I am, by nature, a “planner.” I thoroughly enjoy mapping out calendars, making to-do lists, and generally knowing what’s going to happen roughly a year in advance.
I love Google Calendar, Google Keep, and the Note application on my iPad. I plan out Girl Scout meetings for my daughter’s troop 14 months in advance; I booked Santa for our 2016 Christmas party in April. Yes. April.
This is why my choice to work as an EBD teacher is a strange one. If ever there were a profession shrouded in daily uncertainty and constant change, this would be it. I probably should have been an accountant or something; I think I’d have loved being a plumber like my late grandfather. However, the Forces of the Universe led me here, and, in the words of the Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you want…but sometimes, you get what you need.”
It would appear that I needed to learn to be a more responsive and flexible person. I’m working on it.
I was thinking back to a conversation I had with a colleague a couple of years ago. Being a planner, I always had my lesson plans mapped out and turned in weeks in advance. When I was an English teacher, this worked pretty well; with a few adjustments here and there, I was able to follow the roadmap throughout the school year.
Once I started teaching Social Skills with EBD kids, I got a crash-course in paradigm shifting.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am STILL a planner. I mean, I LITERALLY wrote the book on how to teach a high school social skills class for teens with EBD. I believe in having a plan. However, I also believe in knowing when to set the plan aside in order to meet kids’ needs.
In the world of social skills (as with a lot of things), you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot…even when you’ve got a kickass lesson planned that you’re DYING to do TODAY. When a kid comes in, crying, because she can’t make friends to sit with at lunch, she’s not going to get much out of your planned lesson on assignment prioritization. She needs a lesson on how to make friends. Today. Not next week, when it’s more convenient. So…your lesson about assignment prioritization gets set aside for another day, and you teach a lesson about the steps in making friends (I really do have a bunch of lessons about this).
I guess this is where my near-obsessive planning can come in handy. I probably have a lesson about making friends ready to go (and probably in a labeled baggie, inside a labeled tub). A lot of teachers would just say “have a discussion,” but I think that just having a free-for-all chat can create more stress for the kid. See? It all comes full circle! Copious planning allows for spontaneity! Spontaneity allows for timely lessons that mean something to the students!
What does this mean for teachers?
As you think of lessons, write them down. Prepare the needed materials. Then, set them aside for a rainy day. Make a plan…but be ready to change it to something even better. Who knows? You may end up with enough lessons to self-publish a book.
