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Summer Project: Tweaking Those Flawed Lessons

By Marsha Ratzel

Every summer I collapse with exhaustion, thankful I made it through another year. About a week into the summer, my refreshed brain starts wondering “What if?” and I know I’m in for a wild ride. I think about all the lessons that faltered or failed and scan my teacher’s toolbox for ways to re-craft the experience so it will have a different outcome next year.

Before I start, I try to sift all the targeted lessons into mental bins, and I decide how much time I’m willing to devote to these overhauls. I sit down and make a list of the lessons I want to zero in on and then I start to classify them. I compare my list to the time I have to invest and just divide it by the number of lessons I have. Sometimes I go back and edit the list because I always have many more lessons than I can reasonably spruce up.

This year, my bins include science and...