The Work We Bring Home: Drowning In It

My first year teaching I was astounded by the fact that we had only one prep period per day and at least four teaching periods each day. I was trained at Bank Street to plan thoughtful engaging lessons, and did so meticulously. One period just wasn’t enough. And then I realized something even more startling…there was NO time built into the schedule to assess and grade student work. I mean, not even one period, ever. I asked my union-savvy colleague about time for grading. She had gladly lamented with me the injustice of our one inadequate period to prepare lessons, maintain a classroom, and make copies; but she answered matter-of-factly, “Oh, grading? You’re on your own with that. Teachers have always done grading on their own time.” Of course! I thought sarcastically. What was I thinking? I guess it’s just our fate to work overtime for no pay. Even the union thinks so.

I recently noticed that the New York City School Quality Review process—one of the many “high stakes” evaluations that schools now undergo—emphasizes evidence of differentiated instruction in the classroom. I know that differentiation is one of the things that teachers across the city are struggling to understand and implement, and its something I’ve been taking some “extra” time to read up on. The most important thing I’ve learned about successfully differentiating instruction is that it must be done hand in hand with careful assessment of student work. Teachers need to assess work at many points throughout a study in order to determine what directions to take with the whole class, small groups within the class, and individual students.

Differentiation is not just some meaningless jargon sent down to teachers by the department of education. It is, in the words of expert Rick Wormeli, “…what works. It’s highly effective teaching.” So…front and center on my mind is, where is the time for this essential work?

Right now, I have a teacher-bag full of my eighth grade students’ ten page first drafts of original fiction stories. They are very proud of them, and so am I. But I know they need work, and they don’t all need the same thing. Maybe in the old days I could have just quickly checked each student off in a grade book as having completed the assignment. But not today, in the age of data-driven instruction, differentiation, and curriculum as conversation. I know what happens if I don’t read these stories carefully. My class becomes a one-sided conversation. My students have spoken and I don’t respond, or I respond with empty catch-phrases, which they spot like detectives. The next thing I know, I say something I think is important in the classroom, and…they don’t listen! This is the particular brand of justice early adolescents dole out to the adults in their lives.

If I rush, each story will take me about twenty minutes. I have 55 stories, which adds up to 18 hours of grading and responding to stories. I know there are some tricks to cut down on this time; I’ve already employed students as peer editors, and done many relevant lessons throughout the writing process. At some point, though, the teacher needs to weigh in and guide students toward their next steps. That time is now and I’m totally drowning.

I know lawyers and investment bankers, doctors and scientists, who at times work outrageously long hours just to get an important job done. However, these professionals start with six figure salaries and get raises in the hundreds of thousands for their hard work. I, on the other hand, make barely enough money to go on a proper vacation or pay for cable television. And my salary with its slow raises will be identical, whether I engage in true conversation with my students through their work, or simply check them off for completing the task.

If the city wants to review schools and teachers for quality and counts differentiation as an essential element of this quality, we ought to be asking for real time in our schedules to do it right. Otherwise the city is just having a conversation with itself.

[Graphic found at http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/d/df/Roy_Lichtenstein_Drowning_Girl.jpg]

Comments

[David Cohen]

Ariel,

I wanted to say something useful or clever or inspirational in response to this blog, but I'm busy grading essays right now! Well, I took a break, but better get back to them. Keep asking about that extra time though. We can't improve schools and teaching without agitating for the time and tools to do the job right.

[Ariel Sacks]

Thanks for the comment, David. I have a feeling I will keep agitating about this one. I'm kind of baffled as to why it isn't a bigger issue already. We insist on being paid per session for extra meetings and other after school events, but not for grading student work, as if it's invisible. As I think about starting a family, I wonder how I will find time for all the responding and grading.

I know a gifted teacher who was considering leaving teaching for a more lucrative profession...until she was offered the position of dean of discipline at our school. Why did this change her mind? She still gets paid the same as she did as a teacher, BUT she doesn't have to take work home to grade. Thus, she can spend more time with her child.

