DEAR ALIZARIN: Who is teaching? Who is learning?

Spent the last two days in training for the reading intervention curriculum I teach. At lunch, when I commented how we had a fun group at this training, my literacy coach responded, "Yes, we put all the troublemakers in the other training session and will send the assistant principal to that one."

Though not the troublemakers and actually enthusiastic about the program (or at least willing to give it a try), we were still quite rambunctious, often falling into imitations of our most annoying and trying students. Our table definitely excelled when the trainer would model teaching the lessons in a classroom and asked us to pretend to be the students. My colleagues and I offered up helpful replies to her questions, such as, "But I don't want to be a better writer." Or, the always applicable, "This is boring, Miss!" Thankfully, our trainer was patient and has a sense of humor.

In addition to learning the new curriculum, we had a great time relieving stress from the first few weeks of school. If only our students were so adept at modeling the lessons we teach each day.