Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Gradebook has been showing for 2 weeks that my kid has a missing assignment. Kid has asked the teacher about it several times as it's currently a 0 and dragging him down to a B. The teacher acknowledges that my kid turned it in, but teacher says he just hasn't graded it. Kid asked after class again today about it and the teacher gave a heavy sigh and said it's probably "in that stack" and pointed to what my kid described as a huge stack of papers. Kid said : you're sure you have it in there? Teacher said yes, and it would be graded on Monday. But if teacher doesn't have the paper, my kid has to just take a 0 and a B for the quarter because there is no time to dispute it? If kids have only 5 days to turn things in, teachers should also have deadlines to grade them.
So your kid saw the “huge stack” of papers.
Here’s the difference… your child is responsible for just one person: themselves. The teacher is responsible for 150-170 students. That “huge stack” of papers has to get graded at home. One assignment can take 5-6 hours to grade, and that’s just for one small stack. Your child saw a “huge” stack.
Teachers are drowning in after-hours work. Drowning.
This is a math class. The assignments do not take that long to grade. Teachers should not let a huge stack of papers pile up, they should be managing their workloads just like students -- and professionals in the working world -- are expected to.
I appreciate that argument. The problem is that most professionals receive time at work to complete work. Teachers don’t.
Those huge stacks of papers are completed at home. Therefore, grading papers competes with other obligations (feeding families, helping our own children, helping our elderly parents, etc).
No, it isn’t okay that students have to wait. But the real crime here is a situation in which grades compete with family obligations. If they were truly important, teachers would have more time at work to grade. But the system is set up to take advantage of well-meaning nurturers who will give up their time.