How can we do it all?

by Kate Castranova

As a student teacher, I have already spent countless hours on a social studies unit that will last for only two weeks. The unit is filled with fun activities, in-depth research, questioning from every level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and detailed lesson plans. As I was preparing my unit, I couldn’t fathom doing this for every lesson that I will have to teach when I am an educator. During my three semesters of being in a classroom, I have seen many teachers that read out of the book for a lesson and now I understand why. There isn’t possibly enough time in the day to make every lesson interactive and exciting for the students. As a future teacher I am still optimistic that I will be able to find a sense of balance between doing an intense unit for every lesson and reading out of the textbook. I don’t think that teachers can do it all, but I think they can try their best to create lessons that promote higher thinking than reading out of a textbook.