Thursday, October 2, 2008

First intersession...and my lesson plan dilemma

This week I'm off work due to our first two week intersession. It's been wonderful to relax, sleep in, watch TV, read books/magazines, cook, clean, and to finally feel "rested" after a hectic, yet wonderful first 10 weeks of school. In the back of my head tho, I'm carrying this burden of having to figure out this new lesson plan format. It might sound simple, but it's really not. The state of AZ has passed a ridiculous bill into law that requires a minimum of 4 hours of language instruction a day. Again, it may sound easy, but it's not. To get around the fact that what they are doing is segregation, i.e. having native English speakers in one class and non-native speakers in another, (which seemingly goes against their whole "immersion" theory, right??) they've decided NOT to count Math instruction as part of the 4 hours of language instruction. My question is this, do they realize how much vocabulary and language is actually taught in math? A LOT! Considering I teach math for over an hour a day, every day, including math in the required 4 hours would have been MUCH smarter than including social studies/science, which is taught only 30-45 minutes / day, 4 days a week. So...back to this lesson plan format; we now have five major areas of instruction to focus on: reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and listening/speaking. We have to take the components from those and cross-reference them with the other subjects (i.e. science/social studies), match them with a state standard, add curriculum, materials used and time spent on each one, and write it all down in a lesson plan format. You see, I consider myself a pretty smart girl (at least that's what it says on my college diplomas...literally "She's a very smart girl!" - just kidding...but it does say something about summa cum laude??? - whatever that means?? ;-), but I've spent HOURS trying to figure out the BEST way to get all of this down on paper...in one lesson plan format that will fit a weeks' worth of lessons on only two pieces of paper. I like my current plan format, I don't want to change it...it works for me, but adding all of this new information is killing my head. As of now, I can't wrap my brain around how all of this is going to work...on how I'm going to fit all of this into one document? I simply, in good conscience, cannot bring myself to use one piece of paper per day...to me that's an environmentally monumental waste of paper.

Thus my dilemma continues.

I'm going to take out a "wanted" ad in the newspaper...I was going to write the exact verbage here, but decided against it considering it would probably get me fired if taken seriously =)

1 comment:

Christina said...

Isn't it wonderful when politicians decide how the educational system should run? I feel your pain - as a special education teacher, I am constantly saddled with ridiculous federally mandated paperwork instead of focusing my efforts on serving the students.
--a friend of Heather's