April vacation is winding down, with only hours left to it. This brings us into the final stretch of the Central Catholic school year, a stretch of only 5 actual weeks of class and a week of finals. In the joyous realization that I only have a month left of this job I've complained about for months, here is the final countdown of what I have left.
APPROX 15 TEACHING DAYS:
There are 25 weekdays between now and the beginning of June, however only a maximum of 17 of them will be spent teaching. There are numerous reasons for this. The first is that two of those days there is no school. Central Catholic does not hold classes the day of graduation nor does it hold classes on Memorial Day (as it shouldn't). Thus far, two more days are planned for a test and quiz on acids and bases, the current chapter. On those days, I am just administering assessments so there is no actual teaching going on. The final week of classes is planned for review for the final. Review has very little to it, mainly running through examples and answering questions. There is a maximum of that many days on because there will still be assessments for the next chapter in chemical kinetics and the president of the school does owe one more day off from things in the beginning of the school year.
PROGRESS REPORTS:
The 4th term progress reports are due this Friday by 8 am. This only requires me to grade three more classes of labs and their quiz on Wednesday.
3 LAB PERIODS:
Upon the suggestion of my department chair, titration has been taken out of the curriculum for acids and bases. This means that this lab is not going to be done with the kids. Thus, this coming week is what is referred to as lab "limbo." The next week of labs were planned as demonstrations and the last full week is lab check out. To assure I get the entire next chapter in, I cannot have any more lab periods, thus the dangerous part of my job has ended.
2 RELIGIOUS SERVICES (on the same day):
As an atheist, this year has been very interesting when it comes to the religious services that I have witnessed. There are only two more that I must be at. The first is the final school liturgy. Liturgy appears very cult like where all the students gather in the gym and do the prayer and other catholic services. The other is the baccalaureate mass for graduation. Unfortunately this takes away from my personal time as it occurs at 7pm at night, after a full day of school. Although, after looking through everything for the next five weeks and preemptively planning the remainder of the year I may be able to use one more sick day (I have 2 left) and it may be on that day
176 LABS TO GRADE:
The hardest part of this job has been the mass amount of labs that have had to be graded. With three more classes for one lab, and all 110 students for this last one, this leaves me with 176 more labs to grade give or take a few that people still have to make up.
2 QUIZZES AND 2 TESTS:
After planning the next 5 weeks of classes I only have 440 more assessments to grade in the forms of tests and quizzes. There is a test and quiz for each chapter remaining, acids and bases and thermochemistry.
3 DAYS OF FINALS:
The way finals are done at Central is that there are 2 finals per day of the 6 periods the students have. That makes three days of finals. As a teacher I get one of those 6 periods off, one is a department meeting, one is a coverage for teachers that are proctoring finals, and three I have to proctor myself. My final will be done and graded by the end of the day that it is administered and my grades sent in immediately.
The countdown begins tomorrow...
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Dangers of Being a Science Teacher
Today, I almost died. This is no exaggeration, not hyperbole, I'm not making a mountain out of a mole hill, I could have died. Here is a recap from the worst day at work I've ever experienced.
THE LAB FROM HELL... AT A CATHOLIC SCHOOL
The K Period Level 2 Chemistry class has been less than cooperative during the year. Many students do not listen when they are told to sit down, be quiet, do their work, take notes, or anything else that I ask of them. During lab period, this class has a real problem with staying at their individual lab stations and keeping any sense of order. Today, it reached a new level.
Today's lab was on Charles's Law. This gas law states that as the temperature increases, the volume of a gas will also increase. To demonstrate this law, the students were given two beakers (to be filled half way with water), a thermometer, and a micro pipette along with the instructions to set up the ring stand and Bunsen burner. They were to get the volume of the micro pipette by counting the number of water drops until it was empty. While this occurred, each group was to measure the temperature of the water. This temperature would be known as "room temperature." The instructions said to heat the other beaker until it was ten degrees above room temperature. After this, the bulb of the empty pipette would be placed in the heated water (allowing the volume of the gas to expand) and after this was submerged in the room temperature water. The water pulled inside the micro pipette would be the increase in volume at the new temperature. The instructions said to repeat this on a ten degree interval until the temperature was 50 degrees above room temperature. These instructions were in their lab binders as well as walked through, step by step by myself at the beginning of lab.
