LOVE/HATE BATTLE WITH LESSON PLANS!

I will start out saying that I love my career. I LOVE TO TEACH. I love planning lessons that capture and hold my students attention with engaging activities and opportunities to talk and learn with others in a structured/non-structured sort of way. I love to get my students moving around the room to work with others or in their seats to the beat of the latest song that sings about the content they need to know in order to analyze, synthesize, explain, apply, and evaluate. I love creating power points and flip charts of the day's lesson progression to keep us on track especially when I can embed fun aspects such as magic ink, hidden boxes, and other technological innovations. I just LOVE doing this! 

Now, onto the bane of my existence: WRITING LESSON PLANS! Yes, I know I have to write lesson plans in order to plan everything I mentioned above. BUT COME ON!!!! I have my Bachelor's degree from an accredited college that solidifies the fact that I learned, very well I must add, how to write and teach from a lesson plan. I also have my Master's degree in Ed Leadership from the same accredited college AND my SLLC certification that further solidifies that not only can I plan a lesson but I can actually go in and evaluate other teachers' lesson plans and actual lessons. These thesis-length plans that include everything EVERYTHING down to the questions I MIGHT ask [I feel these should be prompted as the lesson progresses and catered to the knowledge and needs of the students being taught at the time] are taking up MY WHOLE WEEKEND. If I only had one subject to plan for it would be ok. But not only do I have 2 core subjects but 2 core subjects at 2 different grade levels. Some teachers I know share lesson plans with others at their grade levels which I WOULD LOVE TO DO but I can not because I am the only one who teaches what I teach at my school. If I use someone else's plans from my district I have to tailor them to fit into the template required for my school. This takes me FOREVER. I not only have to write my thesis, but also have to include tests [which I am supposed to work from to write my plans...called Backward Design aka Teaching to the Test] bellwork and worksheets which many times I have to create because I don't have the resources that go with the curriculum that I am to follow. 

So, as I sit here, in my living room, procrastinating finishing my lesson plans at 4:55pm on a Sunday evening of one of the most beautiful weekends ever of which I had to stay inside to do all of this to be sure is ready email for tomorrow morning I realize I still have a mountain of papers to grade!

But, I think back to what I started with...I do it because I LOVE the end result: how it effects my students and the flow of my day.

Oh the JOYS of teaching are certainly SCIENCE DIVA CERTIFIED!