Today I had the opportunity to teach a reading lesson to a room full of 6th graders. It was evidence to me that no matter how well planned, rehearsed, edited and re-hashed, there is likely to be the need to change direction, shorten, re-think, and maybe even scrap the whole thing! I worked really hard on this read aloud and was very confident going into it.
For some reason, BOTH of my watches had dead batteries this morning and I considered that to either be a bad omen or a sign that I needn't worry about the clock. As it turned out, I needed to worry about the clock. Though I'd read through the story several times, it seemed to get longer and longer as I read. Fortunately, it was a story that gripped the students' attention and inspired them to raise their hands, but I was very short on the time that I had planned for an assignment for them to show what they'd learned.
So now I'm editing. I'm giving the same lesson again tomorrow but it will be better, cleaner, smoother, and . . . shorter.
I'm starting to appreciate how much I learn from lessons that don't go as I planned...and how the best teachers learn from every lesson they give, because the best teachers always see ways they could improve their lessons. That's one of the many cool things about teaching - that it puts us on a road of permanent improvement.
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