Problem 1: "The Thermometer is broken" - Many people think that listening to the teacher is an option at the beginning of lab. One group set up their Bunsen burner and beakers properly. They stuck the thermometer in the other beaker (which is supposed to be heated 10 degrees above room temperature). As I passed by them multiple times they weren't heating the water so I asked why. Dan said that their water was too warm and had to go down. Thinking they over heated it, i shrugged it off. I return and they still aren't heating. One claims, "I think the thermometer is broken..." This is a glass, alcohol thermometer, not a digital. It cannot be "broken." I look at their temperature and it reads 23 degrees, which is room temperature. They were trying to get the temperature of the water to 10 degrees because they thought instead of measuring the temperature of the water at room temperature, they would guess room temperature to be 0 degrees Celsius. For those of you who didn't pass high school chemistry, this is the temperature in which water freezes.
Problem 2: Micro Pipette Super Soakers - A big tool in this lab is the use of the micro pipette. This is a small, plastic dropper. The lab included sucking water into the pipette and counting the drops that came out. Water takes some time to heat so many kids got bored and anxious. This evolved into a "water gun" fight with the micro pipettes. The results included water everywhere in the lab, a girl's pants soaked at the bum, and water ALMOST hitting me from across the room (this was only learned after school when another student told me). I told the main culprit of this water gun fight to stop or I would mess up his experiment. He did not. I proceded to turn off his Bunsen burner and pour ice cold water into his hot water, dropping it 30 degrees and causing him to take another 20 minutes to heat the water back to its original temperature.
Problem 3: Physics Meets Chemistry - The same student that decided to start the pipette fight has a small accident towards the end of lab. Cleaning up, he did not remove the beaker (which was filled with 400+ mL of water) from the ring stand. In putting things away he hit the ring stand. The students will learn next year that force is transfered from his arm, to the ring stand, to the iron ring holding the beaker, to the beaker. This caused the beaker to fall. In the matter of seconds, the beaker hit the hard surface of the lab bench. Force was too much for the glass to handle, causing it to shatter. 400+ mL of water was dispersed across the lab bench along side more than twenty pieces of glass. Students are not allowed to clean up the glass, only the teacher. This would occupy the next 4 minutes of my life.
Problem 4: I could have died - One group was paying very little attention to their experiment. As a result of not being cautious near fire, one member of the group accidentally dislodged the Bunsen burner tubing from the burner and the gas faucet on the lab bench. Gas comes out from the faucet at a high velocity. In the split second that the burner was still lit, the gas came rushing out from the faucet, igniting. The flame shot out from the lab bench to a height approximately 3-4 ft from the lab bench. In that time I immediately turned around, proceeded to say "Jesus Christ" and went immediately to switch off the gas. Turning around, there was a person on a tour of the school standing at the door way, an added bonus. The best part of this is that if the gas was left on for even a second longer, the flame could have crept back into the gas line, into the gas reserve, creating an explosion. This group was again caught not paying attention to their experiment. With atleast two more readings to do, I informed them that they were done and proceded to pour their water down the drain.
The kids left this lab period saying it was "the coolest ever."
The Answer!: This class will no longer be doing labs. It is obvious that they cannot pay enough attention to being careful. From now on, I will demonstrate the lab during their 90 minute lab period. I will write the measurements on the board. They will use the remainder of the time to work on their labs in complete and utter silence. In three weeks, we were going to make ice cream.
