[Friday, June 1, 2029 at 2:30pm]
I pat down the wrinkles in my dress as I wait for Mrs. Sullivan, my high school principle and now boss, to walk into the room. While I look down at my shoes, I notice that my heart is beating out of my ears and my hands are shaking so much. I haven’t been this worried to talk to her since I came back to the school for my first interview. When she was my principal, I had little interactions with her since I tended to be a wall flower and only noticed by my teachers, so talking to her now feels awkward.
Panic sets in. I can hear her heels clinking on the floor as she approaches the door, and my palms get sweaty. What am I going to say? Am I making the right decision? What if something goes wrong and I am out longer? My head begins to spin with lots of doubts until the door opens and the mind goes completely blank.
“Good afternoon Christopher, you wanted to talk to me?”
“Uhhhh… actually yeah, um…” I begin to stutter I don’t know what words to say and I have never noticed my breathing so much in my life.
“Christopher, is everything alright?”
“Yeah, I am fine.” I stuttered, “I just wanted to tell you about Marie and my plans on having a second baby and that I may need to be out a few days to receive the invitro and I will need to apply for my maternity leave in about 10 months. If everything goes to plan, I should be having the baby in December of next school year”
I take a deep breath and untense my shoulders, it feels like a relief to finally get it all out. My wife and I have been planning this for years and finally scraped up enough money to go through with our dreams. My principal seems to take is all in and seconds before my panic begins to set back in; she smiles. The smile is the brightest I have ever seen; it was like staring into the sun. I can feel my shoulders begin to relax again and my anxious fever cool from scorching hot lava to a freshly baked cake.
“Congrats Christopher! You and Marie must be so excited! This is baby number two, right? You have a son right; his name is Oliver? How is Oliver?”
“Oliver is doing great, he just turned four last Friday. He loves to put cake in my wife’s face, so Marie walked around with blue frosting plastered on her for the majority of the night.”
“That’s adorable. I am so happy for you and your wife. This is an amazing opportunity and you two are wonderful parents.”
“Thank you so much. I just wanted to tell you since Oliver was adopted, I didn’t need all the normal time off and he truly was a wonderful baby and it was very easy to settle him in. I actually need to pick him up from his Vavó ’s house, since my mom is taking care of him while I was working.” I begin to pick up my stuff, slinging my bag over my shoulder, feeling the heavy feeling being lifted off of me. Why was I even panicked in the first place? It wasn’t like she would have anything negative to say about me wanting to have a second baby. As I stand up straight to walk out the door Mrs. Sullivan begins to talk.
“So, I will email around and look for a substitute teacher to cover your class when you are out for your appointments. You will just need to write out the lesson plans that the sub will be using during your maternity leave. I trust you so you can just give them straight to them, but I would like a copy to make sure they are following the plans. If I am being honest, I believe that I will be having Susan teaching your class. I would like you to give me and Susan the plans by the end of the day on June 18.”
A second massive wave of panic comes flowing back and this time with a vengeance. It hits me like a brick as I swallow hard and say okay and briskly walk out the office door feeling the intensity of the moment sink in. I walk to my car thinking about the lesson plans. I have never thought about the fact that I will be leaving my class in the hands of someone else while I tend my newborn; I also never thought about the fact I would have to plan out the entire year and have no control over the changes that may need to be made to fit my future students plans. I drive home with a mind full of jumbled up thoughts and more doubt about my decisions.
I park the car and stare off into space trying to grasp any single idea that I have floating away. My mind feels like it is running into that space and I am trapped sitting still watching it run away. I quickly grab my stuff shaking my head as if to force myself to focus on the now. I head to the back seat to pick up my sleeping four-year-old. The house is silent as I begin walking into the house and place Oliver in his bed. I begin to make dinner and the house instantly fills with the smell of fresh onion and garlic. I’m cooking but I’m not focusing on that. I can’t think about the chicken that needs to be cooked or the house chores, all I can think about is working on those lesson plans.
Once dinner was made I tended to Oliver and we snuggled while watching his favorite cartoon. An hour or so goes by and my wife opens the door, “Honey, I’m home!”
“Yeah, Yeah okay, Lucy!” I shout back. Oliver wiggles out of my arms and looks at the door. Once he sees his mother, he jumps off the couch and runs like he is a mini Flash. I sit there watching as my wife picks up Oliver and throws him on her hip smiling. Oliver sits on his mom’s hip as she walks over and give me a kiss on the forehead. Oliver has always loved Marie the most, there seems to be a special bond with her. They both loved to snuggle up on the couch watching sports or goofing around with cake on birthdays. Marie melts whenever Oliver is around, anyone can see that they have a bond like no other.
