Looks like I've been awol on my blog. High hopes, good intentions, and life happens! So, here I am again. We are getting ready for checking off a big item on the BUCKET LIST - or rather my husband's list! We leave for Ireland in a few days. Ready to enjoy the trip, especially since 4 great friends are going with us. This blog is for you, family, so you can answer "Do you know where your mother / sister / friend" is? ha! Let's see if I can handle a blog for a couple of weeks!

Teachers and Planning Periods

I was dismayed to read in today's paper that some school districts are considering reducing the amount of time secondary teachers have for planning. The usual practice is that teachers have 1 period of planning, and the other periods for teaching classes. In my case, in a 7 period day, I taught 6 English classes and had one 50-minute planning period. While grateful for that planning time, it wasn't even close to the amount of time I needed daily to plan for my classes (different preps for different classes, sometimes even 5 or all 6!), let alone grade the work that the students had done for the previously taught classes!

I once calculated my pay in comparison to a babysitters. At the time, (around 1980) a babysitter for our two young daughters was earning around $3-$4 / hour for 2 kids. I, on the other hand, with an average class size of 32 students (times 6 classes, mind you), was earning approximately $900/month (a 9 mo period that has to stretch for all 12 months...) -- or $45/day for 192 students. That boils down to about $7.50 per hour for 32 students. Per student, I was making less than $0.23/hour. Great price for a babysitter, if you can get it. Not so great for an Educator.

And I'm not even talking about the hours of grading papers and exams at home in the evenings and on weekends.

So, how do I feel about teachers loosing planning time, or any of the meager gains they have made in the past? Just guess.

The First Blog

I pass into this looking glass called Blog. New to me, unlike pen and ink. Immediate. I fear lacking time to contemplate; missing the pencil's eraser - or trading it for the backspace / delete. I join the fray!