Although I have been working for just over thirty years (gosh I am old), I have never had the pleasure of working in “corporate America”. Aside from selling women’s shoes when I was very young, I only have experience working in children’s homes and schools. So I’m not sure if this will translate to other fields. I guess I’ll have to check out the comments to see if this annoyance is universal or unique to my area of expertise.
The annoyance: Presentations based on the ground breaking ideas of brilliant experts.
Oh please brilliant experts, tell us more of your cutting edge, groundbreaking ideas!
(The tinfoil hat is a dead giveaway that this is going to be truly special.)
It seems that every year I have taught, there has been a new initiative that is even more brilliant than the last. Sometimes, if you are very lucky, you might get access to two or three in the same year!
Luckily for me, this was one of those multiple earth shattering initiatives years.
Recently, I was lucky enough to sit in the most uncomfortable folding chair ever designed while a consultant regaled us with his brilliance. After exactly three minutes, I realized why the chairs were so freaking uncomfortable. This was no accident. It was excellent planning. If any of the audience were sitting comfortably, they would have fallen asleep after the third super cool Prezi slide.
The presenter made a huge mistake here: comfortable chairs.
The expert began by telling a story about Demosthenes, the greatest orator of ancient Greece. Apparently, he would prepare for his speeches by shouting at the ocean.
Fair enough. I’m pretty much on my way there. I shout at the clouds all the time.
After 47 more examples of people throughout history preparing for tasks in different ways, the genius began to explain his core concept.
The Learning Zone
"The learning zone?!" OMG! I am a teacher. I love the idea of my kids learning... in an entire zone! This is going to be the greatest thing ever!
I took out my pad of paper and prepared to take notes on this life-changing training.
According to one of the leading experts in the field, Eduardo Briceno, the learning zone is “where we can develop our expertise, skills and experience, and be able to make mistakes to learn from in a low stakes environment.”
Hmmmm that sounded familiar.
Apparently, the more time students (or anyone) spend in the learning zone, the better they will do when they are in the performance zone.
Over the next hour, we heard more examples, participated in small group activities at our tables, watched some videos and played a review game.
We spent two hours learning that properly practicing a skill, makes you better at that skill.
Holy Shit!
What a breakthrough!
Practice makes you better at something!
Why has everyone been holding back this information for the past 18 years?! I could have helped kids so much more if I had only known the life changing effects of practicing things that you want to get better at. Somebody really needs to start spreading the word about this!
Wow! This expert was worth every penny.
Oh wait. I mean that not only did this doofus steal 120 minutes of my life, he also stole a ton of money from my district.
Literally everyone in the world, not named Allen Iverson, already knows this.
(Hopefully everyone also knows other things that Iverson doesn’t… like don’t spend $250 million when you only have $200 million.)
Back to the educational guru.
Somehow, he duped my school into paying him for a two hour training on the importance of practice. All he had to do was change the word “practice” to “the learning zone” and then laugh all the way to the bank.
There have been times I have been stuck in line at the DMV for two hours. The only way I could pass the time was by reading and re-reading all of the public service informational posters that lined the office walls. That was a far more productive use of my time than this “training”.
Here are some other things that were more productive uses of my 120 minutes than listening to this time burglar:
- Watching get rich quick infomercials
- Listening to teenagers’ drama
- Looking at an ex’s Facebook page
- Looking up divorce lawyers after trolling my ex's Facebook page
- Arguing about daylight savings time
- Washing my car while it is raining
- Listening to Jazz Fusion
- Talking to that guy on the corner with the sandwich board that says “The end is near”
- Going purse shopping with my wife
- Listening to a time share sales pitch
- Sitting on a runway while they try to figure out how to take off even though 8 geese have made a nest on the end of the runway
- Watching paint dry
- Talking to my in-laws (This is a lie. Even I have my limits.)
By the way, here are my notes from that earth shattering bombshell dropped on us that day.
So does this only happen in the educational world?
Have you ever been to a presentation so mind-numbingly dumb that you begged to get your two hours back after it were complete... or at least have your mind erased so you never have to think about it again?
By the way, if you think this was amusing, you should check out @comedyopenmic and @punchline.