THE LAB FROM HELL... AT A CATHOLIC SCHOOL
The K Period Level 2 Chemistry class has been less than cooperative during the year. Many students do not listen when they are told to sit down, be quiet, do their work, take notes, or anything else that I ask of them. During lab period, this class has a real problem with staying at their individual lab stations and keeping any sense of order. Today, it reached a new level.
Today's lab was on Charles's Law. This gas law states that as the temperature increases, the volume of a gas will also increase. To demonstrate this law, the students were given two beakers (to be filled half way with water), a thermometer, and a micro pipette along with the instructions to set up the ring stand and Bunsen burner. They were to get the volume of the micro pipette by counting the number of water drops until it was empty. While this occurred, each group was to measure the temperature of the water. This temperature would be known as "room temperature." The instructions said to heat the other beaker until it was ten degrees above room temperature. After this, the bulb of the empty pipette would be placed in the heated water (allowing the volume of the gas to expand) and after this was submerged in the room temperature water. The water pulled inside the micro pipette would be the increase in volume at the new temperature. The instructions said to repeat this on a ten degree interval until the temperature was 50 degrees above room temperature. These instructions were in their lab binders as well as walked through, step by step by myself at the beginning of lab.
Problem 1: "The Thermometer is broken" - Many people think that listening to the teacher is an option at the beginning of lab. One group set up their Bunsen burner and beakers properly. They stuck the thermometer in the other beaker (which is supposed to be heated 10 degrees above room temperature). As I passed by them multiple times they weren't heating the water so I asked why. Dan said that their water was too warm and had to go down. Thinking they over heated it, i shrugged it off. I return and they still aren't heating. One claims, "I think the thermometer is broken..." This is a glass, alcohol thermometer, not a digital. It cannot be "broken." I look at their temperature and it reads 23 degrees, which is room temperature. They were trying to get the temperature of the water to 10 degrees because they thought instead of measuring the temperature of the water at room temperature, they would guess room temperature to be 0 degrees Celsius. For those of you who didn't pass high school chemistry, this is the temperature in which water freezes.
Problem 2: Micro Pipette Super Soakers - A big tool in this lab is the use of the micro pipette. This is a small, plastic dropper. The lab included sucking water into the pipette and counting the drops that came out. Water takes some time to heat so many kids got bored and anxious. This evolved into a "water gun" fight with the micro pipettes. The results included water everywhere in the lab, a girl's pants soaked at the bum, and water ALMOST hitting me from across the room (this was only learned after school when another student told me). I told the main culprit of this water gun fight to stop or I would mess up his experiment. He did not. I proceded to turn off his Bunsen burner and pour ice cold water into his hot water, dropping it 30 degrees and causing him to take another 20 minutes to heat the water back to its original temperature.
Problem 3: Physics Meets Chemistry - The same student that decided to start the pipette fight has a small accident towards the end of lab. Cleaning up, he did not remove the beaker (which was filled with 400+ mL of water) from the ring stand. In putting things away he hit the ring stand. The students will learn next year that force is transfered from his arm, to the ring stand, to the iron ring holding the beaker, to the beaker. This caused the beaker to fall. In the matter of seconds, the beaker hit the hard surface of the lab bench. Force was too much for the glass to handle, causing it to shatter. 400+ mL of water was dispersed across the lab bench along side more than twenty pieces of glass. Students are not allowed to clean up the glass, only the teacher. This would occupy the next 4 minutes of my life.
Problem 4: I could have died - One group was paying very little attention to their experiment. As a result of not being cautious near fire, one member of the group accidentally dislodged the Bunsen burner tubing from the burner and the gas faucet on the lab bench. Gas comes out from the faucet at a high velocity. In the split second that the burner was still lit, the gas came rushing out from the faucet, igniting. The flame shot out from the lab bench to a height approximately 3-4 ft from the lab bench. In that time I immediately turned around, proceeded to say "Jesus Christ" and went immediately to switch off the gas. Turning around, there was a person on a tour of the school standing at the door way, an added bonus. The best part of this is that if the gas was left on for even a second longer, the flame could have crept back into the gas line, into the gas reserve, creating an explosion. This group was again caught not paying attention to their experiment. With atleast two more readings to do, I informed them that they were done and proceded to pour their water down the drain.
