It’s interesting to be in the seat listening to someone else try to present something to the students. This was my one opportunity to get some sort of glimpse at what they experience on a daily basis. True, the speakers who came to career day weren’t teachers, and they possibly had never presented to a group of middle schoolers before in their lives (which for some was very obvious), but they were trying to teach something.
I thought it most amazing that each speaker had the 42 minute block of time that we always get, and yet the ones that I saw decided to do most of the talking for almost 40 minutes or so, and then leave only about 2-3 minutes for the students to ask questions. So what could have been something interactive, with students really learning what they wanted to know about a particular career and one person’s experience doing it, turned into quite the opposite.
One student in another group, who is a student of mine, as he passed by me in the hall said he couldn’t take another minute of career day, like he was being tortured. I have to admit I felt a bit tortured myself and I didn’t see all of the presentations. Politely listening and nodding can get tiring after awhile.
Learning Stuff... 