What do teachers do on their PA days?
“They’re not a day off,” Massey High School teacher Stephanie Fillion said Friday after speaking at a professional development session for about 40 high school English teachers at the downtown Windsor Public Library.
“They’re a day where we can learn and become better. Who doesn’t want their kid’s teacher to become better?”
The Greater Essex County District School Board invited the public to attend the morning session to see what goes on during a PA day. Fillion and Jason Lynn, an instructional coach who has taught English at Massey led the discussion on personal narratives, the history of storytelling and taking different approaches to teaching novels.
Lynn said students want a choice. Instead of Lynn choosing a book and planning lessons, he said he studies the curriculum and talks to students about their interests first. He doesn’t insist everyone read the same book since they could learn about character development or the function of conflict in any book.
Instead of reusing her Grade 12 lesson plans, Fillion told teachers she dumped Shakespeare’s Hamlet and let the students select their own books such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
“Am I going to burn in the English teachers’ hell for this?” she said of her plunge into new territory.
Fillion said the results were amazing with students coming to class more, doing more work and even reading ahead.
Local public board students get six PA days, spokesman Scott Scantlebury said.
Two are half days of professional development for teachers to take into account the time spent at parent-teacher interviews, he said. Two to three are full days of professional development.
New this year are unpaid PA days which by contract mean two unpaid days for elementary school teachers and one unpaid day for high school teachers, Scantlebury said. Teachers don’t have to show up to work on their unpaid days, he said.
Most professional development days are held in individual schools but on days like Friday, which was a PA day for high school students but not public grade schools, the sessions include teachers from across the board based on the subject taught. Scantlebury said the curriculum changes and teachers have to continue learning.
Retired elementary school teacher Nancy Allen, who attended Friday’s session to learn more about storytelling, said she remembers having nine PA days at one point. She recalls meeting with the principal and junior teachers or holding workshops. “It wasn’t just a freebie.”Find Windsor Star on Facebook