I still remember my first weeks of teaching...with horror. In fact, I've likely never been more exhausted and demoralized in my life than during that stretch of time when, instead of all things being possible, it seemed nothing was possible. It seemed that I had made a terrible career mistake because teaching required too much of any one person to ever have hope of future success. Months passed before I finally began to feel like I wasn't teaching with my hair on fire.
Gradually, the minutia over which I labored each day became more automatic. With each passing day, more processes became routines, more importantly routines that did not require conscious thought. This allowed my conscious mind to focus, first on teaching methods and then my population of students. It was only then that I could delve into the world of integrated and integrative unit development, eventually leading to my current work with customized learning.
I was reminded of those exciting, yet demoralizing days recently at a workshop focused on developing units of study that incorporate three realms of learning - content, complex reasoning, and habits of the mind. As a teacher, I have become quite skilled at the first and dabbled a bit in the second, encouraging my students to think rather than just constantly absorb and spew out facts. However, that last realm, habits of the mind (perseverance, managing impulsivity, using feedback, etc.), has sat on the back burner for most of my career. When I moved it to the front, I once again felt like that new teacher, facing an impossible task.
One teacher at the workshop compared this task to "squeezing playdough through a keyhole," and she was spot on. By the end of the day, I left the session, excited about the possibilities of developing more effective units of study but daunted by the seemingly impossible task of creating them.
Upon reflection, I began to see the similarity between my initial teaching experiences and this bold new addition I'm trying to make to my teaching methods. Hopefully, as in my early years of teaching, the development of these enhanced units of study will become more routine. Though the task seems unrealistic at the moment, I hope that eventually, things will be just fine.