The kids left this lab period saying it was "the coolest ever."
The Answer!: This class will no longer be doing labs. It is obvious that they cannot pay enough attention to being careful. From now on, I will demonstrate the lab during their 90 minute lab period. I will write the measurements on the board. They will use the remainder of the time to work on their labs in complete and utter silence. In three weeks, we were going to make ice cream.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The one thing that makes is all worth it.
A few months back, I had a very discerning conversation with a friend who will be a passionate teacher when she gets certified. She told me that I was taking for granted the opportunity I have when it comes to teaching and that helping only one student is completely worth it. The realization has only recently dawned upon me...
THE ONE STUDENT
It's very easy for music and art teachers to find students that share their same passion because musicians and vocalists and artists are in those classes because they want to be. Most high school curriculums include chemistry as part of the science education, but many teachers in that subject (or biology, history, and mathematics) see fewer students with the same passion and ability to achieve than that of the music or art teacher. In saying achieve, it is not to say that all students in these subject areas are dumb or fail, but they're just looking to get by as to not take the class during the summer. Drop down from the honors level class and it becomes less likely that enthusiastic students are present.
In teaching 110 students in the past months, the Level 2 chemistry classes at Central Catholic have and much higher majority of students that feel that they don't need chemistry; that it is a boring subject; that they don't need to try, and that it is a stupid thing to learn. In turn with this poor attitude many students do not do well and cannot understand that concepts that are being gone over in class. This can be very daunting on a teacher who is passionate about hit or her subject. However, there are five students that seem to have a great grasp on the subject and actually seem to enjoy chemistry: Zeina, Katelyn, Conner, Sean, and George.
Zeina has somewhat become a TA for the classes. She has a full understanding over everything that goes on during class and is usually the one to jump in on the answers in her class. She will even come to extra help before tests and help her fellow students. Though she wil lose her temper with some, it becomes a help. George acts in the same way. He has more of a grasp on what is going on in class and has consistantly done the best on tests and quizzes time and time again.
It is good when students enjoy a subject and do well, but it is even bigger for a teacher when the students want to study and major in the same subject that you are teaching. Sean and Conner are those two for me. Both Sean and Conner have told me that in college, they want to study chemistry. I'm sure most Level 2 students would never utter those words, but to my surprise both of them informed me of this early in the year. Even better, is the Sean wants to be a chemistry major at Syracuse University.
Teaching becomes difficult when no one likes the subject you teach. Students whine, don't try, and many times fail, which with some teachers is seen as a failure on themselves. However, these failures are trumped by students that want to be in class, want to learn, understand, and even make their own deductive conclusions. These students are what get a teacher with a short temper and lack of patience through a school day.
THE ONE STUDENT
It's very easy for music and art teachers to find students that share their same passion because musicians and vocalists and artists are in those classes because they want to be. Most high school curriculums include chemistry as part of the science education, but many teachers in that subject (or biology, history, and mathematics) see fewer students with the same passion and ability to achieve than that of the music or art teacher. In saying achieve, it is not to say that all students in these subject areas are dumb or fail, but they're just looking to get by as to not take the class during the summer. Drop down from the honors level class and it becomes less likely that enthusiastic students are present.
In teaching 110 students in the past months, the Level 2 chemistry classes at Central Catholic have and much higher majority of students that feel that they don't need chemistry; that it is a boring subject; that they don't need to try, and that it is a stupid thing to learn. In turn with this poor attitude many students do not do well and cannot understand that concepts that are being gone over in class. This can be very daunting on a teacher who is passionate about hit or her subject. However, there are five students that seem to have a great grasp on the subject and actually seem to enjoy chemistry: Zeina, Katelyn, Conner, Sean, and George.
