(no subject)

[eirias]

Straight from the assmilliner: how we can solve all the education world's problems, including student learning difficulties and low teacher salaries, with nine hour school days.

*pause while I wait for the teachers in my audience to regain their composure*

Just once in this essay I would have liked to see him acknowledge that

A) students (and teachers!) have attention spans, and
B) when teachers ask for "a raise," they are not asking for "three extra hours of work each day, for which you will pay me the same lousy wages I already make."

It's a pretty old editorial that I stumbled upon while taking a break and reading WP archives; otherwise I would totally write to this guy and ask him, as politely as possible, if these things have crossed his mind.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Even if you were still teaching 6 classes (which would suck!), more staff could make it a win if the periods were the same length; there could be more sections, so your 6 classes would have fewer students, so less grading, etc. And you could have more free periods, since there are more periods in a day.

(What teachers at typical schools do varies enormously. Anything from 4-6 classes would be a normal load, depending on how wealthy your school is. (I have four classes and a study hall; I have had five classes and no study hall. Of course, the number of *distinct* classes you have is almost as important -- 6 sections of algebra I is easier to prep for than 1 of algebra I, 1 of algebra II, 1 of geometry, and 1 of precalculus (albeit very very very boring to teach). It seems to me that 4 classes is pretty common in the private school world, 5-6 in the public.)