Plans are good

I really like floor plans. I don't understand all the little marks on blue prints (I have friends I can consult for that info, though, so I don't feel like I really need to know it), but I LOVE looking at them. I love to get an overarching idea of what a building's layout is going to be like. It helps me envision the possibilities of what that house might do - if the living room and dining room and kitchen are all open to each other, I predict lots of big conversations and noise and people bumping into each other at parties. If the closets are big in the bedrooms, I predict people will have many clothes and ideas about fashion, and they'll either be organized and orderly, or chaotic and random. If there are windowseats or large windows, I predict people might like to sit and look out, maybe soaking up sunshine and allowing their creative thoughts to run rampant. And breakfast nooks make me think of omelets and pancakes and waffles and oatmeal and breakfasts served in PJs and bathrobes with slippers.

House plans make me think of families, and families make me think of possibilities and potential and conflicts and growth and communication and relationships.

In contemplating how I feel about house plans and what kinds of thoughts and ideas they stimulate in me, I realized how important a plan can be for creativity. I typically think of plans as squelching creativity, but perhaps I NEED a plan to fully employ my creative abilities? Now THAT'S a thought!

I am typing this after pulling out a large piece of sketch-pad paper (I looked for large graph paper but I couldn't find any) and sitting down on the floor in my parents' living room to make a table (of sorts) on the paper. Across the top I wrote, "Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur" and down the left side I wrote "Week 1, Week 2, Week 3" etc, to "Week 7." I opened the two math books I'm primarily going to work from for this Math 1-2 class, and I sketched out what I was going to aim to do each day - from "Place value rules for Adding" to "Rounding and Adding" to "Correlation between fractions, decimals, and percents" to "Applying Addition and Subtraction: story problems and student's developed problems." Across the top I wrote, "Last 10 minutes of class: Application of today's lesson" and about every week I have "review and quiz over such-and-such concepts."

Know what? I feel a LOT better having this sort of structure! I also had the learning standards in front of me, and as I went through the books, looking at each chapter, I wrote in pencil at the top of the page what standard that chapter met. I think the more specific standards I'll have to hit on during a week-by-week or day-by-day basis, but I still have SOME idea that what I'm covering is, in fact, going to meet the standards I need to meet.

As for passing tests and funding for the program, etc, I'm not going to worry about that right now. My job is to teach math and teach the math skills the standards set out for me. I'll focus on that aspect, and let the "program" worry about whether those standards are meeting the requirements for the tests...

See? Plans are good. Plans aren't just good, they're great! And they have so much potential...