1 graded assignment this month

[Anonymous]

I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grades are due by Wed..some take their time. Some didn't sync grades and no idea knowing. Not sure why they can't just grade once week. It is a lot of students everyone knows that fact. But...

But what? I’m not even a teacher but I invite you to spend a day or two in the building and you’ll see why grading takes so long. Most HS teachers have 5 classes. They are often helping students during lunch. They have easily 150 students.

Example: Say so a teacher teaches 3 sections of AP English each with 30 kids. So 90 kids total. You assign a 5page paper. If it takes 5mins to read each paper and provide feedback that would be 450mins, so almost 8hrs for one assignments. How many free hours did the teacher have this work week?

We get it’s a hard job and no one is arguing that but students don’t learn or are able to improve without feedback and grades. Not ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grades are due by Wed..some take their time. Some didn't sync grades and no idea knowing. Not sure why they can't just grade once week. It is a lot of students everyone knows that fact. But...

But what? I’m not even a teacher but I invite you to spend a day or two in the building and you’ll see why grading takes so long. Most HS teachers have 5 classes. They are often helping students during lunch. They have easily 150 students.

Example: Say so a teacher teaches 3 sections of AP English each with 30 kids. So 90 kids total. You assign a 5page paper. If it takes 5mins to read each paper and provide feedback that would be 450mins, so almost 8hrs for one assignments. How many free hours did the teacher have this work week?

We get it’s a hard job and no one is arguing that but students don’t learn or are able to improve without feedback and grades. Not ok.

.

No one believes it is which is why teachers are spending personal time grading. But how sustainable is that. We’re explaining why grades are not done once a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

These aren’t complaints. They are explanations.

And while it is true that many jobs require extra hours, I’m comfortable arguing that teaching is a unique blend of challenges. (And no, I’m not saying it’s harder than all other jobs. Just unique.)

It’s a combination of a sensory-overloaded day on your feet, presenting to an often disengaged and/or disruptive audience (and sometimes hostile). This drains your energy and patience. It’s dealing with tragedies and trauma that students bring to school with them, which drains your emotions. It’s being directly held responsible for the outcomes in your classroom, even though you can’t control most of the variables. This drains your optimism and will to remain in the job.

And then it’s the end of the day and you had no time to plan lessons, answer emails, grade papers, etc. So it all goes in a bag and you spend 3 hours that night getting ready for tomorrow, even though you’re exhausted from the pressure of that day.

And again: this is not a complaint. But I will say that the many people have no idea what a teacher faces. You see what we show you, but you don’t see the teachers crying in cars. There are many reasons we have such turnover, and I see it getting worse. We’ve lost multiple teachers mid-year this year, which didn’t used to happen often.

And again: not a complaint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child who is a junior has an AP English teacher who has graded ONE assignment for the month of January input in ParentVUE. This teacher is notorious for having so few assignments, Dec had 4 assignments total. I keep thinking she will do better, but that doesn’t seem to be true.

It’s hard for my child to get a good grade or good feedback when this is the case.

I am new to the school system in the US. Is this something to complain about? If so,who would I complain to? Also forgot to Mention this is a magnet program.

It is not something for YOU to complain about. Encourage your student, who is in high school, to manage their studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

Because teachers aren’t paid the same way those other jobs were there are expectations of working at home. Teachers are notoriously underpaid. And in fact many do work out of contract hours.

Also, you are worried about your single child. The teacher had to work — and grade — every student in the class.

Also, it’s the beginning of the session. I don’t know why you expect there to be so much work right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

These aren’t complaints. They are explanations.

And while it is true that many jobs require extra hours, I’m comfortable arguing that teaching is a unique blend of challenges. (And no, I’m not saying it’s harder than all other jobs. Just unique.)

It’s a combination of a sensory-overloaded day on your feet, presenting to an often disengaged and/or disruptive audience (and sometimes hostile). This drains your energy and patience. It’s dealing with tragedies and trauma that students bring to school with them, which drains your emotions. It’s being directly held responsible for the outcomes in your classroom, even though you can’t control most of the variables. This drains your optimism and will to remain in the job.

And then it’s the end of the day and you had no time to plan lessons, answer emails, grade papers, etc. So it all goes in a bag and you spend 3 hours that night getting ready for tomorrow, even though you’re exhausted from the pressure of that day.

And again: this is not a complaint. But I will say that the many people have no idea what a teacher faces. You see what we show you, but you don’t see the teachers crying in cars. There are many reasons we have such turnover, and I see it getting worse. We’ve lost multiple teachers mid-year this year, which didn’t used to happen often.

And again: not a complaint.

