PS Teachers Complain About the Way the Children Do the The Teachers' Jobs

Check out this blog post where a public school teacher is complaining about how difficult it is to get the students to grade each others papers.

http://regurgitatedalphabits.blogspot.com/2008/09/listen-up.html

Don't forget to read the comments made by other teachers at the end of the post.

I found this teacher's comment particularly amusing... "However, grading twice as many papers is even worse. Also, having students correct one another's papers takes up more classtime, which is handy when you've got ten minutes to kill before lunch." ... Is she serious? She has to be joking, right?

Or what about this teacher's comment... "I have high schoolers who correct papers in boogers, too. I think the trouble is not you, but the fact that these kids are torn in too many distracting directions--ie, TV, video games,etc., etc.--and can't seem to concentrate anywhere at any time. Technology is making these kids more than lazy--a lot of them are turning into morons!" .... Really? Who's the lazy person here? Maybe they're turning into morons, because they're spending more time doing your job than they are actually learning anything?

I found this blog, by the way, in Scholastic's list of "Top 20 Teacher Blogs". :roll:
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3752562

 

Hmmmmm.. Why are they grading papers in the first place?? For some reason those comments just irked me.. I'm glad my kids aren't in their class..

 

Well, I for one am certainly glad that MY "Morons" are not in her classroom! Note: I do not actually believe that my children are Morons, quite the opposite in fact I am quite certain that my children are very intelligent! My children leave the grading of papers up to me, as well it should be! They have more important things to do like learning, and being children!

 

OK, get your tomatoes ready, lol!!!

Teachers have been doing this since forever. When I was in elementary school in the early 70's, as a 5th and 6th grader I would spend my recess BY CHOICE grading the 1st graders' math workbooks. I volunteered; no one asked me. It allowed a relationship to develop between me and that particular teacher. We always traded papers and graded them in middle school, especially for math.

Look at it from the teacher's view. Carl has five classes, with 30+ kids per class. If he gives work every day, that's 150+ pages to grade per night. With math, that might be just checking off the final answer. T/F are easy, too. Rachael and I will help grade some of those papers. But others he needs to do HIMSELF. Imagine a history or English teacher with essay questions! The time involved can be enormous! Add that to lesson planning, calling home on kids with behavior problems (office says they're not willing to call home unless the teacher can document that he's tried it and it didn't work), college classes (REQUIRED to keep up your "licensure"...no longer "certification", though older teachers are still certified), etc. Oh, they DO give you a 45 minute "planning" period (half-hour for elementary), but much of that time you're busy working with students that need extra help.

This lady is just venting, and she has a right to. Please don't think she's lazy because of it!

ETA: Other ways to avoid endless grading is to only grade three problems that show the kids have the concept, rather than the whole thing, or not to grade every single paper. Sometimes you just put a checkmark on it and acknowledge that it was done.

 

I can remember when I was in school... the teacher giving us someone else's paper to grade. I had other teacher just come around and see if it was done and that was it. I can understand the amount of work a teacher does.

 

I thought it was kinda funny. I could see Jonathan (my son) being the one dazing off or writing frowny faces on everything. Heck, he does that when it's just me talking to him and it's frustrating sometimes. I always thought the purpose of grading your own or someone else's paper was to see the mistakes and hear the correct answer. If the kids are just handed back graded paper, I would guess most of the time they don't look twice at it. Saxon math has my son grading some of his own work and it really helps him see what he did wrong and right.

 

Hmmmm....while I agree that a teacher should grade their papers, I think in higher grades there is a benefit to teaching them to grade their own...or someone else's. I remember grading them when I was in 4th, 5th & 6th grade. Math papers, pop-quizzes and the like. (I think this was a valuable skill as it reminded me to always check my work, even now, I check things before I turn them in - forms, etc.)

That being said, my 7th grader was just in the process of checking her own Daily Grams & Apples Drills herself! LOL Enjoyed the irony on that one!!!

What really bothers me about this teacher is her feeling about her students much more than the fact that she's having them grade their own papers. It's very sad. Very sad in deed.

 

I agree with this. If that was what was actually happening, I think it would be a great idea, but it doesn't seem like anyone is learning anything.

It seems the only thing that's happening is the teacher is getting frustrated, time is being wasted, and students are at serious risk of having the wrong grade recorded.

 

Venting is one thing... teaching to grade is one thing, helping is one thing..... but to say

is not acceptable in my book.