Marie and I set the table as Oliver places each fork in the designated spots shouting that he is helping. After dinner Marie and Oliver play as I clean the table. I still can’t focus on what I am doing. I begin to drop things and zone out while thinking about the lesson plans that I have to write. This shouldn’t be bothering me this much. I have been a teacher for five years and have written many lesson plans in the past. What is making these so difficult?
After playing, Marie places Oliver in bed and tells him a bed time story. She slowly closes the door and walks to the master bedroom. Marie crawls into bed and snuggles up with me and instantly falls asleep. I wake up in a cold sweat, panicked from a nightmare of watching my class fail because I didn’t write good lesson plans. I sit up in bed and rub my head as I stare into space again. I couldn’t sleep, but I can’t stay awake doing nothing. I look over to see that Oliver has entered the room and is snuggled up with Marie. For a second, I smile, the picture of my two worlds sleeping soundlessly together makes my heart feel complete. But suddenly the thought of those lesson plans hit me again. I hop out of bed and head to the living room to see if I can come up with any ideas of how to write the plans up.
What seems like hours go by and Oliver begins to cry. I snap out of this state and find myself surrounded by past lesson plans and a cup of cold coffee. I can see into the master bedroom, where Marie is slowly walking up to pick up Oliver. Marie is walking up and down the room as she looks out of the door and sees me sitting on the floor surrounded by work. I glance at the clock and it glows 4:32 am. Marie walks over and places Oliver in my lap and kisses my forehead. I begin to relax and reread my old lesson plans, as I hold my now sleeping son.
“My love, you need to head to bed, you won’t be able to write anything good without any proper sleep. Go put Oliver in his bed and then get to bed, I will make you some tea and get the heated blanket.”
[Saturday June 2, 2029 at 8:00 am]
I place my coffee down on the coffee shop table and took at my computer. I had looked at my curriculum given to me by my boss to make a basic plan of all that needs to be put in my lesson plan. I came up with an idea to have a master plan then go through again and make individualized lessons for each topic that needs to be covered. I looked at all of the basic ideas that I need to hit throughout my lesson plans. I write a dotted list of all the main points that are in my algebra class and then begin to copy and paste them in an order that I think will work well. As I stare at the list trying to grapple with the ideas of making a lesson plan, I fall into the hole of panic again. Why did I plan to have a baby during the school year? Why didn’t I think that I would have to hand my boss a copy of all of the plans by the end of this year? It is already June what the hell was I thinking!? I start to shake; my fertilization appointment is tomorrow there is no going back now. I have to get this done, failing my students and my career is not an option. I pull my phone out a send a quick text to my wife basically screaming for help. Marie responds quickly. We make a little date to go to Walmart to get new organization supplies to help me refocus and allow myself to center on the fact that I need to calm down since no one will judge all of my rough drafts, they are mine and I will complete this in time for next years students to succeed.
[Saturday June 2, 2029 at 6:00 pm]
“Babes just grab a binder for starters. You will need to place all of that material in something to keep it all organized and allow Susan to access all the information that she will need.”
“Fine, fine what color should I get babe? What color screams math to you?
“Black because math sucks!”
“Excuse me ma’am no. I think we will go with a blue, it’s been a dark blue since middle school for me when I used to organize my classes by colors.”
I grab two of the largest navy-blue binders I see, some colored divisors and highlighters. I plan on breaking down the binder into specific topics and color organize them to allow the binder to be an easy read and provide a simple navigation system if ever in need of a specific lesson plan at any given time. I am an organization whore as my wife calls it. I take everything and put them into little categorizes to allow the easiest access as possible to everything that needs to be accessed. Marie one day came home to find me organizing the pad/tampon drawer in our bathroom because “I just couldn’t handle the mess anymore”. I am always being teased for how much of an OCD freak that I am, but for once this may actually be a good thing. Lesson plans need to be neat and organized. Although they don’t have a format that everyone needs to follow, they need to be formatted in a way that allows the teacher or substitute to read and understand what needs to be done in that class section.
I place my items in the cart and eye Oliver playing with his toy dino oblivious to anything that may be happening. Looking at my little boy I feel a wave of compassion come over me. I have always dreamed of having two small babies and just doing the mother-thing with someone I love. I look from Oliver to Marie who has now moved on from the organizational stuff and to toys to distract Oliver with, to my new materials in the cart. A wave of motivation, I have to do this for my students, family and career.

