Recently, there has been an increase in the amount of teachers that need to teach more than one class in one period. It has left many questions in the mouths of parents, educators, and students, is this necessary? But—most importantly—is it the best use of teachers and resources?
Apparently—its no. When teachers need to teach two classes in one time block, it leads to a division of resources, and attention, taking it away from one group of students that needs the teacher’s attention more. In fact, a lack of personal or class attention from a teacher can have a detrimental effect on students’ achievements and progress in said class.
According to UMBC: University of Maryland, Baltimore City, a lack of teacher attention can lead to an increase in behavioral issues, decrease attention span, and lead to students struggling to grasp the material. This pairs with the fact that often, higher level education classes are often squeezed into lower level classes, often with the idea that the higher level kids need much less attention than the below or on grade level students. But this way of thinking negatively impacts both sets of students, kids in more advanced classes still need the same amount of attention and time from the teacher to be able to grasp and get a sense of the much harder material. In fact, The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, reports that kids who are directly monitored by teachers, or those who have direct attention, resulted in sharply increased study time, behavior, and grades.
This way of teaching can leave lower-level kids feeling left out, or behind, and can lead to an even larger decrease in academics. As can be inferred, cases like this are bad for students’ development in society, this can make them feel inferior to their peers if they don’t get the same amount of teacher attention, and can lead to an increase in negative self image, self talk, and other mental health problems. The best thing for students would be to have separate classes for each level, for each student to get the attention they need and deserve from their teachers.
Overall, divided time in a classroom can cause negative effects to both students, and the teachers themselves.
Teaching is subjectively one of the hardest jobs in the world.
Especially due to the little amount teachers make, especially when out of union. From grading papers to planning assignments, managing a class full of kids and trying to finish the curriculum without leaving any kids behind, this kind of job can lead teachers emotionally drained, even before they set foot in the classroom. Often, teachers must divide their attention and time between several classes in one block and leave them feeling overwhelmed, tired, drained, and they have to turn around and do it again the next week, next day, or even the next block. In fact, this way of working can lead to many teachers quitting, or moving schools to be able to avoid this method of working. This may not only lead to a shortage of teachers, but also health issues among the teachers who haven’t quit. According to NIH, it reports that many teachers across the United States are facing burn out, and cases of anxiety and depression in the nation’s teachers are rising. Many teachers face chronic stress, which can lead to several adverse health effects. Negative outcomes of chronic stress include low energy, cloudiness of the mind, insomnia, memory problems, weaken the immune system, and increase the likelihood of experiencing a heart attack and stroke. Several teachers at our school experience this phenomenon, especially our language teachers.
Since world language tends to be a smaller fraction in a high school, and unlike math and English, it can be deemed unnecessary by some. Especially, when it comes to a small high school like Brunswick. In our language program, we have two teachers who often need to teach more than one class during one time period. This is due to the fact that in a small high school, often there is not the student base to be able to support a larger language program, with more teachers. Especially due to budget cuts and lack of funding for programs that are not the main four, (Math, Literature, Science, and Social Studies) in school, and programs like world languages, arts, both traditional and performing, and agriculture, are left in the dust.
Some schools need to appeal to the state for funding, by striving to achieve high enough test scores to count for grants, to be able to afford such programs. In our own language program, we have two teachers who struggle to keep the platform afloat, since world language is a required credit needed to graduate high school. Expanding on this, often the programs used to teach such languages are older, many schools don’t have the resources needed to update things such as textbooks.
Hearing from a few teachers in the building, there is a conclusion that can be drawn: some programs must have double up classes in one block, if that class wants to stay alive. Latin is a rare program in school. According to the US department of education, only 2.3% of high schools in America have a Latin program, and Brunswick is one of those few schools with the privilege to have such a program.
Expanding on this, Ms. Bentley, the Latin teacher at our school, stated that she had to teach both Latin and Mythology classes during the same block, or she would need to drop one of them for the other.
She goes on to discuss how doing this is necessary to keep the Latin program alive, and how she must do this, if she wished to develop the program. In her interview she discussed, “It can definitely be challenging, but at a small school, we have to be creative in utilizing the resources we have to offer as many course options to students as possible.”
In addition to this, the Spanish teacher at our school, Ms. Schlegal discussed in her interview, “I feel that teaching two classes in one, particularly an AP course combined with a non-AP course, is a huge disservice to the both the teaching and the learning that can happen within the allotted time.”
This connects back to the ideas expressed earlier, this method of teaching harms both parties involved. If school’s lack the funding and the space to hold such classes, it serves as a major disservice to the students, because it makes it hard for programs such as AP and Dual Enrollment access. Even English electives like journalism and creative writing often have to double down to offer the levels 1-4 a the same time to continue building the programs. If teachers are struggling to even make sure required classes are variable, what’s to say about non-required programs, such as electives, agriculture and performing arts?
Aside from the educational disadvantages teaching multiple classes at once provides, there is an additional concern: the wallets of teachers. In spite of the effort it takes to balance two separate curricula, the teachers receive no financial compensation.
Instead, they are paid exactly the same amount as if they were teaching a single class. Teachers already don’t have the most impressive salary, so the fact that they are expected to teach twice as much in the same amount of time for the same amount of money is ridiculous. Teachers are not being paid for the extra work they put into making sure students can receive more opportunities. The lack of proper incentive for teachers to continue teaching under these conditions means that the desire to teach is keeping courses from being lost completely. This places students and staff in an uncomfortable position: Do they sacrifice the classes entirely, or do they continue providing subpar education for overwhelming effort and underwhelming pay? Something needs to change, but there isn’t much that can be done to improve the situation without better funding.
The question of how exactly to get the money needed to fix all these issues is a pressing one. Schools finding a solution that balances the needs of students and staff with the budget proves to be difficult. However, there are some ideas that could be implemented. Doing more fundraising events, and raising taxes can help increase the money that goes to public schools. Another method is seeking out more teachers to manage the classes. A large part of the reason why teachers are teaching more classes than ideal is the fact that schools are understaffed. One last final solution, but one that would be hard to achieve, is a rebuild of older schools, to give them the possible classroom space, so more teachers can be in one building, and help split responsibilities between each other.
However, Brunswick as a school is small, and can be easily overlooked to prioritize larger schools. When even our school’s safety concerns are not addressed, it isn’t all that surprising that more niche classes are being abandoned in favor of essential schooling. There isn’t much we can do to fix the size of our building, or our school population. But by being more vocal about our needs and working together as a community, then maybe, just maybe, we can find a way to work with our situation.