Wednesday, September 19, 2012

How Many is Too Many?

I have been reading about the Chicago teacher's strike this morning and trying to figure out what was the last straw for them...that forced them to take to the streets versus their classrooms. As teachers, we (speaking for everyone although although it may just be me) get frustrated over the politics A LOT, the paperwork, the testing, all the blah, blah, blah when all we really want to do is teach...be there for our students and do what we were hired to do ~ help our students reach their full potential and learn a few things along the way. I LOVE seeing the lightbulbs come on for my students, love being in the classroom, love my students. BUT I do not love all the other stuff and it seems there is a lot more stuff every year.

As I was reading, I realized how large some of the Chicago teacher's class sizes were...40 students in kindergarten. I cannot imagine how much I would love my day if I had 40 I had to try and teach everyday. It gets to a point, once you reach a certain number of students, that it becomes behavior and class management entirely instead of learning and teaching. Today, they are back in the classroom without having resolved the class size issue. I hope that enough attention was brought to the forefront of class sizes that something happens. Every district, every school should think about how many is too many! You can read a little about the strike here.

No comments:

Post a Comment