[Sunday June 10, 2029]
I have eight days left till the lesson plans are due and I haven’t had a single moment to sit down and go over any of my notes or do anything that I needed to do. Oliver has caught the flu and I have been racing around taking care of him along with everything else that I have to do. On top of all that its been a week since my insemination and I have to take a pregnancy test in two days. I begin to take out all of my materials and relook at them. My mind is still preoccupied with everything else that has been going on. I stare at the bulleted master plan that I set up a while back. I have no clue how to write these plans out for Susan and it is getting more and more difficult by the minute to think of possible plans. I begin to zone out into a dream like state and think about my college years.
[Spring of 2022]
“Christopher! Chris!” my advisor Dr. Travers shouts at me from across the table. I have been trying to do this lesson plan for hours and have zoned out into complete space. I look up to see that I have spilt my coffee down the table in the math office and didn’t get a single word down onto the template. The blank pages lay in front of me daunting me. After cleaning the spilt coffee, I begin to write out five lesson plans for the following week for my first day of student teaching next fall. I scramble to get them all together and hand them into Dr. Travers for revision.
“Christopher don’t tell me this is what you came up with?”
“Why what is wrong with it? I wrote out the five topics I am going to go over and made notes on how I am going to teach them.”
“Chris, you know that isn’t what you need to do, Student’s don’t learn a topic in one day and then just move on. Pick a topic for the week and break it down day by day and build on it till you reach the full understanding of the topic. Here is a little template that will help you get started; you can then morph it to fit your teaching style when you get more used to it.”
Dr. Travers hands the template and I glance over it.
[Later on, Sunday June 10, 2029]
I snap out of the dream state with a striking realization. I still have all my notes from Dr. Travers lesson plan session including that starter template. I pull it out and stare at it for a while.
NAME: WEEKLY LESSON PLAN

