Hello Everyone,

This week our group readings primarily discussed the benefits of flexibility in the classroom. Sienna was my group leader for the reading summaries and she demonstrated, and taught well, the importance behind flexibility in a lesson plan. We were reminded that although we might have a set goal in our lesson that it is OK to go off the track and be adaptable in our learning environments with our students.  For instance, Steve did this at the end of our nature walk on Wednesday. Although he had planned for us to continue back to UBC in a particular direction out of the forest, he had recognized and listened to our request to continue our walk in the woods back to school; Steve altered his plan to fulfil our needs. As a class, we were able to spend more time in the forest and we adapted our end of class reading summaries to be  conducted outside since we were short on time. I think, just like life, the ability to be flexible is so important for our personal well-being and also our cognitive development. Flexibility teaches us about internal spaces that we might be unfamiliar with. It allows us to see other sides to situations and also helps to decrease our stress-levels as we become more comfortable with adapting to new scenarios. Recognizing that humans are different in their needs and wants helps an educator to understand that lesson plans are not guaranteed  ‘step by steps’ and rather, are more of a blue print for the ‘big idea’ and ‘set objectives’. Relative to our walk in the forest, nature shows us that a tree is meant to grow straight and tall; it has a goal to reach the sun. Looking closely at the underlying process that occurs in it’s soil, you can observe how flexibility is beneficial for the trees growth. Random stones and life in the soil create new scenarios that roots have to be flexible and adaptable for so that water is possible to obtain for growth.  Taking this into the classroom, always be ready and open to taking your lesson off the track.