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Although some points from the article are theoretically sound, an extended day wouldn't be needed if other problems were fixed like class sizes, resources, inefficient planning periods and consistency of discipline.
When I first started teaching, 7th grade had 3 clusters that consisted of 1 science, 1 history, 1 math and 2 English/Reading teachers. My biggest class was 25 and my smallest was 12. The class of 25 was the GT class and the class of 12 were the lowest in terms of intellect. My smallest class never reached the level that the others did but they showed the most growth because it was easy to control them and I was able to work with them more.
Now, we only have 2 clusters and every class has more than 30; some have 35. It's crazy and some days I wonder if they've learned anything at all. I get so worn out dealing with 100 kids a day that by the time school lets out at 3:15, I feel like I've run a marathon. With that said, there would be no way I could stay until 5:00 teaching because, as one of my students says, the light would go out in my brain.
As for resources, I don't know about other schools and other districts but my students don't even have books assigned to them. We keep a class set and only parents can check out a set of books. I can't assign any work because not every student has the books so I have to spend the 90 minute period doing things that could be done for homework if students had books. It would free up so much time and I could feel as if I accomplished so much more if I could assign a story or a book assignment like we did when I was in school. And of my workbooks that I have, the students can only write in 1 because I have class sets of the others.
I just feel like I have to do so much as it is--meetings on top of meetings, data analysis, reports and other bullisht that having to stay until 5:00 would mean having to find another career.
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DSQ
I Stay Woke!!
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