TRIO...TR..I..I..IO

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.