Homework Lasts Forever

Wow. It’s the seventh week of school already, and while I have settled into something of a routine, I still feel like a rank amateur. I’m sure I will for some time to come. As the days fly by, I have, however, come to realize that yes, I do love this job. (Despite the difficulties with certain classes, there are many more enjoyable moments.) We’ll see if this attitude holds for the rest of the school year.

These last few weeks, I haven’t been reflecting through writing as much as I should have been, but I have been thinking things over a lot. I’ve gotten at least a few areas of improvement pinned down (and fodder for the Professional Development Plan we’ll be required to hand in soon), especially in the area of lesson planning and classroom management.

Back when I was in college (as though that was so much longer than half a year ago) I was accustomed to a heavy workload. I took 17-18 hours a semester, spending my days and evenings working on papers and in the studio and studying for tests. I also was working to keep my academic scholarship, so good grades were doubly important. Now that I’m no longer in school, things are a little different.

It seems that there is a place in your brain that says around this time of year, “Shouldn’t I be turning in something? Do I have a test coming up?” For a while, your mind is stuck in the habit of being a student, hard to break after so many years. But there is a larger part that says, “Woo-hoo! No more school for the REST OF MY LIFE!” It is exultant. And there is something about that which makes you want to become utterly lazy. I don’t even have to create those monster lesson plans that we all have to use for our education courses, much less write up a detailed and thoughtful reflection – all of which were graded.

That’s not to say that I’m not putting any effort into my duties as a teacher—I am. But I could be working more efficiently, putting more thought into the week’s lessons. I utilize a great deal of lesson plans from other teachers. A few are my own, and I don’t expect that to change over night. As I learned during my student teaching, creating a meaningful and successful lesson plan or unit takes a lot of time and effort. I don’t have time to create one for every class all at once. It has to be gradual.

But when I am creating a lesson, or pulling ideas and giving them flesh, I still need to sit down and really plan out how it’s going to work. What are we going to talk about? What skill will we learn? In what order should things be presented?

It’s like I am flying by the seat of my pants.

It’s really hit home this week. My third graders started still lifes this week. I’ve never actually done still lifes with elementary kids before—or anyone for that matter. But I thought, “Hey, how hard can it be? I did them all the time when I was a student!” The problem is that I underestimated a third grader’s capacity for sheer bullheadedness. They ask you why and what the point is. They complain about their inability to draw whatever objects you have laid out. I didn’t take into consideration that they need to really build up to something like this. Drawing real objects can be tough for an adult artist, much less a child who may be still gaining control of their fine motor skills.

Thankfully, I can learn from my “guinea pig” classes. For the next class, instead of jumping right into the actual still life, we did exercises to help ease them into it. I also changed the objects being used. Because it’s fall, and I was at Wal-Mart anyhow, I picked up two of those cute mini pumpkins you see, a regular orange one and a white and orange striped one for variety. Their shapes are fairly easy to see and draw: an oval and a circle, ignoring the stems. Hopefully, this will bring the project down to a level that is easier to succeed at for my students, all without sacrificing the skills and ideas I am trying to teach them.

But again, this just hammers in that I really need to focus on planning better. I need to go step by step and consider, “Will this work?” I even need to plan out what I’m going to say—to a point. In other words, I need to pretend like I’m still in college, and these lesson plans are for a grade.

In a way, they are--intangibly. I’m being graded every time one of my students succeeds or fails, and I’m being graded on whether or not I did everything I could to help them succeed. If I haven’t, I’m already failing.