A teacher who quit is used to show that teachers stay

We know that too many teachers quit. 

Gabrielle Wooden taught for 2 years and quit and is featured
in an article about how teachers don't quit.

We know that between 40 and 50 percent of teachers in the US quit inside their first 5 years.

In Alberta, we estimate that 1 in 4 teachers quit in their first 4 years.

So when I saw an article titled "Despite Reports to the Contrary, New Teachers Are Staying in Their Jobs Longer", I was more than a little suspicious.

The article featured the picture to the right of Gabrielle Wooden. She taught in Mississippi for a whopping two years before quitting to become an account manager for Insight Global in St. Louis.

Wooden belonged to Teach for America which is an organization that undermines children's basic needs and is an accomplice to the corporate take over and privatization of public education.

This article from the Center for American Progress is yet another example of the shameful spin that corporate spin doctors spew on the public.

We treat teachers so badly they leave. This is true for many reasons. In the US, teachers are paid poorly and treated even worse by having their priceless work reduced to meaningless scores on bad tests. In Alberta, teachers are paid well, but workload is a problem.

That Gabrielle Wooden was used to show how teachers don't quit in an article that readily admits its own narrow focus when she taught for only two years highlights another glaring problem. Education is desperate for professional, honest and genuine journalism.

3 big ideas about teacher workload

Andrea Sands wrote a great piece in the Edmonton Journal about Alberta teachers who are taking part in a massive workload study. (I've written about teacher workload here).

As a classroom teacher, I have 15 years of experience actually teaching in public schools. I don't just write and talk about teaching -- I'm actually teaching. I don't just have something to say, I'm doing the work and I have something to say about it.

During my interview with Andrea, I tried to emphasize that it is not simply the quantity of my work that is problematic -- the problems I face in my classroom can be best found in the complexity of teaching. Simply put, I am expected to teach too many children who have too many needs.

Let me explain.

This is my 15th year of teaching.

I've mostly taught middle school, but I've also taught some special education.

At home, I am a father where I have a class size of two: Kayley is 7 and Sawyer is 2. While Kayley wants to play a farming board game where we plant, harvest and sell crops for cash that involves adding and multiplying, Sawyer wants to run around and throw the game pieces. You can imagine how different their needs are.

At school, I teach 126 students every day. I have thirty-three grade 6 students that I teach language arts and social studies, and thirty-three grade 8 students that I teach social studies. I see the grade 6s twice a day and the grade 8s once a day. Each class is forty-nine minutes.

At home I get pulled in 2 different directions while at school there are over 30 different students every 49 minutes, 6 times a day.

To be clear, these are not 126 similar children.

Some of these children:

• are living in poverty
• are abused and neglected
• have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
• are reluctant learners
• are learning English as a second language
• are behaviourally challenged
• suffer from mental health issues
• come to school a couple times a month, or not at all
• are academically challenged
• are immature
• are not loved
• are uninspired

And yet some of these children:

• love school
• love to read
• are loved
• are curious
• are inspired
• attend regularly

Too many of my students draw from the first list -- not enough are described by the second. While all of my students are in middle school, some would fit well in elementary and some are ready for high school.

Individually, I feel confident and competent working with children from either list, but when faced with 30+ every class and 126 of them everyday, I am overwhelmed. 

Here are 3 big ideas I would like people to understand about teacher workload:

1. I meet all my students' needs only if some children don't show up. Many Albertans work hard, and some may work more hours in a week than teachers. My issue is not that I average 45 to 50 hours a week. My issue is that I'm expected to teach too many students with too many needs. My expectations for my students are only surpassed by the expectations I have for myself. Everyday I go to work hoping to get to every child only to go home knowing that I can't. Alberta parents should be upset about this as much as Alberta teachers are.

2. My working conditions are my students' learning conditions. Too many people want to frame this teacher workload discussion around how much teachers get paid and how much time they get off. I'm not asking for more pay or time off, although these are important, I am saying that because of the current deteriorating conditions in Alberta schools, quality and quantity of student learning is suffering. When we play politics with education by framing this as a labour debate (instead of an education debate), children lose. 

3. Teachers are so busy teaching they don't have time and effort to learn how to be better teachers. School has looked, tasted, smelled and felt like school for too long. In order for things to improve, things have to change, and sustainable change needs to be led by teachers who are supported through inspiring professional development. I know too many teachers who are so overwhelmed by their teaching assignment that they don't have the time or effort to learn how to change and improve their teaching.

In our cars, we have instruments that tell us when our fuel is low and engine temperature is high. 

In education, we have teachers who have their fingers on the pulse of their classrooms.

We ignore our car's instruments and teachers at our own peril. It should be no surprise that those who are comfortable with the way things are become angered by those who wish to influence change. Labelling these gauges as whiny allows us to criticize, distort or dismiss inconvenient information in favour of our existing beliefs while ensuring that things get worse for our children.

Does size matter?

This was written by John Scammell who taught high school math for 18 years before becoming a high school math consultant. He blogs here and tweets here. This post was originally found here.

by John Scammell

Defining my terms:

A columnist is someone who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions.

A journalist collects, writes, and distributes news and other information, while refraining from bias.

An Edmonton Journal columnist, one who could never be accused of even partially refraining from bias, has been arguing that class size reduction efforts in Alberta have been a waste of money. He cites research and even quotes the head of PISA(sounding dangerously like a journalist), but then conveniently leaves out relevant details that would contradict his argument (he is, after all, a columnist).

