Yesterday I felt like my classes got a little away from me, as though activities were sort of happening by themselves and I was just following along. I had carefully planned the lessons, as I always do, but, nevertheless, on many occasions I felt like the lessons were running me instead of the opposite. It wasn’t a good feeling. I felt like things were out of my control, and consequently I felt like a failure as a teacher. Later, I thought to myself, “I have to get control of things tomorrow!” – but then another thought came to me, an opposite one. Maybe, I thought, I need to give up some control. Perhaps the learning that occurred in my classroom today was profound and powerful, only I didn’t notice it because I was too engrossed in my own personal issues concerning control. While I was worrying about steering all the pieces of my lesson plan, perhaps the students were silently advancing because of the lesson. Sometimes, when I’m flustered and frustrated in my teaching, I feel like I’m standing in among mountains trying to supervise the winds. I’m wildly waving my arms and racing here and there, and, of course, the winds constantly escape my grasp. That was me in my classroom yesterday. Maybe I need to stop all the nonsense about control and just relax and appreciate whatever’s happening in my classroom. I always make a meticulous lesson plan, and maybe I just need to let the plan do its efficient work. I trust the wind to blow where it must; perhaps I need to trust my teaching, too.
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