When I think back to teaching high school, one of the most dreaded things was writing lesson plans. I realize now that great teachers should not have to write these. Great teachers should worry about teaching great lessons. Looking back, I realize I wasted a huge amount of time writing lesson plans that I never really used and ones that nobody really looked at. So why all the fuss?
It seems that the administration personnel in many schools use lesson plan writing as a way to keep the pack in line. It really is more a control thing than anything else. From my experience, I spent way too much time fretting about writing plans that nobody cared about. All my other colleagues as well hated the practice and dreaded the task. Not one thought there was any value to it. Teachers have far too many responsibilities to be forced to writing weekly or daily lesson plans. Indeed, what you get out of compulsory lesson plan writing is the same stuff you get out of the history exam essay: a lot of fluff between a few--if at all--worthy facts.
As a teacher of high school mathematics, I now realize that I had available many resources which would have obviated my need to write plans. Nowadays, you can go online and get good lesson plans and other materials at many sites. (See math-drills.com for some good math worksheets and other interesting stuff that could help you plan many lessons.) Any good school should make available to its teachers lesson plan books from which teachers can choose. Administrations should worry more about hiring competent teachers and then letting them do their jobs. After all, any good teacher can take a rough sketch and turn it into a fine drawing.
When I taught algebra, for example, I would spend countless hours every week preparing lesson plans for material which has been taught for hundreds of years. This task was done so that I, like the rest of the good soldiers, could turn these in to the "head honchos" in administration. The amount of time, effort--not to mention paper--wasted on this mundane of all mundane tasks was astronomical. This practice has to be changed.
First of all, schools should have available for any subject, loads of prepared lesson plan books from which a teacher can select and choose the most appropriate lessons. Thus, if you are teaching Algebra I and you are covering linear equations, you should be able to pull out one or two page lessons, replete with strategies, real-life examples, practice examples, and homework, for this particular topic. If you are teaching Spanish I and are covering stem-changing verbs, you should be able to pull out pre-written lesson plans for this topic. Why should you have to spend hours if not days pondering what you are going to teach, how you are going to teach it, and oh--by the way--how you are going to write your lesson plan; all the while stressing over your hundred and fifty unmarked papers, the two new quizzes you have to make up, the grades you have to submit next week, the teacher's conference meeting you have to attend after school, the five parents you have to call back, the extra help you have to give after school... you get the point.
Any person who has taught knows how hard teaching is. You have to do it to really feel the stress and pressure that this job creates. Why make it any harder than it has to be for the teachers? Administrators: start streamlining some things and start providing your teachers with more of the tools they need. One good place to start would be providing them with lesson plan resources. Then maybe they can worry about teaching not writing lesson plans.
To visit Joe's author page on Amazon and see how his mathematical talent has been used to forge a beautiful collection of love poetry, click below to get the kindle version. You will then see the many connections between mathematics and love.
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