A disturbing plague has gripped colleges everywhere. As
development of teaching and learning has embedded itself like a cancer, CPD has
spread across all areas we once considered holy, to the point that even
chocolate is not safe. Yes that’s right it has infected chocolate. Ok so not
really but it’s chocolate associated.
At the beginning of the year we were introduced to a concept
that immediately meant that I would be absolutely useless in all future
meetings but sit there consumed by the song. Trio’s. If you don’t understand
the chocolate reference now then you are obviously too young and should stop
reading immediately. This form of group meeting has plagued us all throughout
the year. And when I mean plague us I mean we have been sent reminders about
meetings that we have never had. This has been a generally acceptable practice
to me until today. I was forced to write a case study on the use of trios and
how it has helped us develop. WTF? Well I
can spin a good yarn but the truth would be much more acceptable.
Trios
Trios were initially put forward by the college as a step
towards world domination. This failed.
The initial meeting consisted of one member of staff singing
the trio song. This embedded a feeling of nostalgia within the group and is largely
considered to be the highlight of the year. In a bid to abide by the disguised
dictatorship of our educational democracy, we briefly discussed what we wanted
to achieve. The suggestion of loaded shotguns as classroom enforcement was immediately
disregarded by one, whilst still firmly within another’s future career goals.
The topic of IT was of course raised; this caused grumbles
amongst the other group members. One member of staff unhelpfully suggested that
social media was the temple in which students prayed to their digital god and
go to complain about their lecturers, and as the sacred place of their ignorant
religion it was probably best left that way. It was immediately noted that any
expectation of our student’s ability to draw comparison with religion was over ambitious.
Agreement was made to use Facebook. This failed.
A final note was made about getting students to interact
across the agriculture and animal management sectors. This could easily be
veiled as an attempt to incorporate employability skills whilst in reality
would provide great amusement and possibly the destruction of many a student.
Raising the subject of the badger cull would allow for discussion to break out
across areas of the college, infect the minds of the younger FE students and
lead to amusing fights, ignorant speeches and blinded belief in a flawed ideal.
Further meetings were not held. There were occasional
emails. These were largely ignored. We still like to sing the trio song though.
