Something that I have learned very quickly since the start of student teaching is how important it is to be FLEXIBLE!
First of all, is it important to be flexible with lesson plans and rubrics and unit timelines, as students abilities and understandings don't always go just as planned. I learned very early on, even in practica,that I won't survive long as a teacher if I am unwilling to budge from my plans.
However, the kind of flexibility that I am referring to more in this post is flexibility with other teachers and the school and principal under whom you are placed. First of all, last week on Thursday and Friday we had our classes shortened from 35 minutes to 50 minutes with only a day warning! On Thursday an author came to speak (which was great!), but my teacher wasn't warned about the changed schedule until two days before! Then, on Friday, they had a practice TCAAP writing assessment, and again they weren't warned that 2 hours of their day would be taken up until the middle of that very week!
Next, the police officer at our school has to do a 7-8 week program called "GREAT" for the 6th grade students about saying no to gangs and drugs. This is supposed to be during Social Studies class, since it is the least "high-stakes" of the subjects. I am in a social studies only classroom. So, this police officer came and told my teacher LAST WEEK that he would need one full day a week for the next 7 weeks to complete this program for the 6th graders. That's 7 days GONE out of this 9 weeks alone. Although I obviously understand the state requirements for this "GREAT" program and believe something of that sort is important, I also can't believe how much time is being taken away from their learning and from my teacher's time with them, with such little warning.
Have you all also witnessed this disorganization and last minute planning at your schools? Or is this more likely just the result of the specific administration of my school?
At Lockeland, I personally feel that we are given notice about an event, meeting, or time change way far in advance. However, we commonly overlook the change in block times on our ENCORE/intervention days. Our schedules are cut from 90 minute down to around 50 minutes. Each week, even though we know it happens weekly, we forget about this change and plan for the full 90 minutes. Its such an "smh" moment. It is written in for every week and it always skips our mind.
ReplyDeleteFire drills... UGH. You would think that they would tell you at the beginning of the week or maybe, if possible, the beginning of the month? They are telling us at lunch time that there will be a fire drill. This week, they told us that there was going to be a drill at 2:40 pm which was when the classes were going to switch from ENCORE/intervention back to their homeroom. NOT A GOOD IDEA. We had to then figure out how to fit in full intervention time. Would we take time from lunch? Cut a few minutes of intervention? Or let pandemonium break loose and just do it during the transition? I think administration should try a little harder to give fair notice about interruptions. I understand that there are some things that are going to pop up out of the blue, but if you know about it, your teachers should too!
Yes, flexibility is a key quality to have as a teacher!
ReplyDeleteOnce a week for a whole period wow that would be frustrating. At Hickman I would say flexibility has been a problem when talking about two things, RTI and Special Education.
ReplyDeleteRTI time has been the center of all stress for 1st grade. It took three planning meetings just to get the groups right and then another to get the timing right. They put it at the end of the day which some teachers liked, and others hated. My teacher rather it be at the beginning of the day so her instructional block wasn't broken up into choppy pieces. She had to be flexible and accept the fact it was going to be at the end of the day. The grouping also caused the teachers to use flexibility. It was like a football draft expect instead of using stats they were using AIMS WEB scores. My teacher ended up with the lowest tier one group. She didn't necessarily want that group but they volunteered caused no body else wanted to. Again being flexible.
Now, Special education is a center of stress for these teachers. The special education team is not making it easy on the teachers at all. They keep changing the times they come, and the times they take the students. My teacher lost her time with a para-professional which is really necessary since we have 5 special education students. My teacher had no say and had to be extremely flexible so that her students got the extra support and extra time out of the class that they needed.
Being flexible is hard. I would say I am pretty bad at since I am always planning weeks ahead, but this semester I learned that you can't expect everything and you just need to go with the flow as hard as that is. Nothing can't be fixed and I think as teachers we need to remember these types of hurdles are actually benefitting our students' education.
Yes, I am too learning that flexibility is essential for teaching. My teacher has been extremely open to any plans that I may have. Usually, she allows me to do anything that I want as long as it teaches the students the necessary skill. I am the type of person who likes to plan a week in advance, every week. However, there are some times that my teacher will ask me to do something differently the next day from what I planned. Although this does not go along with my initial plan, I change or tweak my lessons to satisfy what my teacher wants. This can be stressful at times, but I am learning that it is sometimes essential. Especially because we are using the peabody template, it can be frustrating to have to rewrite or change things in each section. I know my teacher does not have this problem because she usually just jots down information about her plans on a piece of paper and re using it from year to year.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this can be a problem, I still think that it is worth it to plan far in advance. It is better to be prepared and have time to change your plans and make them better than rush to create a "not as good" plan right before.