The idiot train has made a stop and let off a passenger. It is me.
I am off the idiot train, but I still have my idiot baggage and I’m unsure what is in it, but at least I am no longer on that train. (You never know when you are on the idiot train, you usually just have the suspicion).
Why have I been let off of the idiot train? I will tell you, even though I don’t want to, because I’m really embarrassed.
I learned how to write down my lessons this week. Like, write down what I want to say, and exactly what I want to write on the blackboard. I was not doing that before. And my explanations sucked and the kids were usually left wondering what the hell they were supposed to do.
So I came to the conclusion myself that it would probably be good to write a thorough lesson plan and glance at it while I did class. Here is the surprise: it worked, and I felt calm and competent.
I have completely re-invented the wheel this year, as shown by this “breakthrough” of mine. No one ever told me that writing stuff down was a good idea, probably because they thought it was too obvious and patronizing to tell me. (I mean I write stuff down, but just a vague idea of what I want to do) I didn’t get far enough in the school of ed at Uconn to reach the “practical ideas for a classroom” part, because the first semester was basically bull. And I didn’t think of the idea on my own for a while. Stupid, maybe, but that is how it happened.
It’s like people don’t automatically know how to be parents when they have a baby, and people don’t automatically know how to be teachers when stuck in a classroom. Right?
