear for 30 seconds. They complied. Afterward, we immediately asked them about their thoughts and feelings toward the bear. Hehe - some staff had a pretty strong reaction. The DSP from the third group stated, "She hated the bear and thought he were ugly!" The DSP from the first group then agreed that it was ugly. I explained that something had happened, they had met the bear, they had a "session" with him and due to that time spent had realized a change in themselves. And, my objective had been met, they each knew the bear a little bit.

The bigger objective was that I wanted to share a non-threatening experience with the staff that we could use as a relational sounding board. I figured if they were going to be mad at anyone it would be the bear. The bear would tell me how in general the staff thought of a very small part of life (defenseless as were the clients) which is an introduction to a first unconscious lesson on object relations. But, that much we kept to ourselves for the time being.

There was a lot more that happened in between, but we’ll categorize it now for the present as "getting to know one another." I’ve never really talkedto much about this set of staff, at least not individually. I’m hesitating even now to call them by name. I think we’ll stick for a while with the presentation of them by their functional roles. It might be good of you to realize that Group 1 has the highest functioning individuals and Group 4 has the lowest functioning individuals.

The group dynamics are just at their infancy. From what I know of their experience with the last Q., they’ve given her a rough time and challenged her each step. But, deep down, we know we are looking forward to their challenges.  The DSP from the first group seems to want to dominate. The DSP from the third group is most critical as we have heard the DSP from the second group is. The job coach is afraid of us at a scholarly level as is the DSP from the fourth group. The DSP from the fourth group might pick up information more quickly and is less guarded in repression of who she is than the others. The job coach is our best girl friend, but along with the DSP from the fourth group will be most challenged in language or writing abilities. Their native language is Spanish. The DSPs from the second and third group are also Spanish speaking, but have higher communication abilities from the other two. The job coach has worked at the center longer that my five years, the three lowest DSPs have worked at the center for 2-3 years, and the DSP from the first group has been around almost one year. The new DSP assistant will be introduced to the group in July and the last DSP has not been hired yet.

Hmm, that is about as much of an introduction as I would like to give. James says that it is 5:30, which means I only have an hour left to work out the next part, the review. We started it last night, but we had to end early, because our friend’s invitation to go out for something to eat.

I think what we lacked the first meeting, was that we hadn’t presented them with a working model of what we were looking for. Mostly, because we wanted to know where they were at. We’ve figured out the first statement and how we would make it into a lesson plan. I couldn’t use all the material the DSP from the first group had attempted, because it all didn’t belong in one lesson. It wasn’t congruent. In actuality, this DSP complained the most because all of her group didn’t seem able to "learn," or worse, she stated, "I don’tknow if they’re even trying." The second statement I’ll take up later.

DSP #1's first lesson objective:

The group will learn to appreciate through plant and flowers and their parts from an experience in the garden.

The group will name the garden plants and flowers and parts that they know (Knowledge).

The group will associate with the flowers through their senses of sight, touch, and smell (Comprehend).

The group will informally relate their experience to their peers (Application).

The group will discuss their thoughts and feelingsabout the flowers formally via small "staff/lead" group (Analyze).

The group will depict a flower by making a diagram of it (Synthesize).

The group will determine if their flowers fairly represent the ones in the garden (Evaluate).

DSP #2's first lesson objective:

The individual will improve the ability to write his name.

The individual will observe the DSP write his name on the board (Knowledge).

The individual will be asked to repeat the DSPs effort after the DSPs writing has been erased (Comprehend).

The individual will perform the task (Application).

(The staff will again write the name on the board just above or below the individual’s work).

The individual will compare both names to see if they match (Analyze).

The individual will correct his work, if necessary (Synthesize).

The individual will determine if the work is finished, or if he should try again by means of accuracy (Evaluate).

Job Coach’s first lesson objective:

The individual will go to work independently.

The individual will describe his knowledge of riding the bus (Knowledge).

The individual will observe his staff demonstrate riding the bus (Comprehend).

The individual will apply his knowledge by leading the job coach through the bus riding process (application).

The individual will figure out what he did right or wrong (Analyze).

The individual will reinforce the lesson by progressing through corrected bus riding procedures via job coach (synthesize).

The individual will assess how he is doing, before the procedure is repeated (Evaluate).

DSP #4's first lesson objective:

The individual will be interested in the materials.

The individual will meet an object of possible interest, for example large beaded board (Knowledge).

The individual will observe a bead being moved from its position to over one loop (Comprehend).

The individual will extend her hand (with physical prompts if necessary) moving the bead over one loop (application).

The individual will figure out if she moves the bead her task will be over by the DSPs taking away the board.

The individual will anticipate the next lesson (later in the day) by the board being again moved next to her chair (synthesize).

The individual will decide if this task is going to be completed with what amount of assistance by either crying, complaining and pulling away, or she will move the bead as being prompted (Evaluate).

Ok, this step is done ... now on to the next. Someone actually has to GO to work, cuz James said it is 6:30! :)