Remember summer camp?
I can still hear my mom scolding me for bringing home a week’s worth of clean underwear and a barely squeezed tube of toothpaste. Hey, I was a 10-year-old boy. That’s how I rolled.
We recently held our specialist state training at Fall Creek Falls, the crown jewel of Tennessee’s state park system. Think of state training as your employment professional development conferences. Ours includes a deep dive into best practices to deliver employable competencies. We try to keep it interesting with plenty of interactive sessions, but let’s face it, data input instruction is no picnic, even at a state park! I’m big on culture, and nothing replicates bonding like face-to-face time.
JAG Tennessee has the best teachers in the state, but even the best need a recharge.
What better place to do it than the t-shirt/flip-flop atmosphere of one of the most beautiful nature spots in the country? While there was the usual grind of course code standards and practices, we wanted to make sure afternoons were free to explore. Some of the tallest waterfalls in the Eastern United States were near the lodge.
A 2-mile hike can be better for the soul heading into another challenging school year than one more refresher on data.
We filled the evenings with training sessions, so nobody felt deprived of classroom seat time. All were worn out by the end of the day, and nobody (at least it didn’t get back to me) broke curfew. It should not be lost that thousands of dollars of state funding were reinvested directly into a state agency. The goal was to make everyone feel valued because they are the boots on the ground.
There is no template for teaching a generation just five years removed from the start of a global pandemic.
Add the mental rewiring due to social media, unprecedented political and social divides, and you have a recipe for teacher burnout. Yes, compensation is a key driver in any career, but new studies reveal that “making progress” in one’s profession is becoming increasingly prevalent.
JAG specialists meet students where they are (sometimes in a confusing and dark space) and inherently know they are guiding students toward becoming better human beings.
It could be a student landing an entry-level job. Other days, it may be a full-ride college scholarship. Heck, some days it’s simply having a teenager show up for school because they love your class. Do they verbalize it? Maybe. Maybe not. But a teacher just knows.
That’s progress.
Conducting a professional development conference where appreciation is expressed as separate hotel rooms, three square meals, school supplies and JAG swag works wonders for a teacher’s mindset.
It wasn’t always that way in Tennessee. I wear our “Bad News Bears” days with honor and feel comfortable stating our teachers have always heard the words “thank you,” whether it’s over donated box lunches or a sit-down dinner. Showing appreciation doesn’t have to involve an invoice.
We still have a few specialists dating back to our rocky transition from a government agency to a nonprofit 11 years ago. It was great reminiscing with them around the fire pit.
Hosting state training at a state park may seem too casual, but it works in Tennessee. It felt like summer camp. And I didn’t bring home any clean underwear, and I brushed every day.
Mom would be proud.