Teaching and Planning: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s what’s funky: I\u2019ve been teaching for a couple of years. I still have to plan every day. Really plan. Even when I have a plan that I wrote before. Even when I\u2019ve taught the book, the unit, the deliverable, the project…I have to plan it out. Again. I have to write it down. Again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I don\u2019t, I feel like I\u2019m winging it or as if I don\u2019t have a plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s why I\u2019ve never understood canned curriculum. I read it. I look at it. I say, okay, I see how that might work. Then I have to go re-write it for myself, which is a process, a good process, a worthwhile process, but one that takes time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, I never have the moment where I\u2019m like, \u201chey, what I\u2019m doing on Monday, oh right, check out that document, good, I\u2019m all set.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m always writing, re-writing, re-re-writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not a humble brag about how I\u2019m always reinventing my curriculum. This genuinely pisses me off. I wish that I had a plan that I could go back to, look at, and tweak, so that planning was a five-minute, dust-something-off process as opposed to at least fifteen, thirty, forty-five minutes of pondering what I\u2019m getting up to. Again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of this is the energy and knowledge and skills the kids are bringing to the class. It varies with each group, each year: they want to go in particular directions, worthwhile directions, so let\u2019s go there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of it is the reality of the SDP, where they find new ways to screw up the calendar each year, so you\u2019re always adjusting for crap days, for difficult days, for days that follow long weekends, for days that precede testing days.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of it is my evolution as a teacher and a human: I have new ideas, new things I\u2019ve read and thought about, new arguments I\u2019ve had with students, colleagues, and friends. New things I want to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of it is the reality of the world, where everything changes and I see a way of connecting what happened yesterday to what we\u2019re reading or discussing or making today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, I realized this after I started a timer to \u201cplan\u201d because I was worried that I would use up my available time planning instead of grading, and yes, I had once again used my available time that way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Teaching and Planning: Here\u2019s what’s funky: I\u2019ve been teaching for a couple of years. I still have to plan every day. Really plan. Even when I have a plan that I wrote before. Even when I\u2019ve taught the book, the unit, the deliverable, the project…I have to plan it out. Again. I have to write … Continue reading Planning and Teaching<\/span>