Week of:
Classes and Blocks:
Topic:

MONDAY I. Standard(s)
II. Objective(s)
III. Warm up
IV. Lesson Development
V. Homework

TUESDAY I. Standard(s)
II. Objective(s)
III. Warm up
IV. Lesson Development
V. Homework

WEDNESDAY I. Standard(s)
II. Objective(s)
III. Warm up
IV. Lesson Development
V. Homework
WEDNESDAY I. Standard(s)
II. Objective(s)
III. Warm up
IV. Lesson Development
V. Homework

THURSDAY I. Standard(s)
II. Objective(s)
III. Warm up
IV. Lesson Development
V. Homework

FRIDAY I. Standard(s)
II. Objective(s)
III. Warm up
IV. Lesson Development
V. Homework

I begin by taking each of my bulleted topics and place one at the top of each template sheet. I go through and break down each of the topics into subsections and write the plans how I would do normally in my own language and allow myself to make a mess.
Hours go by and I hash out messy lesson plans for the entire year. I look back and smile at the progress I’ve made. This is the farthest I have come into writing the lesson plans then I truly though I would get today. I go to revise the first lesson plan to make a final copy when Oliver comes in holding is blanket. I look up to see his face begging for snuggles. I look at Oliver and then my work. Feeling confident in the work I stand up and go over to pick up Oliver and snuggled with him and my wife for the rest of the day while watching countless Disney movies.
[ Tuesday June 12, 2029]
“MARIE!” I scream from the bathroom door.
“What babe?” Marie says as she barely looks up from the TV. Some sort of sport is on and trying to get her attention when they are on is like talking to a brick wall.
“Babes look! Look! We did it!” I continue to scream as I run to the living room holding the pregnancy test. Marie hops off the couch and runs into my arms with tears running down her face. We embrace and cry as Oliver looks at us all puzzled.
“Oliver you’re going to have a little sister or brother!” I say as I scoop him up into the group hug. We are still hugging and talking about the new baby when the phone rings. I run to the phone still giddy.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Chris? It is Susan I was wondering if you had those lesson plans yet. I just wanted to go over them so that I could settle what I was going to be teaching the following year when you leave to have the baby.”
Crap I haven’t worked on those plans since Sunday and they are officially due in six days. What the hell have I done to myself?!
“Uh... well they aren’t exactly finished…”
Crap. Crap. Crap. I am sooo f’ed. I begin to panic trying to make an excuse. I haven’t come up with a way to make the plans more user friendly to anyone else besides myself. I quickly add:
“Actually, I was going to contact you, I have many ideas on what I want to do for next year but I wanted to meet with you to see how you structure your lesson plans to implement my ideas and style into a form that would make the most sense to you. ”
I let out a little sigh. That should cover me for the time being.
“That’s awesome I have been a little concerned that I may not understand everything that you put into the plans so I wanted them so I could look at them before you left. How does Tomorrow after school sound? We can talk about them over coffee.”
I say yes and then hang up the phone. I look back at my office where all my lessons are. I have a lot of work to do.
[Wednesday June 13, 2029]
“Okay, class the last homework assignment is on the back board you can begin working on it till the bell rings.”
The class begins to work on their homework as I sit back at my desk. I eye the binder full of the rough drafts of the lesson plans. In 30 minutes, I have to meet with Susan and try to work out a few lesson plans to get me started on the lesson plan binder. It feels like ages went by and the bell rings. I say bye to my C block class and begin to pack up my materials to meet up with Susan.
“Hey how was your day Chris?”
I shrug and place my bag down. “It was pretty good we just finished up our last lesson so the next few classes will be review for the final and going back to the beginning of the year to make sure the students remember everything that we went over.”
I place the binder down and look at Susan. “This is what I have so far. I used the template that I got in college from a lesson plan writing course I took my junior year at Salem State . Is there anything that you would like better or any suggestions that you would like to see in this that will better understand what I am asking you of for next year?” Susan begins to look through all of the notes, while flipping through the pages of the binder she smiles.
“This is exactly what I was picturing. If you keep this template and add in possible homework assignments, then this is exactly what I was hoping I would be given. The last class I subbed in I got a pile of paper with a sticky note saying, ‘give this to the kids.’ I love how you organized all the information using color coding. And put tabs for all of the different sections of the year. You’re very organized Christopher.”
I smile and shrug and begin to explain the little details and make a key card for all the colors that I used and what they mean. The whole meeting goes over very smoothly. We agree on everything, from organization to planning of the lessons. Highlighting the main points and go over material till students get it. We even were able to sit down and talk about the possibility that the students may catch on quicker than expected. We decided to go onto Pinterest and look up different ways to implement games or activities to reward the students for doing so well but also continue to learn new or reinforce material.
Hours seem to go by as we write pages and pages of notes collaborating and coming up with different ideas for each main topic to fill the binder with every possibility for the classes next semester. Finally, we pack up our stuff and went home to our families, feeling better about the whole situation.
[Monday June 18, 2029]
I pat down the wrinkles in my dress as I wait for Mrs. Sullivan, my high school principle and now boss, to walk into the room. Seventeen days ago, I sat here waiting for her to tell her I was going to have a second baby. Seventeen days ago, I was presented this task to make a years’ worth of lesson plans. I thought is was an impossible task but here I am sitting in this chair holding my completed lesson plan binder. I open up the binder and stare at the completed first lesson plan.
NAME: Christopher Wilcox WEEKLY LESSON PLAN

Week of:
September 5, 2029 Classes and Blocks:
ALL CLASSES Topic:
Refresh on order of operations

MONDAY I. Standard(s) Introduction and Syllabus reading
II. Objective(s) Introductions
Syllabus
Review of PEMDAS
III. Warm up Fill in the blank explaining PEMDAS
IV. Lesson Development • Introduce Self and Susan
Go over Syllabus
• Do an ice breaker to get to know students
Review PEMDAS and introduce solving for x.
V. Homework Page 281 Review questions #2,3,5,19

TUESDAY I. Standard(s) Chapter 1 – PEMDAS and basic equations
II. Objective(s) Continue the lessons on how to solve for x.
III. Warm up Solve for x on these 3 equations:
3x+1 = 7
17-5x = 12
200 = 12x/13
IV. Lesson Development Go over homework from last night
Go through slides for chapter 1.
If still time students can begin homework.
V. Homework Page 302 Chapter 1 review questions #1-12
.
.
.
I smile and close the binder. I can hear her heels clicking as she approaches the door. The door opens and Mrs. Sullivan walks in smiling. I had here the binder confident in my work.
“You have done a great job Christopher. We are very proud of you and all that you have accomplished.”