Thoughts On Picking Skilled Trainers

In October 2000, at the Iowa AEYC annual conference in Des Moines, I did my first ever presentation. There were a handful of people in the room; I was nervous--REALLY nervous. I was so nervous that I vomited a little in my mouth. Public speaking scared me. In high school, I took a lower grade in an English class because I physically could not make myself get up and do a sixty-second speech. Yet, there I was, queasy and red-faced giving a presentation on…I don’t even remember what.

I do remember surviving the ordeal and having a few kind people say nice things to me. I felt successful enough afterwards that I was willing to risk more mouth vomit and come back the next year…and the Iowa AEYC let me. I slowly got over my nerves and started volunteering to do more presentations. I grew more comfortable, developed some skills, and learned a lot from watching other trainers—some great, some not.

Volunteering as a trainer led to paid speaking gigs. Now, I do about 30 keynotes a year.

I do not know if I will ever speak at the Iowa AEYC conference again. In January 2010, they implemented a new policy for trainers and I no longer meet their requirements. I don’t have a CDA and I dropped out of college—a few times.

IA AEYC is not the only organization to implement such a policy, there is a widespread push to create formal rubrics and procedures intended to vet trainers and assure quality. I applaud the intentions behind this effort—weeding out bad content and unqualified speakers is a worthy cause. One reason I risked potential public humiliation and projectile vomiting back in 2000 was that for over a decade I had been the victim of trainings and trainers who did not deliver quality. I figured that at the very least I could be as good as the worst trainers I had heard.

 Due diligence of some kind is important. What I take issue with is the unfounded assumption that a CDA or college degree automatically qualifies you as a knowledgeable and skilled trainer, speaker, lecturer, facilitator, or teacher. I completed something north of 130 credit hours before dropping out for the last time. One thing I learned is that there are plenty of people with PhD’s who are horrible public speakers. I spent too much money listening to smart people read from overhead projectors in a dry monotone voice while avoiding eye contact with their victims.

I also know that some of the most thoughtful, knowledgeable, experienced, and wise caregivers I have ever met have never taken a college class. Some of them are also great trainers and personal mentors. Arbitrary policies disqualifying them as speakers hurts our profession.

In the last 24 years or so, I have spent 16 years directing center-based school-age and child care programs, operated a family child care program for about 8 years, written 8 books, served on the boards of the National Association for Family Child Care and the Iowa AEYC, and provided hundreds of hours of training to thousands of early learning professionals. I have also worked hard to stay on top of early learning research, theory, and best practices as-well-as hone my skills as both a caregiver and trainer.

Yet, when the IA AEYC implemented their new policy, I become a less qualified trainer than a person with a CDA, three years of early learning experience, and some adult education training.

Formal education is a path to knowing, but it is not the path. It is also not a guarantee of knowledge or skill. There are medical school graduates you would not trust to remove your swollen appendix, law school graduates that you would not trust to write your will, and early learning graduates that you would not trust to care for your baby. A degree in early learning does not necessarily mean you are an effective speaker. It does not mean you can hold the attention of a room full of adults, it does not mean you can create engaging visuals, it does not mean you can tell a story, and it does not mean you can effectively project your voice or ideas. I am a proud college dropout and am proud of the path I have taken.

I also truly believe we need to figure out some thoughtful ways to improve the quality of trainings and trainers. Here are some thoughts based on my experience and conversations with caregivers:

·         Due diligence should not mean having a form completed, it should mean investing time and energy in really investigating and vetting trainers. What’s written on a request for proposal may have no real-world connection to the actual presentation. People can put anything down on forms…and they will.

·         Close the loop holes. I’ve had event organizers tell me they could “make an exception” for me as a speaker based on my books or experience. This is not fair and it tilts the playing field. If you’re going to have a trainer approval policy, live by the letter of your policy or change it.

·         Check references. If you want to know if a potential trainer has good information and speaking skills, ask for reference and then check them. If you do not hear good things, don’t use them.

·         Require that potential speakers submit sample video or audio from past events. This will tell you much more than a 15-page packet of paperwork. This should be simple in our age of digital voice recorders and YouTube.

·         Ask potential trainers to submit samples of their visuals. Don’t force attendees to suffer Death by PowerPoint.

·         Ask potential speakers to tell you a story. Most caregivers I speak with prefer trainers who tie their information to real-world face-to-face experience with actual human children. They want to hear trainers who have “been there”. They want to connect through relatable stories and experiences.

·         We need better evaluation tools for trainers and we need attendees to be more honest and thoughtful in their responses. This would help identify unskilled or unqualified speakers—and give them valuable feedback for future improvements.

·         Our profession needs more good trainers and arbitrarily disqualifying people because they lack a degree limits the pool of potential and reduces the diversity of thought and opinion.

·         Organizations should find ways to nurture eager new trainers and help them build skills and talent. I owe a great debt to IA AEYC (and long time conference guru Rhonda Bancroft). They offered a safe venue for facing my fears a decade ago.

As a profession, we are literally caregivers. I hope we can take steps to care of the brave folks who willingly stand up and share their stories, ideas, thoughts, experiences, and opinions. We need them, degree or not.