[Rick Wormeli]

Hey Ariel -- Thanks for saying so eloquently and vividly what so many are feeling. If it's any consolation, there are teachers who said the same thing 10 and 20 years ago. You'd think we would have evolved as a profession and society by now.

There are definitely short cuts we can take when grading in English classes that don't slight our students, and in fact, may actually teach them better. For example, one thing I have to remind myself when I grade students' papers is, "Whoever is doing the grading is doing the learning." This means that I don't circle misspelled words and write, "SP" next to them. Nor do I insert commas, apostrophes, or plural endings when they're needed. I place dots at the end of the line (or some similar symbol) and require students to find the mistake and correct it. I did this when I taught math as well (when editing students' work on math problems). Because it takes a while to train students how to do this, we worked with very short passages for months before we worked up to longer papers.

Second, don't forget that less is more. Try only assigning one-page writings. It is a higher order thinking skill to encapsulate than it is to write on and on, hoping something will stick with the teacher. In shorter writings, every word counts, every sentence advances the author's cause. Plus, you get the added benefit of going through a pile of one-pagers, not multi-pagers. My students' writing skills went up when they had to shorten their papers.

Third, NCTE a few years ago, and a number of publications since then, point out that students really receive only two pieces of feedback when looking at their graded work. Put another way, teachers should focus only on two areas when assessing students work becaue they just don't engage with much more than that.

There are other tips I'm sure you've already discovered, but it's always good to gather these for personal and professional sanity.

The larger issues you raise, of course, are about where we get the time to do all we feel we have to do (our own integrity and ethics) and that others demand we do (their expectations), particularly with grading and differentiation.

In short, you're right -- we can't do it, given the time and pay we have. Every day, however, we negotiate withourselves for what level of hypocrisy we will tolerate this day. Some days we are more tolerant than we should be -- in ourselves or in our institutions. Teachers have to give themselves license, however, to not finish grading papers, not create that innovative lesson, not return that parent phone call, not go that extra mile for a student once in a while in order to sleep, exercise, maintain our own families and keep sane. We are driven people, wanting to do right by our students, so we often feel terrific guilt when we do this. On top of this, no matter how we teach, differentiated or not, there is never enough time, space, and resources to do what we want to do.

And sometimes, the altnerative is just not acceptable. Given a choice between maintaining the status quo (or giving into our tiredness and just giving up) or getting involved and actually trying to change the system from within, trying to live up to the promise of teaching, and sharing our love of subjects and learning with the next generation, we overcome our fears and disappointments and teach anyway. It's not always easy or coherent, but it gets us up in the morning.

I know some of how I'm responding to your blog seems like simplistic platitudes, but those sentiments provide the larger perspectives that keep us going. I guess I look at it as if we're all ambassadors for living a full and meaningful life. Teachers are good at keeping hope where there is none. For ourselves, we fight battles small and large, we find fulfillment in every student's success, and we appreciate the fact that we get to teach, not we have to teach. We're on the front lines of humanity, shaping a real future based on what we do with impressionable young minds today. We don't find it sappy to declare that we want to make a difference in the world, then we go ahead and do it. I truly believe that with every crappy thing we have to deal with in a society that doesn't accept us as a full profession, we experience humanity with meaning and intensity most other professions can't provide. Try to hold on to that to get you through the rough times, keep finding ways to ease the grading and differentiating load, and keep publicly articulating your thoughts about all of this as you've done here. It's sure helping the rest of us think, and maybe even take positive action. Thanks for such a thoughtful blog! -- Rick Wormeli, Herndon, VA

[Kathie Marshall]

This (paperwork) is the only concern I have, Ariel, as I anticipate returning to the classroom next year after six years out. I appreciate Rick's comments also. For passionate teachers, the real challenge is in finding balance. Good luck on those fabulous stories!

[Eliza]

Ariel - I too am a graduate of Bank Street and an 8th grade English teacher. I miss my teaching style that I believed in and learned at BS.