Some high performing countries (according to PISA) have larger class sizes than we do. The obvious conclusion is that we should increase class sizes, right? Not so fast, Mr. Biased Columnist. It’s only a logical conclusion if you ignore other all the other factors at play.

Currently, the norm in high schools in Alberta is to have teachers teach 7 out of 8 blocks. That means each semester I see four unique classes of around 35 students, for a total of 140 students per semester. I get an 80 minute preparation period every other day. Because of the already large class sizes, I spend most of my preparation time creating and grading assessments. Very little of my preparation time is spent on actually thinking about how to teach my material better.

Mr. Biased Columnist points out that places like Finland, Korea, Singapore (among others) have class sizes that are larger than in Alberta, and still perform better on PISA (this is fact). What he deliberately neglects to tell us (Logical fallacy of Omission – Stacking the Deck) though, is that teachers in those countries spend far less time in front of students than we do in North America. From the Singapore Ministry of Education:

The workload of our teachers varies across the year, depending on whether it is peak or non-peak periods. Over the entire year, our teachers teach, on average, about 15 hours per week. To deliver classroom teaching effectively, teachers also spend approximately twice as much time on teaching-related duties such as preparing for lessons, providing remediation for weaker students, setting and marking of homework and examinations.

They spend double their assigned time on teaching related duties compared to time spent teaching. I spend 1/8 of my assigned time on teaching related duties compared to time spent teaching.

Singapore has secondary classes in the neighbourhood of 40 students, but based on what I read above, they would only see two of those a day. That’s a total of 80 students per semester, which is far fewer than we see each semester in Alberta. In addition, the Ministry of Education in Singapore indicates:

Some schools also deploy two teachers in a class of 40 students—one teacher brings the class through the curriculum, while the other teacher assists specific students who may have difficulty understanding the materials being covered.

Wow! Singapore teachers actually have less marking to do than I do, more time built into their schedules to collaborate with colleagues and plan good lessons, AND they get to team-teach in large classes? It’s a model I’d be willing and eager to explore. Are they hiring in Singapore?

Mr. Biased Columnist suggests that good teachers will do well no matter how many students we give them. I agree. Under our current conditions, however, they will likely burn out from all the marking and management problems that large classes can bring. We don’t want to burn out our good teachers, do we? One third of new teachers in Alberta burn out within 5 years. Let’s revisit Singapore.

The annual resignation rate for teachers has remained low at around 3% over the past five years. In our exit interviews and surveys, workload has not been cited as a major reason for leaving the Education Service. Nonetheless, we will continue to monitor the workload of teachers through internal employee feedback channels to ensure that workload is maintained within reasonable levels.

Singapore has bigger classes, fewer teaching hours, more collaborative time built into their day and retains 97% of their teachers. Does class size matter? Not nearly as much as teacher collaboration built into the school day.

On a completely different vein, I do need to point out that in my travels across Alberta, I already see classrooms that were built to hold 25 students jam-packed with 40 desks. I don’t know how we can physically put more bodies into those classrooms. Are we going to build a bunch of new schools with large lecture theatres?

Some Resources I Used:

Singapore Ministry of Education
Singapore Parliament Class Size
PISA Key Findings 2012
Comparing the US to Finland and Singapore
Teacher Workload and Pay – Various Countries

Jeff Johnson and Teacher Workload in Alberta

Alberta's Education Minister Jeff Johnson knows that he has to address Alberta teachers' workload, however, he opposes placing hard caps on work hours.

As an Albertan and a teacher, I agree that teacher workload is something that we can no longer ignore. And like Johnson, I also oppose hard caps on hours.

Teaching is a profession and professionals do not have punch cards. Professionals must be given the authority and support to do their jobs and then they must be trusted to act on that authority. Only then can professionals be held accountable.

Rather than place working hour caps, Johnson has said that he would rather identify and remove unnecessary initiatives imposed on teachers by the province and school boards.

In principle, I can agree with the sentiment of Johnson's suggestions. For too long, Alberta teachers:

• have been treated as mere pawns in top-down mandated, flavour-of-the-month initiatives that come from distant school board or provincial authorities.

• have found themselves on the farside of education reform.

• are rarely asked to speak on their own account.

• are the end-point of education reform - the last to hear, the last to know, the last to speak.

• have experienced school board and provincial initiatives as things done to them rather than with them. 

• have been encouraged to take on new responsibilities without balancing their workload by removing other responsibilities.

If Jeff Johnson wants to address teacher workload, I suggest he start by empowering the teaching profession by:

• end heavy handed, top-down mandates from distant school board authorities and government.

• provide schools and teachers with sustainable funding to address class sizes.

• provide teachers with more time to collaborate and learn together.

• reduce the paper work teachers are required to produce such as Individual Program Plans.

• eliminate grade 3, 6 and 9 provincial achievement tests.

• rethink the scripted nature of the curriculum so that teachers can use it as a guide rather than a command and control rule book.

• rethink school board mandates such as district level standardized instruction and assessment policies such as online grading and reporting.

• work with teachers to make Inspiring Education a reality.

School has looked, tasted, smelled and felt like school for too long. In order for things to improve, things have to change.

It is unsustainable to expect Alberta teachers to take better care of other people's children than their own. 

Technology is only one of the many disruptive forces that are pushing on public education, and Alberta teachers are so busy teaching students that they don't have enough time to learn how to be better teachers. Unless something is done about teacher workload, Alberta's future failures will be paved by our refusal to innovate and improve on our past success.