Grr. Argh. Lesson planning sucks.

After reading in some book somewhere some time ago (everything is becoming a blur) that IST's (Instructional Support Teachers) are just part of a massive bureaucracy that keeps sustaining itself, and after not having HAD such a teacher (who also performs the function of a departmental head) for the entirety of our first month here, we (the royal we) were only partially thrilled to find out that our fabled IST would soon be arriving at school. In part, it's been annoying because the school system, which chooses to communicate seemingly important information like, "Oh, by the way, those materials you need for that curriculum bit you're starting next week won't be here for another three weeks - so here's some inane OTHER lesson plans you'll be needing," doesn't seem to realize that those schools which don't have an IST for Language Arts (and there are three) should probably receive this information through some other channel.

So all this is to say that when our school's other IST - the Math one, the one who's been here and has been as helpful as she can concerning non-mathematical matters - tells us how to formulate our Objectives by using a method that's good for Math people, Science people, Social Studies people, and just about everyone but Language Arts people - then that's annoying. (For anyone actually interested, we were told to use the "strand" of our State Standards as the "unit" title. But whereas a Science teacher might have a "Chemistry" unit, or a Math teacher a "Geometry" unit, we are unlikely to have a "Listening" unit or a "Speaking" unit. This is because in Language Arts instruction, we are nearly always using all seven of our standards. So why, oh why, did I have to sit through that whole lecture?

At times like these, I am really looking forward to the arrival of our IST, if for no other reason than that she would understand these differences and know how to help us navigate the Language Arts VSC.