Have a Good Life

As I finish my first year teaching, I have opportunity to look back on how the year has gone and see where I have been and what I have learned.

#1. I did not do a very good job at planning. That is a real struggle for me. One thing that I am really good at is "winging it" and the problem with that is that I don't plan ahead as well as I should. For instance, I would plan my days by saying, "What do I need to do tomorrow?" There was no over-arching plan for the whole, or even for the whole quarter. One thing that I liked about college was that each teacher gave a syllabus for the whole semester. That made it really easy to budget my time as a student and plan for big assignments. It is a little easier in college to use/create a syllabus, because there is less new information, and more depth. In middle school, at least here, it felt like there was a lot of new information for my students. I don't think it is impossible, but just more difficult.

Contributors to #1: Grad school made it very difficult to have enough time to prepare really well each day. Homework, research, class time, and driving to and from school during the week takes a lot of time. My own laziness makes it hard to plan as well.

Changes I should make regarding #1:

• I should create an overarching theme for next year.
  
• I should give a syllabus for at least each quarter.
  
• If I know where I am going, it will be easier to get there.

If I can do these things, I think that I will have a better year. Knowing when and what I need to do for my students for the whole year will make the day-to-day planning a little easier. That way I can have an idea in my mind of what we need to do.