Teachers teach for around 25 hours per week, that’s 5 hours per day for the non-mathematicians out there. In maths, the subject I teach, they will receive approximately 3 hours of lessons per week, depending on the year group, plus would be expected to do some homework. It hasn’t changed since I was at school mainly because there are still 24 hours in a day, and human beings need to eat, sleep and relax at some point.
In the olden days, you got out what you put in, so if you listened to the teacher in class, had a good go at your homework and revised a bit for exams, you’d be fine in general. If you genuinely got stuck you’d ask a fellow classmate for help (some may have copied), or your parents, and as the ultimate last resort, your teacher. Asking for help outside of the classroom was considered a bit defeatist where I went to school, but I am willing to accept that other schools may have differed.
This could not be further from the case in modern education. I have been teaching for over 10 years and the sea change in attitudes towards extra lessons has been enormous. When I was wet behind the ears as a teacher, we put on extra lessons for students in the run up to their exams, which was about a month or so, for one hour per week.
League tables have been about for longer than I have been a teacher, but the pressure on schools and teachers to produce results is now far greater than it has ever been. Extra classes have become an expectation, not just in the run up to exams, but pretty much all through the academic year, and do bear in mind that we don’t get paid for the after-school sessions. A colleague of mine said to me “I don’t think one after-school session per week is asking too much”. They mean it from a good and caring point of view and they are not trying to force me into the extra classes, but the children are now so used to them, that they actually don’t really try very hard in class in the knowledge that they will get another opportunity to do the work or catch up the coursework. In fact, close to deadline day, students are removed from my class to catch up the project work they have failed to do in 2 years because the teacher needs them to get as close to the unrealistic target grade they have been set otherwise they will be dragged over the coals.
It’s a situation that really riles me. I am a firm believer in the “you get out what you put in” philosophy, and therefore have very little time for extra classes. I do them because otherwise I’d feel that I’d be letting my colleagues down (those in my department, not senior management), not that I’d be letting the students down if I didn’t offer my own free time. In my view, the students who need the extra lessons have often already let themselves down by failing to make any sort of effort in their timetabled lessons. That’s their problem, not mine.
You are reading this thinking that I’m totally heartless, I realise that. I would never turn away a student who came up to me and said “I’m really struggling in this area, could you help me out after school”, but those students are in the minority. Most students who turn up to the extra sessions just want you to re-teach the lesson they had talked through. In our department we won’t do that, and as a result, some students have moaned to senior staff, but we won’t be swayed – each child must be specific about what they want help with, they can’t just say “I don’t get any of it”.
It is therefore the fault of schools and mainly the league tables that so many young people can’t hold down a job upon leaving school. They can’t understand why their employer won’t give them infinite chances to succeed as their school had done.
At some point schools are going to have to bite the bullet and say to children:
“If you don’t hand in your coursework by this date, you won’t be entered for the exam, and there won’t be after-school sessions in which to catch up, meaning that you will have to listen in class”. It will never happen until the league table system is abolished, but until it does, the youth of today will continually fail to be able to help themselves. It’s a shame really, because the extra lessons were born out of the good will of teachers, although not heartless teachers like me obviously.
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