This New Year

It is the year of the budget cuts, not only for education, but in health care programs, social service programs, the penal system and anything that the state of California funds. And so my school work load has increased. I suppose for many years I had it easy as a teacher. For all my years at Analy I taught at least two computer skills classes. Students love these classes. I create the lesson around a project that helps them learn the particular piece of software. They complete the project and present it to the class. This year they dropped all of the computer skills classes.

Last year I also taught three Freshman English classes. The classes by state mandate had class size reduction, no more than 20 students per class. This year I teach two freshman classes with about 30 students per class. To give an outsider an idea of how that small change increases the workload, consider the time that it takes to grade on essay. I usually can grade a student essay in 15 to 20 minutes. So to grade one class of 20 essays would take about 5 hours, to grade a class of 30 takes about seven and a half hours. I have two freshmen classes of thirty. So every time I assign an essay, my work load increases by 5 hours. But I don't just have two Freshmen classes. I also have two sophomore classes, that I didn't have last year. One class has 35 and the other has 30. Grading 65 essays takes about 16 hours. This is not to even mention the preparation time for class. I have not taught sophomore English for more than five years, so it is as if I am starting over.

Another factor related to preparation is the number of classes a teacher teaches. This year the powers that be added to my schedule a world history class of 32 students. In teacher lingo this is called "three preps", meaning that it is easier to put together lesson plans teaching the same thing, rather than many different things.

Another thing I have difficulty with is "taming the paper tiger". Last year I taught about 60 students with computers and all assignments were handed in digitally. I had 60 English students who hand in paper. There classes with 20 students each, I can handle the paper; 160 students with paper, I am not sure. I give a vocabulary test every week- that makes 120 vocabulary tests to grade, record and give back. Believe me. I know that every English teacher goes through this. OK. I will stop complaining. I frankly have a pretty nice group of Freshmen. And my Sophomores are a little jumpy but generally all nice kids- most of whom want to learn.