I spoke recently with a retiring teacher. She was emptying her filing cabinet of teaching materials she collected over her over 20 years of teaching.
She said she was filled with sadness seeing all of the creative projects and activities she was never able to do with the children. Every minute of spare time was absorbed in meeting excessive paperwork demands and just trying to keep up with the excessively heavy workload.
Right now she said in a classroom of 30 grade 7 students, she has about 5 who can't read at a grade 1 level, about 10 that read at a grade 5 level, another 10 at grade level and the remaining 5 are above grade level. She is expected to teach the curriculum materials to each student individually at their level. That requires having at least 4 different versions of each assignment or test. Textbooks are written at only one level. That is one of 5 classes she has during the day. Excessive paperwork is the reality of "individualized instruction."
Classroom management is also a challenge as several kids in her class are labeled as ADHD and some as learning disabled and one requires all assignments to be printed on coloured paper. That last requirement means that she must re-load the paper tray of the photocopier to print just one test.
Assignments and test must also be marked regularly and with 5 classes of about 30 students, so her entire evening almost every evening is spent marking papers and writing assignments.
Unfortunately the creative projects like labs or outdoor explorations get set aside. The creative things that might engage students are not evaluated as plusses on teacher evaluations nor is the material tested on standardized exams.
What matters to the bureaucracy is the number or entries in the teachers mark book and that there are no zeros in the mark book. Ridiculously unrealistic expectations from bureaucrats who spend no time in classrooms is destroying education.
