Insanity

When it rains it pours.

Life is good right now, but oh-so-hectic. It's the beginning of the trimester, which is alternately good and slightly insane. There's a new group of kids, new topics, which is fun and interesting, but the bad news is that in this first three weeks, we need to write unit plans.

I can hardly complain; at my old job, we had to turn in lesson plans for EVERY DAY. Now, we just have to turn in one vague document at the beginning of the trimester outlining what we're doing, and that's it. Done. So it's not such a big deal. But it is more work that the rest of the trimester, and it's a lot at once. Add on top of that the small matter of a wedding, and life can be pretty crazy.

I had an interesting conversation with my supervisor last week, about the rubrics we write that go along with the unit plans. I was asking her about some logistics in writing and using rubrics to assess students, and she said to me, "You know, I've meant to tell you...your rubrics are way detailed." The underlying hint was, "Dude, you don't need to work so hard." I've seen some rubrics/unit plans from other teachers, which, to be fair, are far more simplified, and I can see the appeal in that -- quicker to get done, can apply to more than one student, more flexibility on a class to class basis, etc. And I struggle with things like this, when I know that I could very well make things easier on myself and still be within the acceptable range. But I have a drive to overthink, overdo, overplan, and it really helps me to go into class feeling prepared. I know what's coming up week to week, I know the trajectory my students and I are taking, and coming from an education background, I can't feel ok with NOT giving each student and their class the personal attention of a thoughtful and personalized unit. So I toil, and give in to my slightly OCD nature on things like this, getting everything done just so. It's dually a gift and a burden, like so many things.