Pocket money and Potty training…
When I was at uni training to be a teacher the 5 Ps, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance became our mantra or at least that was the intention of our lecturers.
I found it a bit irritating to begin with but I could see where they were coming from. The bit I was most unhappy about was the hours I had to slave away to show lesson plans on paper format, my Sunday evenings were ruined. I always maintained that I never looked back on them once I had handed them over to the subject coordinators …never used my own copy during lessons…
With time I became a better teacher, almost a natural and I began to see the benefits of the 5 P’s ….if I didn’t deliver the best lesson, if I didn’t take every single one of my pupils’ abilities into account, if I didn’t have plan B just in case,if I didn’t plan extension exercises, if the resources were not ready…and so many more ifs ,it was a wasted hour for at least one if not more of the kids in my class.
I still hated having to write it all down but with practice comes what we call ‘naturality’…and after a couple of years I didn’t have to put every single detail on the planning sheet but I just had to be ready and make sure it was all there , in the head…
I adopted a new mantra that a headteacher passed on to me…’you may have another chance at that lesson but your class hasn’t , you move on and they are stuck until next term or even year….’
So , fast forward a few years, I’m not a teacher anymore but I apply the 5 P’s to other areas of my life….I hear some of you saying ‘what happened to spontaneity and flexibility and learning from the environment?’…. Well, let me tell you something…nothing wrong with any of them…nothing wrong with doing it your own way but I bet you anything that you plan even without realizing….your shopping list is planning to ensure you have everything you need to produce a lovely meal for your lovely family…your trips to the library are planned ahead…..Icould go on and on but I know you get me…
Pocket money…this I did not plan 🙂 but we all know that Allah is the best of planners …one day last week I got a call from a sister asking me if I could tutor her child…cut a long story short, he needs help and I’m going to get paid…pocket money to buy wool, fabrics and all other nice treats…and of course I are planing his lessons so that he benefits and learning is targeted, precise and intentional…after all accidental learing is very rear when it comes to punctuation or trigonometry…not that I’m teaching the latter!!!!!
Potty training I’ve been planning for a while and as I write this she is sitting on it having a laugh…it’s gonna be fun when my pupil comes later and finds baby sitting on the potty in front of the telly 🙂
Remind me again…what do we do when they manage a pee in the potty? Do you reward with sweets, stickers? Or do you do the happy dance around the potty?
Salaams y hasta la vista,
Ines
P.S pls ignore the dirt underneath the radiator, I only saw if when adding pic to this post…:(
Simply happInes 