Instead of just going to a school or school district and presenting about TPRS/CI, I have made a change in how I do that. Now, I require that the entire department first be willing to get the training. This is what is so good about conferences, by the way, because we want to be there. (Don’t forget the upcoming Maine conference, by the way).
So what I am now doing is sending, three to six months in advance of the actual training, all three of my books electronically to the department that wants the workshop, plus my DVDs, plus three to six free months of temporary access to the PLC. The school is also asked to bring in one administrator to attend at least part of the two day session and to read at least one of the books. The team to be trained also is asked to talk about teaching this way at their department meetings and to try stuff out from the books in their classrooms, at least a little bit, to try to get some comprehensible input going in their classrooms.
Then, after three to six months of that kind of work by the school’s department, I will fly out to their school and do two days of training where I demo ideas for about a day and they get coached for a day. In this way, the department emerges from the training unified, with administrative support (because now they understand) and the department can then move ahead facing in the same direction shoulder to shoulder.
I like this new model of training because we don’t waste each others’ time, which happened so much in the past. Many of those old trainings, that model, actual divided departments between a few who were for the method and (usually) a majority against. Teachers have to agree that this is the way they are going to do it in advance of the training.
Those in the department who balk or are critical of this new approach and who perhaps criticize the new direction of the dep’t. head/lead teacher (whoever organizes the training) have to work all that stuff out before the actual training.
This process is up and running in East Saint Louis and in North Carolina. Since I am retired now, I can do this. So if you are interested and feel that you have enough departmental and administrative support, let me know if you want to set up a training for this year. I doubt if I’ll be going to John Bracey’s school any time soon, but maybe some day. I feel that this is a better way to train people during the academic year than the old way.