Of the day I f*$% ed up

I believe every teacher has, once or twice in ther lifetime, planned the greatest lesson ever!
That one lesson they believe the students will leave their classroom ecstatic, saying how much they loved the class!

And you plan every detail: what I am teaching, my context, how I am going to deliver it, the exercises, the dynamics, the sitting chart, the deodorant you´ll wear that day, the media used to incentive my students to participate! Everything planned, every detail!

But then...




It doesn´t work. At all. They simply don´t react to the class the way you imagined, the media used, even though it´s something they are used to, just doesn´t work, they are not interested and your best class ever doesn´t happen.

I think that every teacher has been through this before, but that doesn´t make it less frustrating; and you keep asking yourself: what did I do wrong?
From what I analyzed in today´s class, I didn´t entirely screw up my class by myself. When you plan a lesson, you draft the lesson with your students in mind: what they know, what they like, what they need to learn. You think about what kind of mistakes they might, possibly, make; the kind of doubts they might, possibly, have; the kind of questions they might, possibly, ask. But is it accurate?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!


How can we predict a person´s behavior? In today´s world, no matter how much you know a person, humans are utterly and completely unpredictable! As they should be!

So what happens when you planned a dynamic lesson, once you know your group is hyper, but they arrive totally tired because they had a school trip you didn´t know about the day before, so they aren´t 100% there for the class?
And what about when you plan an activity for your students to use their phones, but the wi-fi connection starts acting up (story of my life!)?
You get frustrated as hell.

When it comes to a lesson plan, I learned my lesson: I must, no doubt, plan my whole lesson thinking of my students: what they know, what they like, what they need to learn. Certainly I will think of my lesson as a guide. Like a GPS.

And just like when you´re driving and your GPS tells you to turn right, but you miss your turn because you thought it was the other corner (I DO have problems with directions), and your GPS starts to plan a different route, lesson plans can never be set in stone.

For our sake, we need the element of surprise in every class. How are my students going to react? Who knows! What mistakes are they going to make? Who cares! I just need to be there for them, guiding them and giving all the support they need. As a facilitator, my job is to facilitate their learning, not to predict their learning!

We need to be wowed by our students, as well as completely disappointed by our students.

And we need our failures, so we can learn. But please, don´t try to predict your own failures!