Of course you should be held responsible. We have some good teachers, meh teachers and bad. For our straight a student this year we’ve had to hire multiple tutors as the teachers aren’t teaching. One teacher is absent more than there. They can do online homework with auto correct. We have several teachers who do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

Because teachers aren’t paid the same way those other jobs were there are expectations of working at home. Teachers are notoriously underpaid. And in fact many do work out of contract hours.

Also, you are worried about your single child. The teacher had to work — and grade — every student in the class.

Also, it’s the beginning of the session. I don’t know why you expect there to be so much work right away.

Right, they are paid much better than social workers, public health nurses, etc who are required to have masters and definitely don’t work 8 hours except the bad ones. They get 10 months vs 12 months and higher pay and benefits.

[Anonymous]

MD teachers also are required to have Master’s degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

These aren’t complaints. They are explanations.

And while it is true that many jobs require extra hours, I’m comfortable arguing that teaching is a unique blend of challenges. (And no, I’m not saying it’s harder than all other jobs. Just unique.)

It’s a combination of a sensory-overloaded day on your feet, presenting to an often disengaged and/or disruptive audience (and sometimes hostile). This drains your energy and patience. It’s dealing with tragedies and trauma that students bring to school with them, which drains your emotions. It’s being directly held responsible for the outcomes in your classroom, even though you can’t control most of the variables. This drains your optimism and will to remain in the job.

And then it’s the end of the day and you had no time to plan lessons, answer emails, grade papers, etc. So it all goes in a bag and you spend 3 hours that night getting ready for tomorrow, even though you’re exhausted from the pressure of that day.

And again: this is not a complaint. But I will say that the many people have no idea what a teacher faces. You see what we show you, but you don’t see the teachers crying in cars. There are many reasons we have such turnover, and I see it getting worse. We’ve lost multiple teachers mid-year this year, which didn’t used to happen often.

And again: not a complaint.

Of course you should be held responsible. We have some good teachers, meh teachers and bad. For our straight a student this year we’ve had to hire multiple tutors as the teachers aren’t teaching. One teacher is absent more than there. They can do online homework with auto correct. We have several teachers who do.

Did I say anywhere that we shouldn’t be held responsible?

I’m aware this is DCUM, where teachers are reviled and ridiculed on a daily basis. But ask yourself this: those good teachers that you state you’ve had… do they deserve this treatment? Because we get it every day. It wears us down.

So accept my explanation of the job above as merely an explanation of the challenges. It’s not some excuse for why work doesn’t get done. And notice it was written around 4am, when I got up this morning to grade papers. It’s now 6 and I’m going to get ready for work. Many of us are trying hard and deserve at least an ounce of respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MD teachers also are required to have Master’s degrees.

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MD teachers also are required to have Master’s degrees.

Nope.

Yes? In mcps you have to reach a Master's or 30 graduate credits by your 10th year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child who is a junior has an AP English teacher who has graded ONE assignment for the month of January input in ParentVUE. This teacher is notorious for having so few assignments, Dec had 4 assignments total. I keep thinking she will do better, but that doesn’t seem to be true.

It’s hard for my child to get a good grade or good feedback when this is the case.

I am new to the school system in the US. Is this something to complain about? If so,who would I complain to? Also forgot to Mention this is a magnet program.

Getting this thread back on topic, the teacher had about 1 assignment per week in December, we've had like 14 school days this month, and you say there is 1 for this month, so it's possible that there is 1 more in the process of being graded. Instead of complaining to anyone, why not just email the teacher and ask if what you are seeing is accurate?

[Anonymous]

Elementary school teacher and parent of two high school students.

The teacher absolutely should have had more than one grade by now.

And teaching right now IS hard and relentless. But we signed up for this. We can’t stop doing our jobs because it’s hard. These kids deserve better.

But parents, please also know that the more you crap on teachers, the more defeated we get.

We are in a very bad cycle in education right now. We need to work as a team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mean to be snarky, but a lot of jobs have to work over the 40 hours contracted per week, many at home after work hours. It’s part of the job for many jobs, but why is it most complained about by teachers. That’s what I don’t understand. Can someone please educate me?

Because teachers aren’t paid the same way those other jobs were there are expectations of working at home. Teachers are notoriously underpaid. And in fact many do work out of contract hours.

Also, you are worried about your single child. The teacher had to work — and grade — every student in the class.

Also, it’s the beginning of the session. I don’t know why you expect there to be so much work right away.

Right, they are paid much better than social workers, public health nurses, etc who are required to have masters and definitely don’t work 8 hours except the bad ones. They get 10 months vs 12 months and higher pay and benefits.

Nurses make twice as much as teachers these days. And get paid for the hours they work.

I don’t know many social workers who work extreme hours.

And honestly nobody should work outside of their normal hours. Ever. Boundaries are important. Just because some people fail to assert them properly and lack work-life balance doesn’t mean you get to demand others follow suit.