Flexibility within Structure

As every teacher knows, flexibility is necessary to run a classroom and to work with students. No matter how well you plan your day, plan a lesson, or organize your classroom, flexibility is a MUST. Children are not the same everyday and will not react the same way to things everyday. As a teacher, we have to adjust ourselves to our students and always do things with their best interest in mind. On the other hand, structure is also a key element to the success of our students. They thrive off of the consistency of structure, the ability to know what will happen and how others will react to them. It also teaches our students how to organize their own lives and the power that structure can bring to them. These two elements combined, flexibility and structure, allow for the greatest success of our students. They NEED both. I call this flexible structure. This model allows me, as a teacher, to give my students the structure that they need (and that I need!) and be flexible in those moments or on those days that flexibility is needed to make it through the day. On top of that, it helps children to learn that not everything is predictable and that sometimes they need to be flexible and "go with the flow". Isn't that an important part of life?