Second day back and I finally got a look at my 1st semester roster

[dsc]

I have 99 students in my 3 classes, 37 in period 2, 29 in period 3, and 33 in period 4. I haven't looked at my 2nd semester yet but it should be better, my 3rd period will have 29 (that class is all year) and my 4th should be under 30 (AP stats) leaving period 2 as a possibly large class. I figure for the year I will have in the neighborhood of 190 students.

[DrDan]

1. my wife teaches HS - started this week - has 170 now

[dsc]

2. I'm on block, I assume that your wife teaches on a traditional schedule

5 period, 6 periods, or 7 periods?

[DrDan]

4. correct

but somehow they go block one day a week. Not sure how that works - sounds quite complicated and makes her planning a lot more complex.

[Warpy]

3. That's something teacher bashers don't think about

Records have to be kept, papers have to be read and graded, test scores have to be averaged, and each student needs to be noted for progress, attitude, aptitude, and a host of other factors. 190 sets of paperwork are time consuming, at the very least, and it's all done outside that 6 hours a day the sneering right says you guys work.

It's like that RN version of Genesis, "On the eighth day, god charted."

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. Coalition for Essential Schools...

...says no way to keep track of more than 80 kids and have any sense of who they all are as people.

[LWolf]

6. I agree.

I have 3 classes of 30 students each. 90 students for the year. I DO get to know all of them well. Part of that is because I'll have them for 3 years, 6th - 8th grades.

Looping helps, as does the longer block I spend with them each day. More time together means we know each other well.

Keeping up with the paperwork associated with 90 students can be overwhelming, though. I don't know how I'd manage double that many students.

Edited to add: I hope CES is staying strong and moving forward without Sizer. :(

[Catshrink]

7. I have between 175-180

Things are still settling down. About 12 students are special ed that are in the regular ed classroom and 2 of these are autistic. One is prone to self-mutilation and can't handle frustration. I am very concerned about this!

Meanwhile.... lesson planning, grading, admin, IEP meetings, etc. are consuming every waking hour.

[mzteris]

8. Go in and talk about how hard the class is going to be

all the tests and homework they'll have.

Kids'll be dropping those classes like flies!

[FBaggins]

9. Had a professor do just that in my senior year of college.

It was a 400 level Astrophysics course that met once a week for three hours with a break half way through. The professor jumped right into the lecture and filled several boards with equations (purportedly describing the pre-big-bang period where mass must have come into existence from nothing). I had enough background to recognize that they were legitimate equations and transformations (not just symbols written on the board), but I couldn't follow ten percent of what he had up there.

When the break was over, only half of the class had returned. He began: "now that we've gotten rid of the half who thought this was an Astronomy course, I can tell the rest of you that this is a difficult course and I will expect a great deal from you... but you won't see these equations again unless you pass this course and take the two that follow it." :-)

Of course, the problem with that solution in this scenario is that we're talking about a high school where the schedule change likely impacts a number of other teachers (who themselves are probably pretty stretched). This is becoming the new norm. Budget cuts and layoffs result in larger class sizes and strained teachers.

[mzteris]

11. I was basically just joking .. .

but there will be some who drop anyway...

funny story!

[dsc]

13. actually I can't even really do that but it can be done to me

I teach the lowest level class a student can take after passing alg 2 if they want the math to count as a college prep math. I dread if the pre calc teachers cause an exodus of students as sometime happens. I might reach 40.

[femmocrat]

10. Were there cutbacks in your district ?

Is that why the classes are so large?

[dsc]

12. yes there were

so that is why.

[southerncrone]

14. Last year nearly killed me. I had 199 students all at the same time!

We switched from block to 7 period day. I had 3 periods that I had a different set of kids every other day! There were still some kids whose names I didn't remember at the end of the year! (And I am VERY good w/names, but that volume & every-other-day you just can't get them straight.) The room I taught these kids in HAD A 36" HIGH WALL DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM! Oh, yeah, I ROVED,too....teaching computer classes.

Tell me HOW this is educationally sound & in the best interest of the kids.
Everything is bottom-line. Has been for way too long. NO ONE can do a decent job under those kinds of conditions. Yet, we are expected to turn out shining, motivated, high-test-scoring stars. Jeeezzz.

[Sabriel]

15. I left Las Vegas in 1996 averaging 175 students a year

I shudder to think what it's up to now.

I taught h.s. English, and the paper load killed me (almost literally).