Well, hello there, top teachers. We are your host, Michelle Emerson and Bridgett Spackman,

and we are here to make your life easier by helping you master your time, organization,

and productivity as a teacher. Bridget and I were talking recently, as we do, and from all the

conversations we have had with teachers, we feel like a lot of teachers are lacking a structure for their

lessons, as in they have 60 minutes for their math block, but it's almost like they start from

scratch each time they plan for that 60 minute block. So in today's episode, we're going to discuss

the one thing holding your lesson planning back

and making it harder than it needs to be. But first, we're going to listen to a T-S-H from,

I'm going to probably butcher this. Ayala, A-Y-A-L-A. I apologize if I said your name incorrectly.

So here's what this top teacher says. Hey there are top teachers and thank you so much

for giving me the perfect balance between a pep talk and tough love. My biggest TSAH is that whenever I

begin to plan a lesson or unit, I drown in materials and spend three to four hours saying

stuff like, wow, I want to do that. And ooh, but this one is much better.

And the worst thing, yeah, I'll keep that for later. I think we've all been there.

Eventually, after spending endless amount of time reading and bouncing between materials,

giving up on my personal life, I wasn't prepared and time after time I've improvised

counting on my lovely personality and creative thinking. And as I struggle with ADHD my entire

life, it was a tragedy. There was no proper connection between lessons and my poor

students ended up confused, feeling my lessons were fun but not meaningful. I lack formal training as I changed my

profession from a copywriter to a teacher in a five week of Zoom training in the summer of

2020, thanks to COVID limitations. For the past two years, I've been a, can I say that's crappy

teacher. Yeah, I wish to get okay. And I wish to get better.

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