No ifs, ands or buts: Lesson planning is a necessary evil of a teacher’s life. No matter how much we whine and stomp our feet, it’s here to stay. That’s why we decided to make this fun list of the feelings teachers experience when they lesson-plan (because humor can cure all!).
Here are 10 things only a teacher would understand about lesson planning:
1. When you realize five minutes before class that maybe you were a teensy bit ambitious and will now have to cut half the lesson out.
2. Or when you realize you underestimated the time it would take your students to complete the activity, and you have to frantically come up with something educational that your kids can do … like right now.
3. When it’s exam time and your students won’t stop asking for an open-book test, despite your attempts to prepare them.
4. When you let your students pick their own groups and things quickly get out of hand.
5. When you lesson-plan late at night and are distracted by Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat … just like your students.
6. When there was that one time you somehow found time to finish your lesson plans at school.
7. When you’re so confident your class understands, and at least one student clearly doesn’t.
8. When everything goes as planned.
9. When the thought of creating a sub plan makes you want to cancel that much-needed vacation day.
10. When your class makes every hour you spend planning so TOTALLY WORTH IT because you can see the genuine understanding in their eyes.
At the end of the day, lesson planning is here to stay. Luckily, there is an ahhh-mazing resource dedicated to making lesson planning easier: TES Teach With Blendspace. It’s filled with teacher-created lessons that you can browse and use in your own classrooms—like this French lesson on Benin in which the teacher put students in contact with a Peace Corps volunteer, and this lesson that uses roller coasters to teach students STEM skills. The best part? If you sign up on the site (it’s free!), you can create and organize your own lessons too.
We told you you’d love it. Check it out for yourself!