A Look at the Other Side

I got to see teaching from a different perspective at the Learning Academy. Teaching is more than just caring for your students, filling their minds with knowledge, and creating lesson plans. It also encompasses paperwork. A lot of paperwork. Teachers grade papers in order to have factual information in case they need to back themselves up to either administration or parental figures. Educators need to have tangible evidence in meetings and conferences to support their opinions and/or lesson objectives that may deviate from the standards.

Today, my supervising teacher, Mrs. Watson, had me make copies in order to fill my time at the Learning Academy. While I was walking to the copy machine, I assumed that I was going to be making copies of lesson plans, worksheets, tests, etc. However, when I started setting aside sticky notes and paperclips, I noticed that I was making copies of graded assignments ranging from science to language arts. Mrs. Watson had given me piles and piles of already graded assignments. I wondered what the purpose of all this was- did she copy these and not write down the grades in a gradebook? Where did she keep of all of these papers? Did she only make copies of specific assignments? If she did, which assignments did she find the most important and why?

The piles of papers were seperated by paperclips. On each pile were sticky notes with directions on them: "Only the front"; "The front and the back"; "Only the top page"; "All pages." Some of these papers were easy copies as the copy machine could make multiple copies at once and others required the removal of staples. For the assignments that needed the staples removed, I also had to restaple the original and then staple the copied packets. After doing this, I have come to the conclusion that the school should invest in a stapler that does not require man-power to operate. For the copies that did not have a back, some students wrote down their thoughts/math facts- as I did not have any instruction on what to do in this scenario, I went ahead and made copies of the back, as well. Mrs. Watson also wanted me to hole punch all papers- orginals and the copies. As I was copying, I saw that Mrs. Watson only wanted the front portion of the reading articles that I used in my lesson on the water cycle. It pleased me to see that Mrs. Watson took what I did seriously enough to take a grade on it. Through the whole process, the copy machine did not break, the paper supply did not cease, staples did not disappear, and the holepuncher did not jam. The process, though, took a couple of hours so I only had the time to deliever the papers and ask a few questions.

As soon as I gave the piles to Mrs. Watson, I started listing off my wonderings. Her response:

I keep the copies and I give the originals to the parents. Parents like to see their childrens work and I like to keep the evidence in case anything should arise. Because these students have a learning disability, many of them go to tutoring. Parents show the tutor what the student is struggling with and improving on. I keep of all my copies in large binders- I have a binder for every subject, and tab dividers to seperate each students assignments. I copy everything. Some things I only need the front for, as you just saw, for participation points."

Although this requires a lot of extra work, I really like the idea. I can only imagine how much more it would be with a class size bigger than nine as found in the Learning Academy. In public schools, some parents are not as involved as the parents of the students at the private Learning Academy. In situations like this, does one give the student their assignments to take home to their parents, or does one not waste the paper and eliminate the parent from this philosophy? The Learning Academy is so different from public schools in the area; it is hard to say whether or not this would be benefical in the public school setting. I do think, however, that this philosophy would set me aside from all other teachers. Teachers say that they do not have the time to do extra things- they only have time to grade papers, write lesson plans, and go to meetings. This is something I am going to incorporate no matter what in my classroom no matter how much more time it may cost me as long as it benefits my students.