 

That was the one thing I always hated about grading each other's work. I clearly remember the sense of dread that would fall over me each time this method was announced. See, I was a very unpopular kid. The unpopular kids were always graded incorrectly by the popular kids. But by the time I'd see my paper again, usually at least a few days later, I couldn't remember the right answers enough to accurately recheck the grade. And the teachers had ZERO willingness to look over it once the grade was recorded (which was done before the papers were handed back). My mom had to step in once, even, because of my failing math. Our teacher never graded a single paper himself; 100% peer graded. And I had an 'F' at first grading period. He also threw out the papers once he recorded them. So I had no idea what I did wrong (or if I had truly gotten them wrong). Miraculously, once she demanded that only the teacher grade my papers to see what would happen, I went from an F to a high B.

 

I remember grading each others papers and seeing friends change answers to help out a buddy. I remember people being made fun of if they put a wrong answer too. My older girls remember a teacher in 2nd grade telling the whole class to make a fist and stick it in their mouths. I am glad all teachers are not like the few bad ones I have run across.

 

NO tomatoes from me Jackie!

(A lot of) teachers already spend time at home in the evenings and on weekends working on lesson plans, calling parents, filling out report cards, etc.

I don't think it's being "lazy" to let the students help correct some of the papers, especially daily work.

Sometimes I think that we forget (here come the tomatoes my way) that being a teacher is a JOB. It is a very important job and a teacher should put their best into it, but it is a JOB still. It shouldn't have to be their whole life. Teacher's spend their entire day loving on other people's kids. If having students help grade papers frees up some time in the evening for them to be able to love on their own kids, then I think it's totally okay.

 

I think the problem is in the attitude, not neccessarily the grading papers ( the finger comment flew all over me!). But I can see all kinds of things being wrong with grading your own or your peers' papers. My mom is a retired teacher and never let students grade papers (though I did it in my classes). She said that it was her job, and she spent lots of time at night grading papers.

 

Another thought about this:
Most universities have policies against students grading other students' work because of privacy concerns. Don't our younger children deserve the same respect?

 

No tomatoes from me either, Jackie. I can completely understand from a teacher's perspective in those regards.

I have no problem with students helping in ways like this. The only thing that DOES bother me about students grading each other's papers is that it takes all privacy out of it. When I was in school I loved helping the teacher do these types of things, BUT, when it came to grading papers I never wanted my peers to grade mine. If I didn't get a good grade it was embarrassing, and I didn't want them seeing my grade. To me, it's a privacy issue than anything else, like Amie mentioned.

 

I'm in the boat with those that don't think students should be grading other students' papers---ever. There is the privacy concern, the lack of care in grading, and student bias. How do you know if the students are grading correctly? Is it fair to let another student grade a paper, knowing that errors could be made on purpose? The papers should be checked for errors, so then where is the time savings?

I do think it is okay to let students correct their own papers on occasion for learning purposes, rather than for grading.

 

I understand the privacy issue. I believe in the blog post the students were grading their own papers.
I agree with whoever it was that said that she was just venting. Haven't we all been frustrated by our kids not listening/paying attention when we try to tell them something? I think the paper grading was just an example.

 

twitchy computer! ARG.


I think it was the attitude that bothered me, as well. Sort of... her (and the replies) implying that the entire classroom of students were a bunch of complete morons.

You get what you give: if she treats them like they are dumb, guess how they will act? We saw this ourselves last year with ps. In school, dd couldn't do anything. At home, she could count to 74, recognize almost all of the letters of the alphabet, and get 100% on the spelling test. At school.. she couldn't count past 13, didn't know most of the alphabet, and managed to get 2 spelling words spelled correctly out of the whole list.

I don't have an issue with the kids grading their papers, per se, but why the heck is this teacher so picky about it?? Honestly?? Does it REALLY matter if the kid wants to draw a circle around something? Who cares? They are KIDS and she wants them to grade papers like professionals. Give me a break. I would have drawn circles around everything, marked the correct ones with a nice little teachery 'c', marked wrong ones with an X, and tada! I would have driven her crazy with my own style.

I do my own laundry because I'm anal about it. She needs to either chill, or take the lesson: don't foist your own neurosies on other people.

 

I was going to say something like this too. How nice of the child who wrote "good job" next to every correct answer! If she's that picky about it, then she needs to do it herself and shut up.

 

No tomatoes here Jackie...

I do agree we graded each others papers all the time. But, I never liked it because if someone smarter then me got my paper and I didn't do well. they would pick on us.
So I agree privacy is the issue here. I wish there was a way to do it. I understand the teachers have a lot of work to do. I guess that is where the aides come in if they are lucky to have one.