White-Water rafting
Comparing my teaching experiences to the adventure of white-water rafting is fun to envision. Some stretches of my journey have been calm and smooth like gliding across a lake on a windless afternoon, enjoyable and refreshing, while at other times I feel like I am traveling down the roughest stretch of the Colorado River, with each bump and turn trying to take my life from me and swallow me whole to the bottoms of the beast I am trying to navigate. I am here today as a testament to the resolve and muddling through the experience; I came through the rough times, alive and well seasoned to the course not only behind me, but ahead of me as well.
I have worked as a trainer for a refuse hauling company and they had a set training plan in place when I started working for them. It involved 6 hours of video and quizzes after each movie and a brief lecture covering highlights of the movie. They had been using the same series of movies, quizzes and lecture for the last 20+ years and their safety and customer satisfaction reports had been steadily declining for the last several years. I was placed into the department as a new set of eyes to review the current training plan, see where it needed repaired, replaced or upgraded. This was not nearly as easy as it sounded. There was resistance from the trainers across the company who had been doing this program for the last 20 + years and they were quick to point out any and all flaws in each and every suggestion or policy change that I suggested or had put in place. This was some of the roughest waters I ever had to navigate in my training career and it did not involve any of my students! Even with all of the protests and resistance safety started improving, customer satisfaction improved as well as employee morale. The bottom line improvements satisfied the upper management that had placed me in the position I was in, and once the other trainers noticed that things were improving and I was there for the duration of the changes began to agree and work with me. The waters began to calm, and work was much more pleasant to do.
This was the roughest time I have had in my training career to this date. I have been fortunate to have very supportive management and students who seemed to excel under my guidance. I have always incorporated many different learning styles and changed up my techniques of teaching, sometimes in the middle of the class just to bring a fresh look into what we are doing. My students have excelled in every aspect and have even had two students of mine win the national school bus rodeo in back to back years. I have yet to find an issue I could not resolve myself or with help of a colleague which probably only means I have been fortunate to have good students and supportive associates. I have read about problems that people have faced, and surprised I have not had to face those issues. I am soaking up all of the information that everyone is presenting so I will hopefully be better armed to support myself if such issues arise for me.
Ron, like you I have met resistance to change as well. It may have not been as confrontational as yours, but more subtle. I think a real help in overcoming it was my consistency, my desire to learn, and my desire to help others. Just being authentic with my peers helped them to see that I wasn’t a threat to them. I just had different ideas. I guess new ideas are often threatening because we like to comfort and security of the way things are. Continue to be a pioneer new ways of doing things and they’ll see the light (or at least appreciate your efforts).
ReplyDeleteDear Ron,
ReplyDeleteI'm responding to your discussion board to try to offer you new ways of seeing your problem, and maybe offer a solution for it. I understand when you say that you have yet to find an issue you could resolve yourself or with help of a colleague which probably only means that you have been fortunate to have good students and supportive associates. I’m glad to hear that your teaching skills are working very well with your students. I think that so many educators today are faced with so many teaching problems that it get in the way of them teaching their students effectively. I think that finding solutions to the many problems that they may face as educators can sometime be extremely tough on them and their students.
Your post rang so very true to the way people deal with change. It's unfortunate when it's our colleagues that are the ones we have to watch our backs with. I'm happy to hear that your upper management was supportive and encouraging. Learn from the negative things you have read but don't dwell on them. You have had very positive experiences that's what you should carry with you moving forward. Continued success Ron.
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