Learning Journal

Hurrah! Another observation passed!
I must admit to having felt especially trepidatious about this observation, as it was first-time-failable. Do you recall the tweely racist 'two thumbs fresh' tea character who liked to remark upon the two thumbs freshness of tea? Well, this observation was first-time-failable. Big thumbs and grins all round.
However, I didn't fail it. It raised some salient points upon the improvement of my overall teaching, but what I really am most concerned with is how to prepare for a lesson within a more normal time-frame - i.e. twenty-four scrambled minutes of half coffeebreak, half barrelscrape break-your-nuts activity to whip three hours of contact time into a stream of balanced, rational, and planned activity that will result in maximal learning.
I lavish my lessons with hours - and in the case of this observation, two days - of concerted action. First, I must make sure to have learnt what is being covered and find out what will be covered next week, to seem authoratitive. Then I must simplify my own learning experience from the dire textbooks (either too simplistic and hence missing out on some of the very things the syllabus demands, or far too interested in particulars to the expense of any sense that might run through the consecutive peas of thought) into a set of handouts and expositions and activities and questions. It's most draining.
So, how to simplify? I think I will make sure to read through a module of work during holidays, to make it less opaque when I come up against it again. I will use the textbooks themselves sometimes, when they are adequate, rather than rewrite everything myself into handouts. And I'll give more responsibility to the students towards the end of lessons, so that they can further their own learning and not be relying on me all the time.
With this extra time I will write even bigger learning journals!