On Planning and Not Planning

So, this whole creation of a unit plan is much harder than I thought it would be.  It sounds silly, but I think I'm just realizing now how nuanced lesson planning can be, especially good lesson planning.  And if you have your own ideas about how stuff should be arranged and what you want students to focus on, it's that much harder.  The crazy thing is that we're planning units based on a class that's already had a semester to work together and we've already observed them for a few weeks now--it seems like a daunting task to create all of these plans ahead of time without having any idea of how the class is going to look and feel like.  I guess it's good to have the basic groundwork in place so that you only have to tweak instead of start from scratch.  But still, you're constantly tweaking after each class period as well!  I think I'm just feeling overwhelmed, not knowing if I'll ever be adept at teaching.

It's also comforting to know that good teachers have to take time out like regular people.  My CT took this past Thursday off as a mental health day--she said she just needed to shake some negative stuff out of her bones and get a fresh perspective.  This is probably another important aspect to think about as a teacher.  You have to know yourself and recognize when you're just getting drained.  Since you set the tone of the classroom, you're just creating a cycle of annoyances if you're losing patience and the students are losing patience right back at you.

The previous week, she'd been having some behavior problems with a couple of classes, so she restructured the class time and asked them to all write her letters, explaining what they thought was going on and what might help.  With their input, she was going to figure out a few changes to improve the classroom climate.  She shared some of their comments with me, and they actually seemed very self-aware--even as 8th graders, they mostly know what's going on.  They just need to be directly asked!  And I'm noticing that that's something I will definitely have to take into consideration.  I'm not the boss--I'm more of the orchestrator.