Today has proven to be anything but ordinary. Returning back to my classroom after a week off for winter break brings with it the understanding that anything can happen.

Because I truly took the week off, I returned needing to quickly photo copy papers, straighten up the classroom (which had been deep cleaned while we were away), and water the the plants and Hermie (our class hermit crab). These were the things I anticipated. What I did not plan for were the number of students arriving late due to weather related accidents and traffic congestion, a student with a bloody nose during class, and a middle schooler pulling his own tooth. Yes, you read that correctly, and these things all happened in the first hour of school.

The Unexpected Norm

The more I thought about this morning, I realized that there was nothing really unusual about today. Most days start in a similar fashion. One of the greatest teacher challenges- the unexpected.

This is not something that they teach you about in your education classes (or least not back in the ’90’s). Rather, I was taught to create a perfect plan, develop the perfect materials, and everything would go as planned. If only it were that easy. A more realistic lesson might have looked more like this:

• Create the perfect plan.
• Modify ten times to respond to current student interactions.
• Pause lesson to build background knowledge that the lesson plan assumed was already there.
• Change the order of your plan to give you time to respond with first aid treatment of a bloody nose and tooth pulling while still engaging the remainder of the class with the content.
• Give individual reteaching for students that arrived late due to traffic.
• Complete the lesson before my 42 minute class period is complete.

Somehow the end result looks very little like the original plan, but the lesson was still taught. My students still learned.

Why Plan?

One might even start to wonder why I might continue to create plans- knowing that there is a great chance I will need to change them on the spot. One might call it the “”Fluid Lesson Plan”. Even with the constant unexpected, I find myself still creating the perfect lesson, the perfect material and the perfect idea. However, I never use them exactly as planned.

This idea of planning is similar to how a coach will practice the “perfect” play with his team many times over. How often does this perfect plan get carried out exactly as practiced and prepared? Rarely, but what the practicing and preparing does allow is for the team to be in the right place at the right time to respond to the particularly circumstances in any given moment.

Teaching is the same. We practice. We prepare. We plan. All of this allows us to be in the right place at the right time to respond to any given classroom moment. This is what makes a great teacher.

If I never practice as a teacher, I will never be able to make the play at the right time. If I never plan the perfect lesson, I will never be able to respond in the moment. If I never create the perfect material, I will never have the opportunity to learn what will really work for my students.

Teachers- remember that leaving your lesson and idea does not mean you have failed in that moment of teaching. I would argue much the opposite. A teacher’s ability to adapt and adjust within the moment is the same as a team being able to respond instantly to the game moment set before them.

Do not let the “unexpected” frustrate you. Rather, I would encourage you to embrace it. You have planned. You have prepared. You have practiced. You are ready for this!