Winging It

In my college days, the importance of lesson planning was hammered home in teaching methods classes. So much so that I recall my first lesson plan was extraordinarily detailed:

Step 1: Walk in door
Step 2: Breathe
Step 3: Say, “Hello, I am Mr. Maestro…”
Step 3: …

Of course, I’m exaggerating here, but the level of detail was a little laughable and made for a pretty lengthy document. Even funnier still is that this overly detailed document only lasted me about 20 minutes through a 30 minute elementary music class!

When I started my first job as a middle school band director, my planning was considerably more brief, but detailed enough to get me through a given rehearsal. It would likely include concepts that I wanted to teach and the specific measure numbers I planned on rehearsing and perhaps a description of some sort of drill activity I had devised.

In over ten years as a middle school band director, my lesson plans became more and more brief. Most of the lesson planning was done when I picked out the literature for the concert we were working on. As I studied scores, I would identify concepts that needed to be taught and, especially if it was a piece I had taught before would know what bars would need to be worked on and what sorts of drills I would need to hammer home some of the key concepts.

By the time I had been at it for a few years, I was “winging-it” at many of my daily rehearsals. My planning was essentially done when I studied the scores. I could post the agenda on the board before we began and I had a picture in my head of what had to happen.

All of the rehearsals and classes of course went much better than the ridiculously over planned lesson from college.

This year I feel in some ways like a first year teacher teaching elementary music for the first time since my college days and my lesson plans are considerably more detailed than in my most recent years as a band director. Although I find that as the year draws to an end my plans are becoming more and more brief. When I was evaluated by the principal recently she asked for a lesson plan. I had about a dozen words scribbled in my plan book for that lesson, and expanded it to a more respectable page and a half to give to the principal, but all of that planning that I gave to the principal had already been in my head when I devised those dozen words in my plan book.

I don’t know if I should ever expect to “wing-it” in my elementary class room the way I was able to as a band director. As I get more familiar with the pedagogy necessary to teach some of the activities that I do and my personal repertoire of songs and activities grows, perhaps I’ll be able to once and I while.

In middle school band I could wing it because I had the big picture planned first. I knew where I was going and what I intended to teach on the way there. As a first year teacher I’m still working on what the big picture looks like. Sure, I know the state standards, but that may be too large of a picture. As I gain experience I expect I’ll be able to see the big picture and what order to teach that huge list of concepts in. For now, can a little extra planning hurt?