JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #13
Managing
the Workload:
How to Veteran Teachers Do It?
This was another marathon grading weekend, and it isnıt over yet. Call of the Wild final exams and projects are awaiting my red pen. I just finished grading the chapter assignments. Thank goodness there was no spelling this week! I estimate that by Tuesday evening I will have thumbed through, read, marked, commented on, and determined grades for over 640 tests, projects, and homework pages (four different assignments times five classes of 32 students each.) Each assignment is an average of three pages apiece, so I am handling close to 2000 pieces of paper over these four days. Perhaps next year, with some experience under my belt, I will figure out how to spread this kind of grading out, or assign work that is easier to grade. However, I want my students to write, thus I give assignments and exams that require short and essay answers. Student grading on this kind of work isn't possible. Besides, I want to assess each studentıs understanding of the lesson. I want to see their answers for myself. I don't intend this week's reflection to be a "Poor Me" session. Rather, I wonder how teachers manage the workload. How does an English teacher assign anything more than paragraph-length answers and still have a life beyond grading?
More importantly, how does a teacher connect with all 32 students per class in a meaningful way? I see the work I hand back to them as one way to communicate with each and every one personally. There certainly isn't time in the 45 minutes we have together in class each day to connect individually.
Because I have a responsible student take roll, there are times, after a class has left, that I realize I didn't even notice if Sean, or Mike, or Sara, or Laura was present. They are the quiet ones who don't make themselves known. It hurts me to think that a student can slip through a whole day without ever being noticed by a teacher. Yet I am sadly certain that it must happen.
I dream of smaller classes
Of course the answer is smaller class size, but we all know that battle, especially in California. Back when I earned my teaching degree in 1975, I remember a research report stating that class size was not an indicator of student success. Rather, it was dependent on the quality of the teacher.
I don't know what current research says on this subject, but simple common sense tells me that a superb teacher will teach superbly, regardless of conditions. Common sense also tells me that we are not all superb teachers, as much as we wish we were and strive to do our best. Another thought is, if a superb teacher teachers a class of 32 superbly, what might he/she do with a class of 20? How's that for a mind-boggling thought?
And so my rambling potpourri of thoughts goes this Sunday evening, as I groggily put the red pen away for the night. Keeping in mind that Thursday is Thanksgiving, I also close by giving thanks for my students and the challenge and growth they afford me, for the educators at Middleweb Listserv for continuing to mentor me, and for my principal for giving me the opportunity to be a teacher. In spite of 2000 pieces of paper, I am finding teaching middle schoolers a calling and a joy.
Read next week's diary
