I have always wondered why college professors generally have 9 to 15 hours per week of class time and public school teachers in the Pre-K through 12 arena have 25 to 30+ hours. Along with these class hours, teachers normally have one or two duties per day such as lunch duty, bus duty, or hallway monitoring. This article points to the need to rethink the current work day of our public school teachers.
As you review this article, what issues do you see as a teacher, administrator, or school community member? Unfortunately state legislators, school board members, and other politicians have been proposing an increase in the student day which will only make matters worse. Yes we all want assessment scores to rise, for the graduation rate to rise, and so forth, but at what cost to the already overburdened classroom teacher?
Let's hear your thoughts!
I am so proud of you for following your dreams and I cherish our life together and I am so very thankful that you retired!
ReplyDeleteanonymous??? really, debbie? lol
Deletelots and lots and even more money has been spent trying to discover the magic formula for creating high achieving students. of course, the first thing necessary is a good teacher. tenure works against this dream. maybe changes need to be made in the preparation and evaluation of prospective teachers in college. one thing is certain, federal intervention is useless. it hasn't changed things one bit. i wish it was possible to take a school in a poverty district, infuse it with supplimental materials, put 10 kids in the classroom with a good teacher or, better yet, two good teachers, and see what happens to those 10 kids. years ago kids had fewer issues to deal with, and those with problems failed and eventually quit school. there were jobs available. boys could go into the armed forces. girls became housewives and moms. but so much has changed. today we are trying to 'understand the child', get a grip on his/her home life and how it affects him/her, 'reach' the seemingly unreachable child and unlock the issues so we know how to teach him. the best of teachers can't possibly accomplish those things in a class of 25-30+ kids. the problem we should be working on is not how to evaluate them but on how we can best reach and teach them. i'm convinced that much smaller class size, plenty of supplimental material, and a good teacher would go further in preparing kids for success than anything that has been done to date.
ReplyDeletethere's planning and then there's planning. if, by planning, we are talking about looking at a manual and copying the next item from the manual, that can easily be done during a planning period. for me, planning was more involved. i had to spread things out, consider what the kids showed me in their work, get online and search out ideas, consider and provide what tools i would need, etc. fortunately i lived alone and had plenty of space and time at night to do these things. more time during the school day for planning would not have helped me. but a class size of 10 kids would have made all the difference in the world. increasing student's day is absolutely absurd. that would have a totally opposite effect on learning than we want.
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