Defending or rather… Justifying my last post!

I’ve thought, or rather, reflected long and hard about my last post  in which I declared that I hated planning…..

I fear that I may have insinuated that I think planning is a worthless task, which I do not.

In an effort to justify my position, I googled (by talking to my phone- I LOVE google ‘text-to-speech!) Teachers hate planning and to my delight found A LOT of blog posts by teachers raving about this issue as well!

“Hurrah!” I thought! “I’m NOT going to be a complete failure as a teacher after all! There are others who feel the same way!!”

THIS post by frustrated teacher Jeff states that he hasn’t used a ‘formal’ lesson plan in 6 years and yet still ‘plans his ass off’ because it makes his teaching better.

I realised after reading Jeff’s post that it’s not the actual planning I hate, but the formal planning which includes all the standards and practices which prove we are covering all the requirements of the curriculum etc etc etc!

Fitting everything into templates! Bluck!

Marilyn, another teacher who describes her love/hate relationship with planning states exactly the same thing! Having planned a series of lessons that worked well and she was happy to keep – her school changed their templates………. it was harder to adapt what was in her original lesson templates to fit the new templates than it was to just re-write them……

Overwhelming sense of relief! I’m not training in the wrong profession after all!

I really hope I’m able to plan my way ,with my own templates, that I know work for me when I am a qualified teacher!

Reading this series of posts on the topic of planning was both encouraging and disheartening but eye opening none the less!

And now I can progress in my own planning, having justified my position (hopefully) and at the very least, comforting myself that I am not going to be a useless teacher just because I don’t enjoy this very important aspect of teaching………… I think………