By the end of last summer, the writing was on the wall, so to speak. Aimee was WASC woman, Mary and I her faithful companions; Mary was helping on the leadership team and the focus groups, I was working on the writing and editing of the report. Aimee and Mary attended seminars and workshops on how to prepare for the WASC; I was handed stuff to input into the computers. And the school year had yet to start.
When school did start, more work began. Aimee had her regular prep period plus a resource period, in which she would work on the report; these two periods fell during third and fourth period. This was too bad...my prep period was second. We wouldn't be able to work together on this. However, on the plus side, Aimee could hand me material to work on near the end of first period, I could work on it during second, and hand it back to her at the end of second, and she could finish up on it during third and fourth.
And that was the way the first two terms went. I'd spend at least one prep period a week on WASC stuff, while Aimee slaved away usually two hours a day on the report. This was the typical. Atypical were those times when extra work had to be done. Aimee wanted to put together a presentation to show the staff the process for creating the "Focus on Learning" WASC report. This was an opportunity for me to put together a HyperStudio presentation, creating "cards" of information (text and graphics) that would be presented to the faculty via a computer-linked overhead projector. The presentation used rudimentary animation and fades to teach the staff the ten different steps of the process; for the first three steps, after the description of what needed to be done was shown, the words "Been there, Done that!" were plastered over the step. This made the staff feel as if we had accomplished some stuff in the past, and that we were moving in the right direction. We even linked the presentation to a laserdisc player, and at the end of the presentation, Aimee asked the staff what would happen if we failed. Out of the television then came Bill Murray and the Ghostbusters giving the answer: We're talking a disaster of Biblical proportions...Old Testament stuff. Wrath of God-type stuff...The dead rising from the graves. The rivers and seas boiling. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.
The presentation was a success. The staff enjoyed it, and better yet, the three of us had the distinct impression that they understood the process.
We were wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment