Has anyone ever started a lesson and ended up not finishing completely because they were unhappy with how it was going? Now I didn't leave the kids hanging... we had a sense of completion at the end of the first class (I see mine twice a week) but it wasn't going well, and I just wanted to move on and not torture them/myself.
The lesson was Dance Josey, for some reference... we sang it, learned all the parts, and all we had to do was put all the parts together. But it wasn't going well, the kids were lax, and I thought... you know what, we could be doing something much more constructive. So I moved on to the next lesson I had planned, and the kids didn't notice and enjoyed the next lesson.
ALSO I want to point out that Dance Josey went AWESOME at school #1, but this was at school #2-- different clientele, different space...
Ugh!
Am I a bad teacher for this? Hahaa... thoughts?
No, I have had this same feeling before, I'll do a lesson with one class and it will be totally awesome, and then with the next class, they could care less. It does get to me sometimes, but I just move on. It is interesting how just a few personalities or a different environment can make one class ready to go and another not care less. So basically, no, I don't think you're alone in feeling this way!
ReplyDeleteAnd the same thing will happen in your 25th year!
ReplyDeletep.s. "moving on" when things need to change is a masterful thing to do (in my opinion!).
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post... I teach the same lesson 6 times to my sixth graders, and it morphs dramatically each time. By the end, it's nearly a new lesson!
ReplyDeleteAlso, for the first time with chorus this year, I chose this great a cappella piece, and rehearsed it once, found an awful youtube video of it, and totally dropped it. My students thought it was funny, and so did I! I'm never that indecisive, but do think changing the path when things aren't working out is a very important thing to do.