TTT

Never ending to-do list

This past Friday was a district-wide in-service day for the 9 international schools in Quito. The event, called Teachers Teaching Teachers, or TTT for short, happens in Quito every two years and is an opportunity for educators to share their expertise and to learn from and exchange ideas with other like-minded professionals.

This year, the theme was Student Engagement and the event was hosted by Colegio Menor down in the valley. Nine schools and 1,000 participants attended. Way back in November there was a call for proposals to present, and of course I submitted a proposal. I said I would be happy to share Robert Marzano’s research on student engagement, this being an area of great familiarity due to my time in our previous school district. My proposal was selected and I was asked to present my session twice. Now before you go getting impressed, I don’t think anyone that submitted a proposal was not selected. And while some only had to present once, there were several teachers asked to do it twice.

You may be surprised to hear that when it comes to projects such as these, I am a hopeless procrastinator. Have been that way since college. I could have been assigned a research paper or essay 3 months in advance. But for some reason I could just never force myself to put pen to paper until usually about 48 hours prior to the due date. And the quality of my work was never compromised. I still always got A’s on everything. This probably only served to reinforce my procrastination. I learned that I could do really good work on really short notice. Besides, I always found something charming about those 2 am visits to Kinko’s, eyes twitching from being awake for two days, heart racing from the unsafe levels of caffeine I’d consumed.

Seriously, the list didn't end

And sadly, even as a full grown, mostly responsible adult, it appears I still suffer from project procrastination. I mentioned my proposal was accepted back in November. So I was given over 4 months to pull a presentation together. It wasn’t until early February that I started at least writing “Start Marzano PD” on my weekly to-do list. And there it sat for weeks. It wasn’t until this past Monday, with the conference being held on Friday that I finally decided to get to work.

Now let me say, I’m quite comfortable with the information. I remember the research, I understand the philosophy, and I can speak confidently about this topic. But it’s when I start putting together a presentation, and designing slides, and inserting charts that I turn into a real crazy person.

I know a lot of people would say it’s not the design of your presentation that’s important, it’s the information that matters. And yeah, I get that. But I also disagree to an extent. Presentation is extremely important. To me, at least. I find it incredibly distracting when I see a presentation that’s sloppy, or I spot a typo, or an image is distorted, or (perish the thought!) clipart is used that still has a visible watermark! Eeek! To me, it’s extremely important for the information to be good AND to have it presented to me in a polished and professional manner.

So yes, I browse Google Slide themes for longer than I should. I make sure all my images and text boxes are perfectly centered. I check that the font and alignment is the same on every slide. I choose themes and colors and layouts that are going to be aesthetically pleasing and creative. And so I end up adding a lot of time onto my projects. And I go a little crazy.

It got bad last week because in addition to all of my Type A eccentricities, I also started to question my entire structure. Should I take this out? No, I need to add more information on this. I need more examples. Less videos. More videos. I NEED TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. OH MY GOSH, I SHOULD JUST START OVER. WHAT HAVE I DONE, THIS WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. 

Such a long list

My school days were filled with back-to-back reading classes, and I meetings before and after school almost every day. Leaving me hardly any time to work on my presentation. Unless I were to bring it home, but then again one of my symptoms as a procrastinator is being unable to work from home.

So I was down to the wire, completely stressed, not sleeping because I was obsessing over my presentation and questioning every decision I had ever made.

I think there’s something really intimidating about presenting at conferences like this. It’s a well-known saying that teachers make the worst students. We tend to be jaded and sarcastic when people are trying to give us professional development. We think everything is easier said than done. We can be extremely critical. But we can also be incredibly kind and appreciative and encouraging. It’s a mixed bag of emotions, really.

And when you combine that with someone who is by nature a perfectionist, then it can be a pretty stressful scenario. Friday morning I was a complete mess. I was so stressed and worried that I wouldn’t do a good job. And, (likely due to my stress levels) I was beginning to get a head cold on top of it.

Justin did a really good job of trying to calm me down. He even came to my first session and sat in the back and kept giving me smiles and nods of reassurance. I was really grateful for that. He even wrote me a really sweet note that I read afterwards just encouraging and supporting me. It was super sweet and it really helped me to calm down for the second round.

Presentation Time

What’s funny is that I got extremely positive feedback from several participants. Especially comments on how “well-organized” “thorough” and “extremely clear” and “really easy to understand.” Ha! All of those tiny little details that I obsess over are exactly what people appreciate from me!

So I guess the fret and agony paid off. I definitely have not learned my lesson about procrastinating. And I can guarantee I will do this to myself again. But at least I know that it’s received well! And my behind-the-scenes existential crises and meticulous nit-picking all comes off to the casual observer as smooth, cool, and polished.