THE MAN WITH THE PLAN

Here is another excerpt from my autobiography TEACHING IS HELL.

The lesson plan is to teaching what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptology. Without a lesson plan you are doomed to being an UNSATISFACTORY teacher, ready to be drummed out of the school system in disgrace. Chairpeople analyze your lesson plans the way Orthodox Jews dissect the Talmud. You can teach the greatest lesson in the world, one in which your kids exit the classroom communicting with God. But if you do not produce a lesson plan a U observation report will enter your file, and you are well on your way to being declard a TEACHER IN NEED OF IMPROVEMENT.

Placido Domingo can sing an aria without a score in front of him. James Levine could conduct the entire Ring Cycle without sheet music in front of him. Yet, if you teach lessons without the written plans you are ready to be court martialed. On many occassions administrators would open the door to my room, surruptitiously tiptoe in, pick up the LESSON PLAN from my desk, look at it for a minute, and then slither out the door. The Lord of the Universe found the plan to be ok, and the world can go on. Under this Byzantine system Plato and Socrates would have been issued U ratings, as the two never had lesson plans when they taught. The students could literally be jumping up and down but if your lesson plan is well written you're a great teacher. Usually the plans find the way into your file, often attached to your observation reports, a permanent archive of your teahing abilities.
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Millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted daily and countless hours of professional time are devoted to improving the almighty lesson plans. Workshops are devoted to improving the pivotal questions and medial summaries tucked away in the recesses of the plan. Questioning techniques are endlessly reviewed and debated, to see if they conform to the highest echelons of Bloom's Taxonomy. I'm sure that the kids who just completed a recent drug deal are extremely impressed by the expertise of the questions.

The less facts you place in your plan, the better off you are; as kids should never have to memorize facts. Knowing the names of illustrious people and ciritical historical events is not important; as long as students are aware of vague general concepts. Its not important to know who Stalin, Trotsky or Lenin was, as long as you just realize that Communism was something really terrible that negatively impacted the lives of the average Russian citizens.

Over the years chairmen have sat down with me after observations to dissect the lintrinsic meaning of the lesson plans. I was once told that the use of the phrase ERA OF RECONSTUCTION in my aim was incorrect. Everyone knows that it is the AGE OF RECONSTRUCTION. The fact that the emminent historian Kenneth Stampp wrote a classic work still used historyt courses at ivy league universities entitled the ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION is totally meaningless. Even though Stampp devoted his entire life to research on the Civil War and Reconstruction, his expertise can not hold a candle to the knowledge of a chairman such as Al Weiner. I remember once teaching a fantastic lesson on the economic causes and effects of the Reformation which piqued the interest of a class reading well below grade level. LIke most historical topics, this is really of not much interest to most of our clientelle. After looking at my lesson plan the chairman informed me that the lesson concentrated too much on the poltical repercussions of the Reformation and not enough on the religious aspects of the Reformation. This is why the taxpayers pay the chairmen the big bucks. I'm sure Johnny Smith would never have been arrested had I only been able to ask him, "Johnny, what did Martin Luther really mean by the phrase EVERY MAN IS HIS OWN PRIEST?"

If you have a great teacher who daily imparts knowledge to the kids, what does it matter what's in his lesson plan; or even if he has a lesson plan. A great teacher can even lecture to the kids part of the time, and get through to them. When I was in high school many really fantastic teachers never used developmental lesson plans. My terriffic American History teacher, who inspired me to teach social studies, never put an aim on the board in her life. She really knew her stuff, and you really learned U.S. History. You also learned tons of facts, a dirty word in today's educational milieu. She never asked pivotal questions nor had medial summaries. I hate to say this, and teachers are not allowed to say this, but the kids basically know nothing about history, nor any other subject for that matter. If they did, there would be no need for them to attend school in the first place. A qualified teacher with a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in their subject field knows alot more than the kids. He should be imparting this knowledge to the youngsters in any way, shape or form he deems appropriate at the moment. If the kids learn the subject matter, and pass the almighty Regents of course, what difference should it make how he does it? He's the doctor and kids are the patients.

The secret ingredients in a lesson plan change every year. The Board pays millions of taxpayer dollars to the best and the brightest to think up new innovative changes to the Torahs of education. A few years ago the gurus at the Board ascended the mountain, came down with new tablets and decreed that every lesson plan must provide for ten minutes of GROUP WORK. With periods of roughly forty minutes in length, 25% of the lesson consists of GROUP WORK. Theoretically the youngsters are supposed to be sitting around in small groups delving deeper into the topic of the lesson. Kids are are virtually illiterate allegedly become now become mentors and gurus to their fellow students as the blind lead the blind. In the middle of the period when the kids have calmed down and settled into the lesson the teacher instructs them to rise and move around into groups. The teacher must then calm them down again when the groups are formed. Presto! After the ten minute dosage of group work the kids must arise again, return to their assigned seats, be calmed down and be re-engaged in the lesson. In practical terms much more than ten minutes are consumed in this constructive waste of time.

Back in 1980 the Board of Education required all lesson plans to contain a five minute dosage of reading and writing. At the start of the period teachers were required to provide a handout with a few paragraphs to read, accompanied by a provacative question to answer and discuss. While the idea may sound great on paper, not even John Dewey cold do all of this in five minutes. No adult could meaningfully accomplish this in five minutes. However, nothing was too difficult for kids who could write research papers in one day. Any lesson that failed to have the five minute reading and writing was automatically judged unsatisfactory.

This was the Board's great idea on teaching the kids reading. You could learn to read, write, analyze and discuss all in less time than it takes to go to the bathroom. I could never understand why kids couldn't read at home? Or why they couldn't read entire books and write book reviews? Or read a number of books and write a real research paper? None of these were allowed to substitue for those five precious minutes.

Today, the five minute reading-writing drill has simply morphed into a DO NOW. Here at Brooklyn Tech (and all other high schools) every teacher has a short reading and writing assignment on the blackboard when the kids walk into the room. In the 70's the Do Nows were strictly junior high fare, designed to calm down immature students at the start of the period. In a sign of progress, this ritual is now incorporated into high school routines.

If you add together the time wasted in the Do Nows and the group work, more than half of the period is eaten up. If you tally up the half periods countless precious hours of each day are pissed away with Potemkin Village make-work and busy work. To an outsider it would probably appear that real learning is transpiring, when in fact nothing of significance is taking place. Then Klein and the powers that be will proclaim that we have to extend the school day by an hour a two so that kids can assimilate more knowlege, and real learning can take place. In another Gilbert and Sullivan paradox more time is wasted during the school day, so that the day can be extended to make up for squandered minutes.

Moreover, whenever the faux reading scores and bogus and fudged test results move up, the politicians and the media all cry in unison. "It's the extended day and/or our new accountablitly systems that have enabled our kids to see God and enter the promised land of milk and honey." The entire charade reminds me of a Caldecott Award winning classic children's book entitled Frog and Toad Are Friends, by Arnold Lobel. In one chapter Frog plants a seed in the ground and then sits by the earth reading poetry to the seed. As the days go by he serenades the planted spot with violin music. When the seed begins to grow into a plant he proudly explains to Toad how the plant only appeared because of his poetry reading and musical serenades.