Zeina has somewhat become a TA for the classes. She has a full understanding over everything that goes on during class and is usually the one to jump in on the answers in her class. She will even come to extra help before tests and help her fellow students. Though she wil lose her temper with some, it becomes a help. George acts in the same way. He has more of a grasp on what is going on in class and has consistantly done the best on tests and quizzes time and time again.
It is good when students enjoy a subject and do well, but it is even bigger for a teacher when the students want to study and major in the same subject that you are teaching. Sean and Conner are those two for me. Both Sean and Conner have told me that in college, they want to study chemistry. I'm sure most Level 2 students would never utter those words, but to my surprise both of them informed me of this early in the year. Even better, is the Sean wants to be a chemistry major at Syracuse University.
Teaching becomes difficult when no one likes the subject you teach. Students whine, don't try, and many times fail, which with some teachers is seen as a failure on themselves. However, these failures are trumped by students that want to be in class, want to learn, understand, and even make their own deductive conclusions. These students are what get a teacher with a short temper and lack of patience through a school day.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Why some people belong as teachers...
Many people say that 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." As I was not able to do my actual profession as a chemist, I am teaching chemistry. In that way, yes it's true. However, that phrase is usually used in a derogatory way saying that teachers are ones that can't do much. Not true. It takes a special person to be a teacher because these following problems can affect those less prepared.
1. Most of the time, a teacher is teaching the subject that he/she spent at least four years studying in college. You don't decide to spend four years, countless hours of studying, doing work, research let alone paying 60,000+ dollars to learn a subject area you despise. In certain areas such as math, science and history, the subject may not be widely receptive to the students you teach. I teach chemistry and have <10% of my students that actually like the subject. Most comments that are brought from my students are things like "This is pointless, this is stupid, why do I need to know this, this has nothing to do with life." This is all being said to a person who spent entire nights to write lab reports. I find it very offensive that what I am passionate about is considered "pointless" and "stupid"
2. There is little ambition and a strong lack of trying on parts of students. In this day and age, it's OK to give up if things get to hard. Today in doing stoichiometry, I had approx. 30% of my students not do their homework saying that they "didn't understand." There are notes in your notebook correct? Or how about the textbook you bought? Was I not in my room at 7am every morning for extra help? There is no reason that homework isn't done because you didn't understand. When you work through problems, try to find the answer through your resources, you learn. Another girl said "what if I get frustrated and give up?" Well the more you work the problem themore you'll get from it when you solve the problem. Children give up too easily now and this will affect them years down the road.
3. Students feel they are entitled and that their actions, or lack there off, have no repricussions. There are 5 or 6 students that are doing very poorly in my class, that is below a C-. However, these students are the ones that don't pay attention in class, don't do their homework, have poor attitudes, and don't come to extra help. There are many more that don't do their work or come to extra help and are getting in the C range. If you do your work, you learn the material. You can't learn how to do a problem on a test without doing them in the book or on the worksheet. If you still can't do the problems, then you can come to extra help to learn the material. This is all pointless however, if you aren't paying attention in class. That's where the steps and the examples are. With no attention in class, you won't be able to do your homework. But where does a lack of attention in class usually come from? A poor attitude. Go into a situation thinking it's stupid or pointless, or too hard, then you arne't going to put any time and effort in to it.
4. You are either a friend to your students, they like you, and thus don't respect you as an authority figure or you're a teacher and authoritative, your students don't like you and don't respect you as a person. Either way, students are so self absorbed in themselves that they don't respect teachers. Numerous times classes have put away things or gotten up to head to the door while I'm still teaching. My mentor teacher says this is very disrespectful to me. I tend to agree.
I've treated these kids with respect, tried to help them as best I could and have tried to be the teacher I think I have to be. Well, that hasn't worked. Now it's time to be the teacher I was with my pledge classes.
