I was at a compulsory training day yesterday. There was one good session but for the most part it was the usual kind of rubbish. One of the sessions was on "Stretch and Challenge" which turned out not to be, as I had half-expected, an aerobics lesson but a session about stretching and challenging students.

They started with one of those bits of training nonsense we see so often. They gave everyone a post it note and told us to write on it our "expectations of the session". One of my colleagues, who I suspect wasn't taking it all as seriously as they hoped, wrote, "To achieve Nirvana and divine harmony."

I wish I'd written that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Oh, that's funny. But, pray tell, what did you write?

I was only marginally less flippant.
I wrote. "To find out what this course is supposed to be about, all they told us so far is the title."

Compulsory training? You were trained to become compulsory?

Compulsory training and officially-mandated mentoring and school-related programs outside regular school hours for no pay are at the heart of the firing of en entire high school in Central Falls, RI.

Those of you who receive employer-funded training (be it compulsory or voluntary) should reflect on the lot of the majority in the UK (and the USA I suspect) who receive little or no training.

Indeed, but I know that as an experienced trainer yourself you will agree that bad training can be worse than no training.

As I said though, we did get one session that was good, a session about teaching reading and writing to complete beginners. It was delivered by an experienced teacher from Tower Hamlets College which has possibly the best reputation for ESOL of any college in the country.
I always enjoy training more when it's delivered by someone who has actually done the job.

I wonder how well the quality of teaching correlates with the number of MBA graduates. I suspect there's an inverse relationship. It's nothing new, as witness physicist Richard Feynman's comments:

http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm

I learned all my math skills from that blank book.

Well, I don't know why you implicate the poor MBAs, Geoff, but that article you posted was excellent. Thank you! The first problem is this:

quote:

You see, the state had a law that all of the schoolbooks used by all of the kids in all of the public schools have to be chosen by the State Board of Education, so they have a committee to look over the books and to give them advice on which books to take.

Seems to me the teachers should make that decision.

quote:

Indeed, but I know that as an experienced trainer yourself you will agree that bad training can be worse than no training.

Indeed. But never forget that the trainer has to make the best of what he has been given. If the training is inappropriate for the group, then it will be bad training regardless of the quality of the training. And this is often the fault of the organisation commissioning the training, who have just not undertaken a proper training needs analysis (TNA) and simply grab a group of employees and put them on a "compulsory" course (often because there is some special training deal available).

One course I had to suffer running was for a business travel organisation who claimed to need telephone selling skills. I had met the director involved but he didn't want me to do a TNA as (he assured me) he had already determined what was needed. So I turned up at 0800, ready for an 0900 start and set up the room and my kit. At 0900 in walked the group and I had never seen such a belligerent and uninterested crowd. It took me around 30 minutes before I could even begin to run the course and why? Because, not only had there been no TNA but the group had only been told they were undertaking the course that day, when they arrived expecting to be doing their usual jobs. So they were unprepared for the training and unprepared to be away from their desks for a day.

I did eventually manage to calm them down and ran a half-decent course - but it was far from an exemplary course and I can imagine the delegates complaining about it to their friends and colleagues over the next few days because, in truth, it was not a good course for reasons quite unconnected with the quality of the training provision.

Sadly this is more common than one would imagine since in many cases the managers and directors responsible for arranging training have themselves received no training in this aspect of their jobs. All too many people in senior positions believe that training is for their minions, not for themselves.

In education, and I imagine in other fields, there is a requirement to attend a set number of hours training (or CPD as we have to call it) and if that number of hours isn't met then you lose (or will, the scheme has only been running a couple of years) your right to teach.
This means for many organisations that a pre-determined number of hours are divided between the terms to provide training days. The divisional managements then decide how to fill the time. As all the teaching staff are (or should be) all properly trained already they have to think up things to train us on. Sometimes they are appropriate and useful, sometimes not.

The main problems come when we have to be trained on the things that the Government requires us to do that we don't actually need. So every training day includes an "Equality and Diversity" session. I have now received it four times from four different trainers and it's been pants every time. This time I refused to do it, choosing one of the other sessions. So I did the useful "Beginners' Reading and Writing", an "open" session of looking at books while publishers tried and failed to get me to buy them (with MY money, not the colleges), the "Stretch and Challenge" session and a session on "Managing Attendance and Punctuality".

The reading and writing session was, as I said, useful but, for us, unimplementable. Tower Hamlets cap their beginners classes at 12 students. 8 is apparently a typical class size. We currently have up to 18 with moves afoot to change it to 20. Activities that can be done around a table with 12 and appropriately individualised become impossible with 18.

The open session was filler. I do buy some text books but I'm not about to lay out forty quid a throw for any more. That should be the college's job, not mine.

The other two were delivered by pleasant enough people though from outside our division. Neither was especially interesting, neither told us anything we didn't already know and neither will result in any change at all to the way we do our jobs.

As you can see, our training is mostly just for the sake of filling up the required number of training hours and is done at the expense of the students who lose lesson hours to accommodate it.

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) to a degree, but more usually statutory training, both give rise to this kind of thing. In my experience it is more common in those jobs that have only recently had statutory training requirements imposed on them, since they don't have the culture and systems in place. I suspect that teaching might fall into this category.

Jobs such as those of drivers of public service vehicles and those in the medical professions, have had statutory training requirements for many decades and I suspect that there is rather less "time-filling" training in these. I am fairly sure (and rather pleased) that pilots and surgeons have a fair amount of relevant training.

Lack of proper training is more often seen in jobs, such as shopworkers, bar staff, waiters and the like, where these is usually no CPD and certainly no statutory training need - and usually little training apart from the ancient (and frequently unreliable) method of "sitting next to Nellie".

My own field, travel and tourism, has never had statutory training requirements and, until about three years ago, no CPD. I was one who had been agitating for CPD for many years and I am pleased to say that, partly through my ongoing efforts, the Institute of Travel and Tourism, ABTA and PeopleFirst now have a CPD scheme in place. As with some other such schemes (I am a Chartered Member of the Institute of Marketing through their CPD scheme) formal training is only part of the scheme. It is possible to accrue CPD points in other ways such as self-study, attendance at seminars and conferences, training others, designing course and training materials and other activities that are relevant to the profession. At present, though, CPD is not obligatory and most of those working in travel agencies and tour operators have received little training or undertaken other CPD activities.