Hello my dear friends! Teacher Omi here with some thoughts on what to do when lesson plans fail. When you forgot an essential material, when the instructions of the package didn't work out, or when someone or something derails it. Here are ways to learn from mistakes when lessons go awry.
I got the idea to write about this from (this will sound odd) my CPTSD dreams. I struggle with very realistic trauma dreams in which I'm expected to be caring for or teaching kids who are out of control in a very chaotic environment in which I have no experience with. It's funny because even in nightmares, my teacher brain takes over and I try to make lesson plans with straw as it were. What I mean is that improvising has become second and even sleep nature. So what can we learn from that?
First, one thing to know about kids is that they are always learning. What they learn may be positive, or it may be less so. So if you panic when things don't work, they will learn that mistakes are fails, fails are catastrophes and so it's unforgivable to "fail" Now, why do we panic as teachers and homeschoolers? (raising my hand to own up to this one). I've found it's usually because we are afraid that we have let someone down. That WE are failures. And being the great imitators they are, kids learn that they are failures in turn.
BUT and this is a big but (small LOL) if we model patience, ingenuity and sangfroid in the face of what looks like catastrophe, guess who else will learn to do that? Yep, your students/kids. I witnessed an example of this making gingerbread houses with some of my grandkids. Now if you've ever put together one of those kits with kids you'll know that they are a fail in themselves, especially the little village ones. They never turn out like the picture. Particularly when made by young kids. And that is NOT the fault of the kids or adults. (I believe they're made to fail so we have to buy more 😅) But I digress.
What impressed me was how mom handled this. When she saw they weren't working, she didn't get upset. She just did her best, let the children decorate as they wished and complimented them on their designs. The kids had a ball, which was actually the point of the exercise. What fun is making replicas that thousands have made before? Much better to use creativity. So what it ends up a gingerbread yurt? Uzbeks deserve holiday trimming too! Which would be a great craft to life connection in itself--who lives in what shaped houses and why?
And what else did we learn? One thing was to read directions closely. I broke a few because I didn't trust that the score lines would work and used a knife. And some lines didn't work and broke anyway. We also learned that because we missed the part about decorating the rooves first, it was hard to do it when constructed. But then, the rooves were too heavy for the house structure even without decorations. This taught us some vital STEM and designs concepts of load bearing walls, weight displacement etc. I actually recommend using gingerbread kits as lesson plans with older students to learn engineering, construction and more.
Best of all, we learned that oh-so-critical thinking skill of improvising. One of my favorite things to explore with kids is improv and workarounds. When you don't have this, use that kind of thing (no buttermilk, add vinegar to milk). This is not something you drill into students but rather help them find resources to do. And Google is a great friend here. You'll find countless ideas to substitute for about anything you could need. We made litmus test strips from paper and red cabbage, for example.
And back to staying calm in crisis. #1 very few things are real crises. Having said that, the best way to avoid lesson plan fail is to prepare, prepare, prepare. Gather materials and know your content. But even then, I've done science experiments in front of large groups of students that fell flat. And my first response is what can we learn from this? So first I make a joke to show it's okay. Next we go back to the directions to see if we missed anything.
After that we try to find out what went wrong. Was something too cold, out of date, etc. This is where your science journals are invaluable. In the case of the gingerbread houses, I would have kids note that the rooves usually can't handle as much decoration as the picture shows. And an extrapolation from that is snow and ice on a real roof and why too much weakens them. I like to get as much practical wisdom out of lesson plans as possible. That's the whole point of education.
Now for the best part. Have the students brainstorm on workarounds, alternate ideas, what to do differently, what we can take away from this, etc. List on the board all the ideas. You might even break them up into small focus groups to experiment. Using the gingerbread house example, one group might compare results of different size houses. Another might explore different configurations. Yet another might test decorating the roof before and after. Another, methods of breaking up the pieces. Another, alternate gingerbread and icing recipes. One simple workaround is to forego gingerbread altogether and use cardboard or paper. You can't eat it anyway.
It took Thomas Edison 3,000 (!!) tries to find the right material for the lightbulb filament. But finally perseverance paid off. I honestly think the fails are so much more educational and fun than the successes. And a lot of my students have agreed.
