Report from an Undercover Agent

I received a comment here on the blog asking for my recommendations for improving our schools. I can certainly oblige.

I spent the last four years as a high school teacher. I feel like I’ve spent four years as an undercover agent in the K-12 education system. And I am happy to report to the rest of you.


However, I can only speak of my own experience. I was lucky to be teaching at a fine K-12 private school. I taught public school teachers in professional development programs, and I heard plenty of horror stories. Thus, I saw that my work life was easier than the average public school high school teacher. I was fortunate to teach in a good school, one that was working well.

My main points of comparison are college teaching and private high school teaching. And I can tell you, high school teachers in general have a different life than college professors. Before I taught high school, I taught college courses at institutions ranging from small community colleges to UC-Berkeley, one of the top public universities in the nation. I held a tenure-track position at Marshall University as an English assistant professor for five years, served on faculty senate, and started a woman’s studies program. But no job I ever had was as difficult as high school teaching. I know college professors work hard. I did. But, sorry, college professors, high school teachers gottcha beat. Big time.

Meeting all students every day of the week changes everything. At my school, the norm was five courses a day out of seven periods. One period for planning. One period for study hall. The time of instruction was from about 8 am to 3 pm. I arrived at 7:30 and was required to be in my classroom until 3:30, though I rarely left that early. Thus, I spent most of my eight hour work day in front of a classroom or supervising students.

I was fortunate to have course release time because of administrative duties. But those duties took far more time than the course release, and I often ended up team teaching with new colleagues, substitute teaching in other classrooms, and picking up courses left behind by departing colleagues in addition to my regular duties. Thus, I had more contact hours with students each day as a high school teacher than when I was a college professor.

I did more work during the hours normally set aside for family and me. One planning period a day wasn’t enough to prepare for all my courses. Sometimes I was teaching four different courses in one day. Thus, I needed to do most of my daily prep and grading work after my 8 hour work day. Leaving at the 3:30 bell was discouraged, not officially, but through the culture. I needed to be in my classroom to be considered working. So, I stayed late. But it still wasn't enough. My home life, then, was more rushed, as I had to help my daughter with her homework, cook dinner, spend time with her, get her to bath, read a book with her, and then put her to bed. By that time, I was exhausted, and I still had work to do to prepare for the next day.

Tight scheduling limits basic human functions such as eating and going to the bathroom. Because high schools don’t want students wandering around between classes, they don’t want teachers to either. I had only a few minutes once the bell rang before a new class arrived at my door. But since I was required to supervise the students in the hall and as they arrived to my classroom, going to the bathroom between classes was tough. I could ask another teacher to cover for me as I ran to the bathroom, but then that teacher didn’t get to take a similar break.

And for lunch? About 35 minutes. I didn’t have enough time to go out, get away, and take a break. Instead, I had to eat in my classroom or eat in the lunchroom. Also, for a week about every four weeks, I supervised students in the lunch room; thus, I had to eat standing up while hundreds of high school students ate theirs. Without a full lunch break, my day felt frantic.

As a college professor, I was accustomed to the working lunch. I would plan lunches most days of the week with colleagues, which gave us time to collaborate on projects, but also gave us a space in which to get to know each other, to develop a team mentality, to give and receive informal mentoring. I missed that kind of daily contact with my colleagues. I also missed the chance to go away from campus, to be with only adults, to have a break from routine. Even though I was busy, I didn’t feel frantic. I moved about my day with more calm, more precision, more focus because I didn’t feel so rushed all the time.

The pattern here? High school teachers have more student contact hours with students than do college professors.

That is all right and good, you may say. Teachers get paid to teach, don’t they? In high school, the belief is: if you aren’t teaching, you aren’t really working. Not so at the college level. College professors spend less contact hours with students. In fact, the majority of a college professor’s workday is spent not in the classroom. So what are they doing the rest of the time?

For a minute, think about other professionals. A trial attorney doesn’t spend all her time in the courtroom. She spends most of her time preparing to be in the courtroom, developing relationships with clients, collaborating with other court officials, and managing the business she owns. She bills for the long hours spent preparing for the short time in front of an audience. She is working, even when she is not in the courtroom.

Think about others. Surgeons don’t spend all their time in the operating theater. Surgeons spend a great deal of time preparing to be in the operating theater so that when they go in, they can perform the best job they can. And we are happy they do.

In the world of sports, we don’t expect an NBA player to play games for most of his work day. We expect him to practice, to condition, to collaborate with teammates, to prepare so that his performance is spectacular on game day. The same with actors. Actors spend more time rehearsing than they do in front of an audience.

Teaching is like all of these professions. Standing in front of a classroom is a performance similar to going into the courtroom, entering an operating theatre, stepping onto the court, and acting up on a stage. Like these professionals, a college professor has time in the workday to prepare for the performance.

As a high school teacher, I had less time to prepare for my courses than when I was a college professor. I had less time to comment on student papers. I had less time to collaborate with colleagues. I had less time for one-on-one student conferences. I had less to keep up with current developments in my field. I had less time to read or write or research. I spent most of my time with groups of students – not preparing myself for them. With less prep work comes less focused and organized classroom work. I did not have the time to prepare that fine- tuned lecture or writing workshop. I did more teaching that was in the rough draft stage. I learned the idea of "bell work," which is seat work designed to keep students occupied. I learned to plan less in a day so I could get through the day.

Our K-12 system would do better if we followed the college model of giving teachers more time to plan and prepare for their courses.

But the college teaching model isn’t practical for high schools, some might say. Yet, this is the model used in many K-12 schools elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe. The standard in European countries is for teachers to be in the classroom three periods out of the total seven in the day. Thus, the majority of those teachers’ days are spent preparing to meet the students. And European K-12 age students consistently out perform students from the United States on international tests. Some studies report that European students perform better because their teachers are better prepared. They are better prepared because they are given more time during their workdays to prepare. A few professional development days a year just doesn't cut it. Daily professional development is better.

Our higher education system doesn’t face the criticisms of our K-12 system. An American university education is prestigious in the international community. And the main difference between the workdays of college professors and high school teachers is time given to prepare. I've read that many colleges are pushing for professors to have more contact hours with students. They shouldn't mess with something that is working. Yes, they could save money by having more students taught by fewer professors. But when the quality goes down, so does the enrollment, and that's money, too. Higher education needs to stay the course and continue to treat professors as professionals.

Preparation time makes for good teaching, whatever the level. Low preparation time is the primary reason our K-12 school system tends to not perform as well as other international school systems and our own higher education system. And if we want our schools to improve, we need to think of teachers not as supervisors of children, but as professionals, like doctors and lawyers, who need time during the workday to prepare to do their jobs well. We need to believe they will do the prep work they need to do when not supervised. We need to trust them. Treat teachers as professionals, and you will get better education of US children.

Don't get me wrong -- there are many areas where colleges could learn from K-12 schools. But that is a subject for another post. This is merely my recommendation for improvement. I know other professors and teachers and administrators will have their own ideas. I would love to hear from you all. What do you think will improve K-12 education?