This post was authored by Hannah LeBlanc.
I think it is safe to say that many teachers are control freaks. Or at least, many lower school teachers. We are in control in our classroom all day long. And sometimes this can lead us to thinking that what we do in our classroom is the end all be all. And while we do a lot of really important things in our classroom, sometimes we forget that these kids don’t stay in second grade forever. I find that I have total tunnel vision and a tendency to spiral when a student doesn’t quite grasp a subject they way they should. I start recreating the wheel and panicking. But the truth is, that’s the beauty of an elementary school education. You don’t just come across a given skill or topic once. You see it year, after year, after year. And sometimes, it’s a skill that has been taught forever, but isn’t all that useful.
A few months ago, while teaching a math unit on telling time, I had 2 or 3 students that struggled with the concept of “quarter to,” “half past,” or “5 minutes until.” I immediately went to my computer at my next break and found some activities with telling time using this vocabulary, creating extra practice sheets, and just generally spiraling. It wasn’t until I went to share all these fantastic, homemade activities that my coworkers graciously accepted my resources but questioned my sanity. Using this terminology was a one-day lesson in the unit. There was ONE question on the 18 point assessment that asked the students to use this terminology. Just one. The morale of the story, I guess, is before you spiral and crank out a bunch of resources like a madwoman, maybe ask yourself a few questions…. Is there a reason there aren’t all that many resources already provided in the curriculum materials? Is it something that will stand in the way of the overall comprehension of a topic? Will this one aspect of the unit keep a student from being successful overall? How important is it– how heavily weighted is this concept? And finally, will they come across this skill again later on?