Meetings make me wish to be impaled

So today is the day where they send the kids home early so we can spend the entire afternoon in staff meetings. The fact that they make us teach all morning with no breaks, is of course a necessary tradeoff for this, but they make for it by giving us 15 minutes after lunch to prepare for tomorrow. Today's meeting in particular was an example of why not just these meetings, but the whole grown up meeting thing in general is annoying. We had the specialist from some Acronym come by and post chart paper on the board. These specialists were paid for by our administration because of their world renown abilities in training teachers. Yet, when it is time for the training to begin, after we've all stated our name and one thing good about our lives, the trainers then ask us all the information. "So what are the important parts of an advisory??? What parts of advisory are REALLY important? You guys must be tired...think about it...ADVIIISORY..." It never fails, could be the sex ed people, the social responsibility people, the assistant principal, anybody who is paid to teach grown ups thinks it is more socratic or whatever to ask questions. If all we had to do was ask questions why are you here?

This particular issue, advisory, is one of the big reasons they were here. And as the questioning met more and more silence the questions got broader and broader. "Do you do anything in advisory?" "Do you know what an advisory is for?" If the topic was negative numbers and I was the teacher the lesson would stop and we would get out the thermometer and talk about when the temperature is below zero. I would break down the concept, explain it, give examples, maybe ask them to take notes so they have it in front of them to refer and THEN I would ask questions. But thats why I am just a lowly teacher signing my time card in this union job until I hit my retirement age, and not an aspiring professional with a chart pad marker a consulting contract. The professional's response is mindbogglingly uneffective "Well it seems like you need to work on the goals for your advisory, get in groups and spend the rest of your time talking about that." WTF, if we were going to get something accomplished together we wouldn't have paid you to be here. Whatever you want us to talk about (the specific purpose(s) that our advisory program be designed to meet), won't be what we end up talking about (a college tour and a career day).

I imagine the specialists goal would have been to empower our school to take their future in their own hands. But that is where the school was before you came. In medical fields specialist step into the situation and own it. The knee surgeon use his scalpel and expertise to repair the torn ligaments and will not consider the job done until the person has is on their way to walking again. Somehow this person got out of there saying "I hope you can use this. maybe we'll be back again???" I hate meetings.