Reply to s/o Question for teachers - why do you rewrite your lesson plans each year?

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[quote=Anonymous]I am an elementary ESOL teacher and teach different grade levels pretty much every year. Also, I'm asked to support different content areas pretty much every year. The model in which I teach (plug in vs. pull out) can also change from year to year. So some years I might have access to technology like a Promethean board and some years everything has to be in hard copy. My students rarely have the same needs from year to year. Since we don't have a curriculum or resources provided, I've mapped out a general progression for my newcomers that I can follow from year to year but their needs can be so different. This year I pull out three newcomers in the same grade level. One can decode and write pretty well in English, but can't speak or comprehend. One can speak English fluently but has zero literacy skills. The third has some literacy skills in his native language but is in his silent period and won't practice anything having to do with speaking. Every lesson has to be differentiated for each student's needs. Then once I get into a groove a new student will arrive with completely different needs than the ones I'm already teaching.

Flexibility is really key and like the PP said, we're teaching students, not just curriculum. I work in classrooms with some teachers who send in all of their work to Copy Plus in August for the first two quarters and they're all smug about it. They have files on their computer organized by week so that they can just pull it up the week before and they're all set for the upcoming week because they don't change a thing from year to year. They don't reflect on what actually worked because they have a "this is what we're doing this year because this is what we have done every year" mentality. Is it easier for them? Sure. But they always have excuses for why students aren't grasping certain concepts and they don't question their own rigidity and one size fits all style as a contributing factor.

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