A few more snipets of our Somers Teachers

Most teachers working in a state school are contracted to work 32.5 hours per week but that has never been the case in reality. A recent study by The UCL Institute of Education found that a quarter of teachers work more than 60 hours per week despite attempts to reduce teachers' working hours. That is almost double the hours stated in the contract. And this is not paid overtime. A research carried out by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) showed that this equals to 9 million hours of free labour each week. Primary teachers are guilty of working the most overtime - 13 hours per week - on average but secondary school teachers are not far behind with 12.8 hours.

At present, educational proceedings have largely shifted to the digital world. Students of all ages are taking the help of the internet to gather vital information related to any subject. Apart from gathering information from different sites, the students can use the digital platform to publish projects, dissertations and research papers. Complete originality in terms of language and presentation are expected in such matters. There are a few online plagiarism checker software that can assist the teachers in detecting if any student has copied anything while completing their assignments.

Junior High School and High School four decades in the past, I can no longer tell any detailed stories about my teachers growing up in Somers. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any good ones. The best I can do is provide some snippets and hopefully they give a decent representation of how valuable all these teachers were to us.

An outstanding lesson isn't what the teacher does; it's what the student learns.

Education is a two-way process. It depends on the active participation of a teacher and a student. Both student and teacher are responsible for the active learning process. It is the duty of the teacher to take charge of the classroom and deal with every student in a polite and kind way. 10 benefits of a good student-teacher communication are discussed in this article.

It is a question I ask myself daily. As a teacher and writer, spelling and grammar is a constant in my life.

Introducing Grit

The life of a substitute teacher is an interesting one. On any given day, you may be required to walk into a completely foreign school, and command respect the moment you walk through the front gates. This can often be belied by the fact that you have a fruit cup packed in your bag for recess, and often have difficulty finding the front office.

I teach English to college students who don't want to learn English. I teach Freshman Composition. It is a required course, which means all students have to take it, whether they are majoring in math, science, computer engineering, architecture, medicine, or underwater basketweaving. Very few are majoring in English. Very few want to be in the room. Very few see any point in taking English AGAIN. They've taken it every year they've been in school. They speak (at least most of them) English (I do get some non-native speakers sometimes), or some variation of it, so enough already. My classroom is the last place they want to be.

Recently I was working with a group of young students who were, as students do, resisting doing the task that I, the educator, wanted them to. I began to enter into the familiar dance that anyone who has ever worked with children likely knows well: Kids moving around the room, talking to friends, asking unrelated questions, raising their hand and telling long-winded, boring stories about their friend Carley’s pet hamster who pooped on the floor. Everybody laughs but you—because let's face it kid, your story sucks and I see what you’re trying to do here.

One of my classes is pretty verbose and rowdy. The code word is "social." I have not had much success in getting AND maintaining their attention this year. This class lags behind my other sections on a consistent basis when I am presenting lessons just because there are more interruptions from the class. Some interruptions are unwanted, like stupid 7th grade jokes about Uranus. Some are ok, like questions about how the material relates to them and other interesting tangents.