i work for michael scott.

we had our fall teacher inservice training today.

the theme, which has absolutely nothing to do with the seminars, was "toy story." so we were required to dress up like toys. my school decided to dress like jessie, who i'm told is woody's girlfriend. a cowgirl. i brought a bandana. my boss handed me cow-print fabric in the shape of pockets to safety pin onto my jeans. i sat through 7hours of seminars in a costume, for reasons i have not been able to figure out. i saw someone dressed as a jack-in-the-box. lots of girls as different kinds of barbies. someone as a police officer. it was surreal. i was comforted by the fact that jim and pam probably would have been woody and jessie.

the first seminar was partly about how everyone, including children, have different personalities. it opened with a bag of jelly beans being passed around, and we each took one. i reached in, and grabbed an orange one. without looking. then we were told that the colors we chose most likely represented our personality type. false. i would have picked blue. then i had to hold an orange jelly bean for an hour.

one seminar was about ideas for neat toys to put in our centers. the speaker talked about maslow's hierarchy of needs, and how the foundation is security. if kids don't feel safe, they don't do anything. to illustrate this point, she said: "you're the same way. if the fire alarm went off right now, you would leave the building. if i was standing here naked, that wouldn't even keep you in here. you would want to be safe, so you would leave."

yep.

what else?

oh yeah, the interpretive dancing during the "music and movement" seminar.