'Here's What I Want To Know' by Kay Tea

Parents want a year’s worth of lesson plans up front?

Ok.

Here’s what I want:

I want to know every day that your child will be absent for the next year.

I want to know every day for the next year that your teenager is going to come to school and fall asleep because they were up on their phones/playing video games late.

I want to know every day for the next year when your child is going to come to school and feel anxious, upset, angry, scared, sad, joyful, excited, bored, frustrated, in love, out of love, fighting with a BFF, angry at you, angry at me, angry at their siblings.

I want to know every time in the upcoming year a family member or loved one is going to die, when world events will frighten your child, when you and your spouse are going to argue, when a beloved pet will die, when their favorite team will lose a big game, or when their celebrity crush will get married.

I want to know each time in the upcoming year that there will be a snow day, a 2 hour delay, when it’ll be very cold out and when the sun will be shining, I want to know when a bird will fly past the window and when a bee/wasp/yellow jacket accidentally gets into the classroom and completely distracts everyone.

I want to know a year in advance how many times a student will attempt to assault another student, me, or another staff member, when and where it’ll happen, and how long the incident wil last.

I want to know when any/all school tragedies will occur in our country, when each and every lockdown drill, fire drill, tornado drill and real events will happen.

I want to know how many new students I will get each month, how many students will randomly move away, how many student I’ll have with chronic attendance issues.

All of these things and SO MUCH MORE impact day to day teaching with each individual child in my classroom.

Once you are able to provide me with all of THAT information, then we can start to discuss year long lesson plans.