On Literature and Teaching

Be more jazz - Lesson plans and freedom As a student-teacher, one of the first things you are made to learn is how to phase a lesson: in terms of content (what to teach), goals (why teach it) and timing (how long for each phase of the lesson). Typically, that results in a Lesson Plan: a document listing your goals and learning aims for the learners, and showing how the lesson will go step-by-step. The idea is: if your lesson plan is well-designed, follow through with it and everything will be fine. As a teacher - and certainly as a more experienced teacher - your lesson plans tend to become shorter, with fewer details and fewer timings. You know by now that when you plan something for e.g. 10 minutes, a more realistic view of classrooms dictates that you can never be quite sure that those 10 minutes will be 10 minutes. Anything could happen, and 10 could become 2, or 20. But it remains your choice of course: phasing is important for variety, change of rhythms and focal points, and ther