A plea to HS teachers

[Anonymous]

On the other hand, if the counselor pulled me aside to say that Larla was on the verge of an anxiety attack over her project grade, I might pull it to the top of the stack and try to grade in 48 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure many HS teachers are reading here. You might be better off contacting your school principal.

There are plenty of us on here. And 99% of us do our grading, promptly and accurately.

This isn't a plea to "HS teachers" it's to ONE problem teacher. This should be addressed with the administrator, not with this website of random people, who also could be teachers, but the vast majority of us DO our grading and feedback and such promptly.

Note that in a year where she had at minimum 8 teachers, there is ONE teacher you are pointing out. That is 12% OF HER YEAR. or 88% that did their jobs well.

Lengthy delays in grading are the norm in every MS and HS my kids have been in in MCPS. It's not just one teacher, it's usually 2-3 each semester. It's a major source of teen stress.

I hope you are not a teacher. You seem very angry. Angry teachers are also a major source of teen stress.

If you are in MCPS the policy is that work turned in on time needs to be graded within 3 weeks. If it's less than that, the teacher isn't going against policy. Once you are past three weeks, let your student send an email to the teacher. If no action in a few days, then parent should email teacher and department resource teacher. Still no resolution? Then email the assistant principal over the department.

The only reason this is a source of stress nowadays is that students and parents have instant access to every grade as it is entered and are constantly calculating cost-benefit on level of effort for every assignment. In the good old days, you just had to work and study as hard as you could every marking period for the entire marking period, and your grade would be whatever you earned at the end.

[Anonymous]

I am a HS teacher who agrees that the open and accessible online gradebook is detrimental.

[Anonymous]

Our HS teachers are overall higher quality than our elementary and MS teachers. They do grade in a timely fashion. The only 2 that don’t are the ones who put toms of thought and effort into each essay they grade. One teaches English and AP Lit. The other teaches History and AP History. They are both exceptional teachers and warn the students that it will take several weeks. They don’t assign another writing assignment during that time.

I work at an elementary school. Those teachers spend a huge amount of their plan time chatting and hanging out. Then they complain on fb about having to take papers home to grade, and they talk about how that stack just sits there for days because they get distracted by Netflix.

The best and happiest teachers tend to be second career teachers. They have worked jobs with similar salaries where they did not get summer/winter/spring break in addition to many personal days. They had to work until 5 or 6. They had to go to work on snow days. They don’t complain about having to grade papers at home because they know that most professionals have to bring work home. They don’t complain about how teachers are under appreciated because at their last job they didn’t get 20+ gifts for their birthday/Christmas/End-of-year. They also didn’t get an entire Appreciation Week where they could go around town enjoying discounts and free food/drinks. Or have groups of volunteers come in to their work all week to bring them catered meals and other surprise gifts.

[Anonymous]

I've stopped looking at my kids' grades because half of them are some ridiculously low number because there is no grade entered for certain projects or tests (so it counts as a zero, I guess). This has been widespread between our middle school and our high school. I wish they'd just do away with it, because it's silly to have them up there if they are not used properly. It just makes everyone more anxious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This could be my DD's AP Lang teacher. It is unfortunate, because DD there was one meh essay that brought her grade from an A to a B for the quarter with no time to do anything to regain it. More upsetting to my DD is 1) he only grades about 1/3 of the essays, and 2) her final grade ended up at a 89.4 (B+).

Credit to DD, she advocated for herself. The meh easy was supposed to be a draft, but since he never returned it, he graded it like the final. DD wanted to revise it. The teacher did not want to grade more, but he did add a class participation grade. That got her year-end grade unto an A-.

I'm glad he ended up giving her the "credit" for what would have happened had the draft actually been graded as a draft with a revision. It is still a story about an irresponsible prefssional since he punted on letting her do the actual learning.

In Lang it was almost certainly a timed write for which there are no revisions. Redos and revisions are often not allowed in courses that receive that high of a GPA bump either. The kid has no way of knowing that only 1/3 were graded. That is literally not credible or believable. If anything the teacher would grade none if they weren’t going to grade all but nobody grades 1/3 and only 1/3. Great way to have your gradebook audited especially in an AP course.

I read the PP's statement as only 1 out of 3 essays submitted were graded for everyone meaning there was a substantial amount of work that was not graded for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This could be my DD's AP Lang teacher. It is unfortunate, because DD there was one meh essay that brought her grade from an A to a B for the quarter with no time to do anything to regain it. More upsetting to my DD is 1) he only grades about 1/3 of the essays, and 2) her final grade ended up at a 89.4 (B+).

Credit to DD, she advocated for herself. The meh easy was supposed to be a draft, but since he never returned it, he graded it like the final. DD wanted to revise it. The teacher did not want to grade more, but he did add a class participation grade. That got her year-end grade unto an A-.

I'm glad he ended up giving her the "credit" for what would have happened had the draft actually been graded as a draft with a revision. It is still a story about an irresponsible prefssional since he punted on letting her do the actual learning.

