The Value of Lesson Plans
Snoop, that’s me, is married to a talented and beautiful teacher (who is not looking over his shoulder, thank you very much). She teaches at, arguably, a very shitty public school. The academic year has just ended and this year is the first year at their school with a new Principal, a man who seems effective if dishonest and shall we say Napoleonic.
What I’m getting at is that teachers fled this school like rats on a cruise ship that is simultaneously burning, sinking and playing the Three’s Company TV theme song on an endless loop.
Lesson plans are ridiculous because no one follows them anyway.
Time travel with me to a retirement party, packed with teachers who are considered (by themselves) to be the better teachers at this school. It’s a teacher party, so the level of elegance is about on par with a barn social. As a joke, one teacher, let’s call him Coach David, gives the retiree his (David’s) lesson plan for the year…for the previous year. The joke being that they are late, as usual. Further joke: the folder is empty! Cue the laugh track.
An observing teacher quickly remarks, and is received with knowing smiles and nods, that lesson plans are ridiculous because no one follows them anyway.
Is he a Rotten Apple, ignoring a vital educational tool and undermining our War on Education? Or, do the majority of teachers work this way: they create lesson plans to satisfy a micro-managing bureaucracy and then promptly discard them and shoot from the hip, so to speak, in the classroom?
Is the administration the Rotten Apple? Are they piling layers of useless paperwork on a staff of underpaid and overworked soldiers?
Between fire drills, room scheduling conflicts, assemblies, tornado drills, lock downs, FCAT tutoring pull-outs, and other interruptions, lesson plans go out the window.
My wife says that she does follow her lesson plans to a certain extent, but that planning two weeks out is impossible. Between fire drills, room scheduling conflicts, assemblies, tornado drills, lock downs, FCAT tutoring pull-outs, and other interruptions, the plans go out the window–single file, in an orderly fashion and without talking until they reach the far side of the parking lot. Let’s not even consider that half-days are wasted days and that teachers are more and more losing their planning periods in exchange for duty…or maybe doodie is apropos. Even without all these interruptions to learning, sometimes the kids don’t get the material and moving on because of a schedule just won’t work.
At my wife’s school, there are teachers who barely speak English. One reads the newspaper during class instead of teaching.
I’m thinking that the requirement to submit lesson plans is a feeble attempt to identify Rotten Apple Teachers, or at least an attempt to make sure that they are doing what they are supposed to. There are plenty of useless teachers who are soaking up money, space and air without giving even 10% to their students. At my wife’s school, there are teachers who barely speak English. One reads the newspaper during class instead of teaching. Teachers like that we need to axe, and fast.
In theory, the lesson plan requirement could trip them up and create a paper trail that enables an earnest Principal to start the three-year process required to fire a bad teacher. Yes, three years. Thanks a bunch, Teacher’s Union!
Don’t worry, those bad teachers will just request a voluntary transfer to another school. And the Principal will both approve the transfer and give the bum a good reference. Why not? It takes the problem out of the Principal’s hair and is a whole lot easier than fighting the union to fire the teacher.
Who cares about the innocent students/victims in the new school?
