Long time, no see, everyone! *

Wow - a two week hiatus and we're back! Although I'm ashamed I didn't decide to keep up with my Internet writings, I am glad for the much needed break!
Well, after a wonderful week with my 3rd graders followed by an even more wonderful week of NO SCHOOL, it's back to business! So let's get started, shall we?

Maybe it's the fact that I've had a week off so I'm officially lazy, or maybe it's the craziness that goes along with enacting a week-long unit plan. Either way, the readings we had over the break hit very close to home in terms of teacher planning. Yes, a week is manageable. I say that, and yet I found myself making last-minute changes to each day's plans, specifying activities to work better for my students, or improvising pieces that I hadn't anticipated. It's all very exciting (especially when things go well!) ... and also somewhat chaotic!
So thinking about planning across the year - whether it be a for a multi-genre writing project or a writing workshop, or even a math unit - is extremely daunting to me.

The Allen and Swistak article mentions over and over again how the two teachers alter their plans as they go through this process. Over time, they say, they've eventually developed a plan that works well for their students. Even the chapter in our writing workshop mentions that their unit plans for upper and lower grades are just suggestions - you can and perhaps should make changes based upon your experience and what your students need. So after a few tries, I should have a nice plan ironed out.

Great. So in 4 - 5 years I might have everything sorted out. Does this learn-by-trying process intimidate anyone else?

I know it's somewhat of a negative attitude to think about the length of time it will take to feel even remotely comfortable about teaching. Even this is assuming you're in the same teaching position over the next 5 years. But I promise I'm not trying to be a downer. Just stick with me. :-)

I really enjoyed the quote at the end of the Allen article contrasting "planning" with "preparing": "Preparing is different ... In preparing we always expect diversity of outcomes. In preparing we enlarge the future in our imagination ... [and] we work to make ourselves ready."

This one quote validates everything that our education cohort is trying to accomplish in four semesters of college. At this point in the semester when I - and I'm sure other students will join in this with me - am ready to throw in the towel and be done with this whole "school thing," I'm reassured that I'm where I need to be. All this lesson planning, writing down observations, reading hundreds of pages of other teachers' observations (Thanks, Paley), and last but not least vacuuming the glitter off the carpet from where I spent hours making a poster for a guided reading lesson that will last 30 minutes - these all mean something.

It's all a part of preparing.

So now I'm a little more ready to get back into the semester. Bring on those focus lesson drafts and the reading assessments. Ask me to fill out another worksheet of things I've contributed to my mentor classroom. (Preferably not all at once, please.) While I might groan occasionally, I understand that it's all important and pertinent to what I will be doing all by myself in less than a year.

Okay ... maybe not all by myself. There will be 59 other new teachers out there going through the same thing. We can help each other. Not to mention an entire school of experienced teachers and personnel that can also help a first-time teacher. Slowly but surely we will all move from that "prep" stage to the "perform" stage.

Can't say I'm totally ready, but hey, I've got the rest of my life to learn how, right?
Whew. Okay - let's do this: ready, set, WRITE! (especially if you have any suggestions for a future teacher)