In Lang it was almost certainly a timed write for which there are no revisions. Redos and revisions are often not allowed in courses that receive that high of a GPA bump either. The kid has no way of knowing that only 1/3 were graded. That is literally not credible or believable. If anything the teacher would grade none if they weren’t going to grade all but nobody grades 1/3 and only 1/3. Great way to have your gradebook audited especially in an AP course.

I read the PP's statement as only 1 out of 3 essays submitted were graded for everyone meaning there was a substantial amount of work that was not graded for anyone.

I read this as only 1/3 of each essay was graded. This I’ve seen done many times in MCPS. The teacher may assign 3 writing skills, but only grade one in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HS teachers are overall higher quality than our elementary and MS teachers. They do grade in a timely fashion. The only 2 that don’t are the ones who put toms of thought and effort into each essay they grade. One teaches English and AP Lit. The other teaches History and AP History. They are both exceptional teachers and warn the students that it will take several weeks. They don’t assign another writing assignment during that time.

I work at an elementary school. Those teachers spend a huge amount of their plan time chatting and hanging out. Then they complain on fb about having to take papers home to grade, and they talk about how that stack just sits there for days because they get distracted by Netflix.

The best and happiest teachers tend to be second career teachers. They have worked jobs with similar salaries where they did not get summer/winter/spring break in addition to many personal days. They had to work until 5 or 6. They had to go to work on snow days. They don’t complain about having to grade papers at home because they know that most professionals have to bring work home. They don’t complain about how teachers are under appreciated because at their last job they didn’t get 20+ gifts for their birthday/Christmas/End-of-year. They also didn’t get an entire Appreciation Week where they could go around town enjoying discounts and free food/drinks. Or have groups of volunteers come in to their work all week to bring them catered meals and other surprise gifts.

Not my experience with career changers. Most of them earned more at their former jobs because nearly every professional job with the same educational requirements pays more than teaching. Read the threads about people who switch to teaching and they admit that they thought it wouldn’t be as hard as it is.

[Anonymous]

Well, essays were handed back today — a short exam day. Tomorrow is the last day of school but is 3 hour early release so not much of a day. DD did not do well on the essay and another year of missed opportunities to improve writing. I guess we need to look into and pay for some sort of summer class to improve her writing.

And the other teacher still hasn’t inputted the correct grades. Nothing left to do about it.

So disappointing.

[Anonymous]

I used to be a high school English teacher. I was great at classroom instruction. I planned engaging lessons and meaningful projects. I connected with students. I connected students with books they loved. I had classes with students with challenging behavioral histories and never once had to send a kid to the office. By almost every measure, I was a great teacher.

But it was impossible, impossible, to keep up with grading. I had 130-150 students in 5 classes. If I spent ONE minute on each student’s writing once a day, that’s at least 2.5 hours of grading. But even reading a couple of journal entries and putting a check on then took more that 1 minute per kid.

So let’s say I assigned just one essay a week and spent just 3 minutes reading and responding to each kid. That is at least SEVEN hours of work for just ONE assignment.

That’s 7 hours of work on top of a full day of working. That doesn’t include actually planning any lessons, reading journals, responding to parents, or working on anything assigned by my department chair or for one of the zillion committees I had to be on.

Every weekend I was spending 8-20 hours grading, just to keep up.

I read every journal article, every book, every blog I possibly could about efficient and most effective paper grading. I tried everything.

It is impossible. It is impossible to keep up. Impossible to read and respond to everything. I had many, many parents complaining. I fell into terrible depressions and eventually quit.

20 years later, im FB friends with SO many of my former students who have found me. It is gratifying that so many say I was their best teacher and can feel me so much of what they remember from classes. So many kids say I changed their lives, made them feel seen, gave them hope, challenged them, inspired them.

I thought I was such a terrible teacher because I could not keep up with grading. My entire identity was that I was a failure as a teacher.

But I was not a failure. I focused on what matters. I wish I could go back and take all that pressure off myself. No one becomes a great writer from margin notes. It did not matter worth 8-20 hours a week of my life I can never get back.

But on behalf of hardworking high school teachers everywhere....FFS. Is this really that terrible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, essays were handed back today — a short exam day. Tomorrow is the last day of school but is 3 hour early release so not much of a day. DD did not do well on the essay and another year of missed opportunities to improve writing. I guess we need to look into and pay for some sort of summer class to improve her writing.

And the other teacher still hasn’t inputted the correct grades. Nothing left to do about it.

So disappointing.

It is disappointIn. Now cut your losses. Your kid clearly has an issue to work out with writing because what is graded is disappointing you both. Just hire someone if you can afford it. We did after the second no grading English teacher. Made a world of difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to be a high school English teacher. I was great at classroom instruction. I planned engaging lessons and meaningful projects. I connected with students. I connected students with books they loved. I had classes with students with challenging behavioral histories and never once had to send a kid to the office. By almost every measure, I was a great teacher.