1. Most of the time, a teacher is teaching the subject that he/she spent at least four years studying in college. You don't decide to spend four years, countless hours of studying, doing work, research let alone paying 60,000+ dollars to learn a subject area you despise. In certain areas such as math, science and history, the subject may not be widely receptive to the students you teach. I teach chemistry and have <10% of my students that actually like the subject. Most comments that are brought from my students are things like "This is pointless, this is stupid, why do I need to know this, this has nothing to do with life." This is all being said to a person who spent entire nights to write lab reports. I find it very offensive that what I am passionate about is considered "pointless" and "stupid"
2. There is little ambition and a strong lack of trying on parts of students. In this day and age, it's OK to give up if things get to hard. Today in doing stoichiometry, I had approx. 30% of my students not do their homework saying that they "didn't understand." There are notes in your notebook correct? Or how about the textbook you bought? Was I not in my room at 7am every morning for extra help? There is no reason that homework isn't done because you didn't understand. When you work through problems, try to find the answer through your resources, you learn. Another girl said "what if I get frustrated and give up?" Well the more you work the problem themore you'll get from it when you solve the problem. Children give up too easily now and this will affect them years down the road.
3. Students feel they are entitled and that their actions, or lack there off, have no repricussions. There are 5 or 6 students that are doing very poorly in my class, that is below a C-. However, these students are the ones that don't pay attention in class, don't do their homework, have poor attitudes, and don't come to extra help. There are many more that don't do their work or come to extra help and are getting in the C range. If you do your work, you learn the material. You can't learn how to do a problem on a test without doing them in the book or on the worksheet. If you still can't do the problems, then you can come to extra help to learn the material. This is all pointless however, if you aren't paying attention in class. That's where the steps and the examples are. With no attention in class, you won't be able to do your homework. But where does a lack of attention in class usually come from? A poor attitude. Go into a situation thinking it's stupid or pointless, or too hard, then you arne't going to put any time and effort in to it.
4. You are either a friend to your students, they like you, and thus don't respect you as an authority figure or you're a teacher and authoritative, your students don't like you and don't respect you as a person. Either way, students are so self absorbed in themselves that they don't respect teachers. Numerous times classes have put away things or gotten up to head to the door while I'm still teaching. My mentor teacher says this is very disrespectful to me. I tend to agree.
I've treated these kids with respect, tried to help them as best I could and have tried to be the teacher I think I have to be. Well, that hasn't worked. Now it's time to be the teacher I was with my pledge classes.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Slight new purpose... until June atleast
I haven't updated this in a long time. Mainly because I am now a teacher, have been since September, with no time for myself. But in that time I've come to realize, I need an outlet for the things and aggrivations that I come across in the school year so until I start my master's degree this fall at Syracuse, my blog will be devoted to all I see from a non educators view of educating.
COLLEGE PROFESSORS HAVE TAs. SO TOO SHOULD HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS
The kids have a test tomorrow on chemical formulas and reactions. It's a simple concept to me since I've been doing these types of problems for 6 years and it was what first turned me on to chemistry, but many of the kids are lost. Lucky for them, extra help is everyday afterschool, except yesterday.
Since it is in the child's mind to wait until the last minute to do any work for any subject in high school, there were approximately 20-25 kids at extra help today. There isn't enough board space to send every kid to the board so the kids naturally broke themselves into groups of their own that had the same questions as I went around to help each group as best I can given that there were 25 people to help, all yelling "Mr. Allen" to get my attention.
However, two students showed up to extra help who didn't really need help, Zeina and Kevin. Zeina is my student, small feisty and very smart. Kevin is in the honors class, which I don't teach, but since his teacher is rarely available for extra help Kevin sees me. Both of them, being friends with most if not all the students present, started to help the others understand certain concepts while I helped others with more dire needs. Though Zenia began to lose her cool (understanding where I come from when I become aggrivated during class), their help allowed me to help the most needy students.
