Oh... the pacing!

Please do NOT, and I repeat, do NOT feel like a failure if you cannot keep up with the suggested pacing.  It is certainly a lofty, advantageous goal, but one that can leave you wondering just what in the heck you did all period since you barely made it through your daily announcements and "house keeping."

If you visit the SpringBoard online community (which I highly recommend), you will see many teachers (especially new to SB) who are super concerned about where they are vs. where they "should" be.  I have seen pretty funny commentary about the pacing.  One of my favorite comments was someone who said, "I don't think SpringBoard takes into account taking attendance, dealing with homework, and actually talking to the kids."  I agree!  If you truly stick to the pacing, you will be hard pressed to be able to capitalize on any teachable moments or have conversations that often teach more than what we originally planned.  I have also learned that SpringBoard has shattered any patience that I still had in me for the misbehaved child!  Oh no, we have NO time for your shenanigans buster.  In fact, I have found that the students feel the busy-ness too and a lot of the typical unsavory middle school behavior is left to their other teachers who have a much less intense (and less fun, of course) class period.  :-)

The pressure of the suggested pacing can be exacerbated if you are "tethered" to another teacher in the same grade level where the expectation is that you and the other teacher are on the same page on the same day.  Frustrating, no doubt!  Well, the best advice I have for this is just do what is best for YOUR individual students and know that by the end of about a 2 week period, most of the time you and your colleagues will end up pretty close to being back in the same spot.  It just kind of works out that way (unless your colleagues are either a true slow poke or coffee-fueled maniac working the extremes?!)

Another good rule of thumb, just to keep your sanity in the beginning, double the suggested time allotted for each lesson.  It will just make you feel a ton better and give you a little breathing room.

Finally, notice where any novel is being taught and perhaps flip that unit to the winter.  I was very worried we would not finish the novel for Unit 3 in the Grade 7 curriculum (Tangerine) because I hadn't figured out the pacing yet and we had several weird (aka shorter) schedules during that time for different testing days.  Soooo many of the full-on lessons went away as we had to spend many full class periods just reading the novel to make sure that we finished it before summer break!

Hang in there with the pacing and know that it does get faster as you get more comfortable too!