But it was impossible, impossible, to keep up with grading. I had 130-150 students in 5 classes. If I spent ONE minute on each student’s writing once a day, that’s at least 2.5 hours of grading. But even reading a couple of journal entries and putting a check on then took more that 1 minute per kid.

So let’s say I assigned just one essay a week and spent just 3 minutes reading and responding to each kid. That is at least SEVEN hours of work for just ONE assignment.

That’s 7 hours of work on top of a full day of working. That doesn’t include actually planning any lessons, reading journals, responding to parents, or working on anything assigned by my department chair or for one of the zillion committees I had to be on.

Every weekend I was spending 8-20 hours grading, just to keep up.

I read every journal article, every book, every blog I possibly could about efficient and most effective paper grading. I tried everything.

It is impossible. It is impossible to keep up. Impossible to read and respond to everything. I had many, many parents complaining. I fell into terrible depressions and eventually quit.

20 years later, im FB friends with SO many of my former students who have found me. It is gratifying that so many say I was their best teacher and can feel me so much of what they remember from classes. So many kids say I changed their lives, made them feel seen, gave them hope, challenged them, inspired them.

I thought I was such a terrible teacher because I could not keep up with grading. My entire identity was that I was a failure as a teacher.

But I was not a failure. I focused on what matters. I wish I could go back and take all that pressure off myself. No one becomes a great writer from margin notes. It did not matter worth 8-20 hours a week of my life I can never get back.

But on behalf of hardworking high school teachers everywhere....FFS. Is this really that terrible?

Current HA teacher. Thank you for this. It’s true. I bust my ASS to stay on top of grading but with 150 students writing essays and me giving them MEANINGFUL feedback, “on top of grading” might literally mean they get it back 2-3 weeks later. It’s physically not possible to do meaningful reading and feedbacking to the point it helps them be better writers in a 1-2 day or even usually 1 week turnaround. It’s not.

I also tell mine all the time IDGAF about the grade. I wish schools would do away with grades. I’m concerned with their learning and growth and well being and general human experience. The number in the gradebook interests me not at all. I grade their stuff as quickly and throughly as I can, but grading is also the dead last least important and meaningful part of my job.

[Anonymous]

I wasn't also a teacher who had to grade essays.

On the night my essays were due, and a few successive ones, I made that grading my priority. I took steps to lighten my load of completion grading so my time could be spent on the important stuff. I assigned shorter pieces (not term papers) so that the grading was manageable.

If you folks think grading written work isn't important, you are mistaken. People learn to write by writing and rewriting. Teachers need to be part of that.

At least when I got my MAT, we were taught the importance of high quality assessment and feedback to learning.

Yes, it is drudgery. But that is part of what you are paid to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wasn't also a teacher who had to grade essays.

On the night my essays were due, and a few successive ones, I made that grading my priority. I took steps to lighten my load of completion grading so my time could be spent on the important stuff. I assigned shorter pieces (not term papers) so that the grading was manageable.

If you folks think grading written work isn't important, you are mistaken. People learn to write by writing and rewriting. Teachers need to be part of that.

At least when I got my MAT, we were taught the importance of high quality assessment and feedback to learning.

Yes, it is drudgery. But that is part of what you are paid to do.

Hmmmmm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HS teachers are overall higher quality than our elementary and MS teachers. They do grade in a timely fashion. The only 2 that don’t are the ones who put toms of thought and effort into each essay they grade. One teaches English and AP Lit. The other teaches History and AP History. They are both exceptional teachers and warn the students that it will take several weeks. They don’t assign another writing assignment during that time.

I work at an elementary school. Those teachers spend a huge amount of their plan time chatting and hanging out. Then they complain on fb about having to take papers home to grade, and they talk about how that stack just sits there for days because they get distracted by Netflix.

The best and happiest teachers tend to be second career teachers. They have worked jobs with similar salaries where they did not get summer/winter/spring break in addition to many personal days. They had to work until 5 or 6. They had to go to work on snow days. They don’t complain about having to grade papers at home because they know that most professionals have to bring work home. They don’t complain about how teachers are under appreciated because at their last job they didn’t get 20+ gifts for their birthday/Christmas/End-of-year. They also didn’t get an entire Appreciation Week where they could go around town enjoying discounts and free food/drinks. Or have groups of volunteers come in to their work all week to bring them catered meals and other surprise gifts.

Not my experience with career changers. Most of them earned more at their former jobs because nearly every professional job with the same educational requirements pays more than teaching. Read the threads about people who switch to teaching and they admit that they thought it wouldn’t be as hard as it is.

I’m a career changer. I’m too exhausted from grading at home to enjoy these.

I also recognize that in my former career if I needed an hour off to see a doctor, I took an hour off. Not four hours as mandated by the contract because of subs. I didn’t have to write a sub plan that won’t be followed. And I didn’t have to explain to parents why I was absent three days before the quiz.