I am now at a rather "traditional" middle school In Palo Alto, CA. Regarding correcting and the HOURS...We are fortunate enough to have aprx two prep periods a day. But, guess what? I still bring home 75 papers (some teachers will have 125). So, where does the work end? We implemented the John Collins writing program two years ago to help with correcting and the load. The basics are Focus Correction Areas on each paper - say Transitions, or Thesis - the idea to just "check this" when reading the essay. Anyway, it is still tough to go through a paper and not note all the errors - just the basics like commas etc. And the program does help to sort of look over other mistakes but the school isn't buying into it and therefore it isn't being used. So Rick's words about the dot of the end of the line is excellent, but my question is, when do you have time in a class of 29 students to go over what the problem is if they don't see it? To conference?

At Bank Street we had writer's workshop and everyone wrote and we just let them be free and they became beautiful writers. Now I have to produce 5 literary response essays a year (and I make sure they are not longer than 500 words) memoir, poetry (both I love) a short story which I made more contrived with a "twist" so it would be under two pages and then the thematic unit (People of the Civil War Biographies) that is suppose to be graded for facts with the history class and English with me. Unfortunately - I do all the grading. I can't correct more than 5 papers in an hour and I can't really handle more than two hours a night! I want to teach differently next year, go back to a workshop - I am at a loss, and bored - how many more papers on The Call of the Wild, The Pearl, Whirligig can one read???? I am burnt out!

I know I am rambling but I appreciate all you both said and RICK can you give me some more correcting tips!!! If you see this?!

[Ariel Sacks]

Rick, thank you for your encouragement and great advice. I want to think a lot more about your point that students really only receive two pieces of feedback on a paper, and find a way to organize my curriculum and assessment more clearly around that research. I do believe there are ways I can make grading more efficient and effective for myself and my students (I'm reading your book, Fair Isn;t Always Equal: assessment in the differentiated classroom. I actually presented some concepts from it at a PD session at my school...it's quite eye-opening and helpful! Thank you!).

I still stand by the notion that we do need some time set aside in our schedules to do this work, and probably some more guidance at the school level in how to do it. As it is right now, some teachers almost never offer feedback to students on their work. I've known teachers who actually just make up grades at the end of the quarter based on how they "feel" each student is doing. This does not realy violate their contract, as all we are actually paid to do is teach and "prep" and attend meetings or other professional duties. Other teachers make inordinate sacrifices of time and personal/professional boundaries to offer feedback for every student on most or all assignments. I think this situation requires some intervention on the part of administrators and resources on the part of the Dept. of Education. Perhaps with the push for differentiation and lots of talk of performance pay, there might be an opening for us to reconstruct our schedules around the real demands of our jobs. I hope.

[Ariel Sacks]

Kathie, Good luck with adjusting to the paperload! I'm sure with all of your experience you'll be able to find your rhythm with it a lot faster than I am!

[Ariel Sacks]

Eliza, Your comments definitely hit home with me. I have been through many a battle over curriculum mandates from my school, district, etc. Though it was scary, I ended up rebelling quite a bit from the mandates. I used a combination of seeing what I could "get away with" and negotiation around key points of conflict.

I always made sure I could defend my choices in terms of the needs of my students, and often cite my Bank Street training and why I believe in it. I just can not handle doing something I don't believe in, especially when teaching is so challenging as it is.

Some days (like when I thought I had been "caught") I would walk through the hallways of my school wondering what was really going to happen to me. Would I be fired? Would I be reprimanded? Nothing ever happened. Sometimes I was questioned about what I was doing. I used a poker face and explained my rationale for my choices as confidently and respectfully as possible; I also explained how I was incorporating aspects of the mandated curriculum that I felt made sense for my kids--like, "I'm planning to teach literary essay with this novel, but not this other one."

I think our biggest bargaining chip is our willingness to serve our students. Most administrators do not want to lose dedicated teachers who work successfully with students. So, without really knowing your school context, I'd say take a risk. Do what you believe in!