Chap. 22
The first thing that came through loud and clear in all the subjects writings is that working in a university setting is very demanding and time consuming. It seemed as if the work being done outside of teaching was as important as instructing class, but I realize that is only because the purpose of this writing was to show the organizational structure of the instructional design process. I'm sure everyone of us reading the article could say the same thing about our current teaching positions. We are all required to be involved in the school organization in various capacities outside of teaching in the class room. As much as we would like to close our class room door and just teach it is not possible in today's world. So our profession from Kindergarten to college demands large amounts of time to things related to the school but not about teaching students in the school.

The state of Michigan demands that its teachers are highly qualified to teach their specific subjects. Gone are the days when a teaching certificate reads K-12 in any area, some may remember when anyone was allowed to teach 7th and 8th. So in the K-12 education arena a teacher must continually take classes to keep their teaching certificate current. Brenda Litchfield, seemed to take on the role of faculty development person at her university. Her job involved orientation of new faculty members, providing workshops for continuous teacher development, and helping individual teachers reach their full teaching potential. It seems that Brenda keeps abreast of the current trends in education, along with the latest technology updates and tries to distribute the information to her colleagues. She took on this role voluntarily, in our school system a very similar thing happens, especially in regards to technology. Some of the teachers are willing and able to learn new techniques and ways to use technology in the classroom. This includes how to plug in, set up, and trouble shoot some basic items on any of the machines being used. Other teachers have no use for learning something new, and are content let someone else learn it first and then just teach them what they need to know. Knowing that this is the "way of the world" in our buildings the so called experts are more than willing to help out the others with how things work. We are all aware of the people who will share their knowlege, these people are the ones who are encouraged to go to conferences and training sessions so that everyone can benefit from the expertice of one person. It sounds very similar to what Brenda Litchfield did for her fellow teachers at the university she worked at.

What I learned after reading this chapter is that across the board, teachers, instructors, professors, or what ever other title a person has, are one of the hardest working group of professionals around.
In the earlier grades papers need to be checked and the next days instructional materials need to be organized. This is not done when 25 little people are sitting in front of you, each one with some very important piece of information that you absolutely need to hear. In addition the classroom teacher has four or five different subjects that need to be taught regularly, with standards and benchmarks that need to be met. In the later grades generally the teacher has one subject to teach but might have an honors class along with a remedial one. So while the subject matter is the same the preparation is different. As we read in the text university instructors are expected to do research and publish papers, or write grants along with their teaching duties. So when the teaching day ends the working day begins. We all know friends and neighbors who come home from work and are done for the day, rarely is this the case with a teacher.