Be Flexible

I am quickly learning not to plan to far ahead. In the beginning I was making lesson plans that had really specific time frames for everything I wanted to do in class. Now I am allowing a lot more time for warms ups, reading, and activities. When I originally wrote my lesson plans I thought I would be starting Act 2 of Macbeth today with the graphic novel...so I have all my lessons for that already mapped out and my copies made since last week...but instead today we finished Act 1. I find I am planning that flexibility into my lessons now. I still include where I want to be at the end of a lesson...but I plan for what I will do if that doesn't happen.

I still create a plan that has what I want to get through in the next two weeks but I don't obsess about getting each lesson plan made until it is a little closer to the actual day for that lesson. Between fire drills, assemblies, and other interruptions its hard to get through the entire "plan". Things that I wanted to have finished end up spilling into the next day which is fine I just adjust and make time. The more comfortable I get with teaching though the better I feel about being flexible.

I am also trying to decide how flexible I want to be as a teacher when it comes to taking late work. It seems the general rule in the class is that students can hand in late work right up until the end of the quarter even if it is assignments from day 1 of the quarter. Obviously during student teaching I will follow what my CT does and accept it but I don't know how I will actually feel about it when I am a teacher. I can see giving students a certain amount of time to make things up...but just an example of how students take advantage of being able to do there make up work whenever---I have three girls in one of my classes who still haven't finished a test that my CT gave them three weeks ago...she has completely handed that class over to me so it is my responsibility to make sure they finish it...if they don't finish the test by the end of the quarter it gets graded as is. They have been telling me they will come during advisory to finish it but then never show up. Seriously...How long should a student get to finish a test? an entire quarter seems unreasonable to me. I am willing to be flexible with late work but I still think that there needs to be a time limit.