Condense it?

Had to go to the office last week (week before?) I think for what's called a PDD, or Professional Development Day.

During those sessions, we often have an opportunity to talk about things that are going on in our programs and ask for advice/solutions as needed.

Or to say "Here's how I handled this situation."

One of the site directors (she's new with the company, as most of them are) was talking about the issues her kids have with cleanup on occasion. She rambled a bit, then talked about the magna tiles. Complaining about how she tells kids it's time to clean up and they don't clean up the way they should.

Then she told us about the kid who apparently pitches in and does everyone else's cleanup. She decided the best way to deal with the situation was to take the magna tiles away from the entire group.
"For about a week," she told us.

It took me a minute to process what she'd said, I'd mostly tuned her out because she was blithering. By the time my brain caught up, the trainer was on to the next thing and I ended up saying nothing. Still kicking myself in the ass for that, actually. It's past time for me to speak up when I see or hear things that aren't right in the way we're taking care of our kids. I can't let what someone may think of me be a thing that gets in the way. Or shouldn't, anyway.

So I didn't say anything in the moment, but I did take the time to go talk to our trainer afterward.

We had a conversation about the whole group punishment thing.
"It's like locking me up because my neighbor robbed a bank."

That segued into talking about rewards and punishments and how stupid I think those things are.

That led to how long I've been doing this job, some conversation about upcoming training and the fact that I've written a LOT about the work over the years. I have strong feelings about quite a bit of it, which, if you've been here more than a couple months, you already know. Passionate about being decent to kids, giving them lots of things to do and respecting their time and space.

They don't get a choice, they have to be in daycare.
Say it with me, they may as well be with someone who cares.

I try to make sure that's in front of me all the time.

So we had this conversation and he asked me to send him some of the things I've written and I got home and I looked at my blog and there are 1,818 posts with the 'my job' label and I realized I have no clue where to start.

So I sent him the token economy post and one from 12 years ago about Reese who still remains one of my favorite kids ever and will always occupy a place in my heart.

Since finding those two posts, I've done a bit of reading here. I'm very glad for all the stuff I wrote down, I've enjoyed reading back over it.

There's everything about running a program from how to set up a site to conversations about Santa.

I realized I don't know what's the most important thing to talk about.

Our training person said he wants to design some trainings with me. And that he'll get back to me.

Meanwhile, how in the world do I condense 19 years of writing about my kids and my work into some kind of categorized/prioritized form?

Geez.