Opinion: 'Teaching is navigating between obstacles'
Teachers have to navigate a labyrinth of obstacles within a limited time. The inadequate facilities that schools offer increase the workload, says teacher Jeff van der Linden. School leaders: do something about it, he calls in one Education magazine-opinion piece.
picture: Type tank
School leader and Dutch teacher Michelle van Dijk described the language crisis Education magazine striking as a many-headed monster. One of those headlines was the workload among secondary school teachers. One of the solutions Van Dijk mentions is increasing the storage factor: give teachers more time to prepare their lessons, so that students receive high-quality language education. A valuable first step, but there is also a task for the school management.
Saddling teachers with extra work
Merely increasing the surcharge factor is not sufficient if teachers are repeatedly saddled with extra work without compensating for it in hours. For example, in some schools teachers are expected to draw up a report twice a year on the results and performance during lessons for each student, approximately two hundred per Dutch teacher with a full-time appointment. The implementation of action plans that students have drawn up based on the feedback must then also be checked. As a compensation, teachers are rostered off for a morning, while in reality it may involve an extra 100 hours of work.
Teachers' storage factor often doesn't start until after dinner
It is also interesting to think about when exactly the aforementioned surcharge factor can be cashed in. If schools have not scheduled team meetings until 17.00 p.m., there will probably be a mentor training, section meeting or school-wide consultation scheduled after regular lessons. Effectively, this means that teachers' raises often only kick in after dinner or on the weekend. So-called part-time workers have the 'luxury' of using their unpaid day(s) for grading and lesson preparation: freeing up time by sacrificing salary to get your work done.
Finally, the inadequate facilities that schools offer increase the workload. For example, how many teachers do not have a permanent classroom? The first hour is a first hour class in room 104 and the second hour a final year class on the third floor. Quite a lot is asked of a teacher: answering questions from a student after the bell, packing things, waiting until all students have left the room, stopping by the section room to collect the printed story collections for the upper grades, cross corridors with 1200 students, unpack things and hope that the ICT works.
Who wants that?
In this light, it also immediately becomes clear why many teachers cannot take a break: the first break lasts 20 minutes, but in the meantime all the above actions must be performed; maybe some printing, a visit to the toilet, running down the corridor to eat a sandwich and if you are unlucky you have to pick up a class set of thick novels, which also have to be returned after class because another colleague needs them again. has.
As long as school leaders do not facilitate teachers, the workload will continue
Students in my classes sometimes say that they would never want to become a teacher, because they see that their parents, who are also teachers, work every evening and every weekend. And honestly, who wants that? If we want more young people to become enthusiastic about education and the teacher shortage is resolved, these problems must be addressed. An increase in the storage factor is a good start, but as long as school leaders do not facilitate teachers and continue to take up their time, the workload will continue.
Jeff van der Linden has switched from the financial sector to education. He has been a Dutch teacher in secondary education for three years and is currently pursuing a master's degree in Dutch.