The idea struck. College professors teach approx 1-2 classes. Some of these classes are small, some are big. But on average a college professor may have one big class of 100, maybe 150, maybe 200. A high school teacher has approx 25 students per class. At a required 5 classes a day, that's 125 students. College professors will see their class every other day. A high school teacher will see their class every day. College professors will give approx 2-3 tests per semester (Sept - Dec/Jan-May). A high school teacher will give atleast 2-3 tests per term (Sept-Oct/Nov-Jan/Jan-Mar/April-June). So in the time that a college professor gives 2-3 tests a high school teacher has given about 4-6 tests. Introduce the science professor/teacher, and you add the same thing with labs. However, these match up more consistantly.
Now how many of these labs and tests is the high school teacher grading. 125. He or she grades each lab or test or paper themselves. How many labs/tests/papers is the college professor grading. In many cases it's 0. The college professor has teaching assistants that grade labs, run tests through a scantron, read through papers. Teaching assistants run recitations and review sessions. I have never had my actual professor run a review session, its always the TA. The college professor is getting paid more than the high school teacher for doing a lot less.
So high school teachers should have teaching assistants to help with all their grading and review sessions. They do more, they have more to grade and have longer days. My students ask for the labs or tests back the next day if not that afternoon. Between preparing lessons and grading 125 copies of each assesment and running review sessions, I cannot grade all these thigns in a day, especially with the unseen naps that occur if I lay down for 5 minutes. Though I guess that having a student teacher with you is like having a TA, but most high school teachers don't get those.
COLLEGE PROFESSORS HAVE TAs. SO TOO SHOULD HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS
The kids have a test tomorrow on chemical formulas and reactions. It's a simple concept to me since I've been doing these types of problems for 6 years and it was what first turned me on to chemistry, but many of the kids are lost. Lucky for them, extra help is everyday afterschool, except yesterday.
Since it is in the child's mind to wait until the last minute to do any work for any subject in high school, there were approximately 20-25 kids at extra help today. There isn't enough board space to send every kid to the board so the kids naturally broke themselves into groups of their own that had the same questions as I went around to help each group as best I can given that there were 25 people to help, all yelling "Mr. Allen" to get my attention.
However, two students showed up to extra help who didn't really need help, Zeina and Kevin. Zeina is my student, small feisty and very smart. Kevin is in the honors class, which I don't teach, but since his teacher is rarely available for extra help Kevin sees me. Both of them, being friends with most if not all the students present, started to help the others understand certain concepts while I helped others with more dire needs. Though Zenia began to lose her cool (understanding where I come from when I become aggrivated during class), their help allowed me to help the most needy students.
The idea struck. College professors teach approx 1-2 classes. Some of these classes are small, some are big. But on average a college professor may have one big class of 100, maybe 150, maybe 200. A high school teacher has approx 25 students per class. At a required 5 classes a day, that's 125 students. College professors will see their class every other day. A high school teacher will see their class every day. College professors will give approx 2-3 tests per semester (Sept - Dec/Jan-May). A high school teacher will give atleast 2-3 tests per term (Sept-Oct/Nov-Jan/Jan-Mar/April-June). So in the time that a college professor gives 2-3 tests a high school teacher has given about 4-6 tests. Introduce the science professor/teacher, and you add the same thing with labs. However, these match up more consistantly.
Now how many of these labs and tests is the high school teacher grading. 125. He or she grades each lab or test or paper themselves. How many labs/tests/papers is the college professor grading. In many cases it's 0. The college professor has teaching assistants that grade labs, run tests through a scantron, read through papers. Teaching assistants run recitations and review sessions. I have never had my actual professor run a review session, its always the TA. The college professor is getting paid more than the high school teacher for doing a lot less.
So high school teachers should have teaching assistants to help with all their grading and review sessions. They do more, they have more to grade and have longer days. My students ask for the labs or tests back the next day if not that afternoon. Between preparing lessons and grading 125 copies of each assesment and running review sessions, I cannot grade all these thigns in a day, especially with the unseen naps that occur if I lay down for 5 minutes. Though I guess that having a student teacher with you is like having a TA, but most high school teachers don't get those.
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