Schools need more funding. But one of the main reasons schools need more funding is to buy time. Time is “bought” by hiring more personnel to manage tasks that teachers currently must do. The stress from like of time has a negative effect on instruction.
How Time is Wasted by Ignoring Priorities in Schools
There is no doubt that many school principals have mastered the ability to establish priorities in schools. Some principals are victims of the various demands of the school. This may be especially true when a principal is new to a school that has established practices that waste time.
Many other practices that waste time that are often simply accepted are:
- No policy on announcements which may interrupt a class at any time.
- Rewarding students for various achievements — like excelling in a fundraiser — with time out of class.
- Standardized testing and excessive preparation for the tests.
- Inefficient procedures for starting the school year.
- Inefficient procedures for ending the school year.
- Being involved in too many different well-intended programs.
- Early dismissals for sports and other activities.
- Overloading teachers with secretarial tasks.
- Too many emails that require immediate attention or personal emails among the faculty.
- Gearing down for holidays, especially Christmas.
- Excessive reliance on videos as teaching tools.
- Excessive reliance on homework, correcting it, and recording the grades.
- Grading too much student work of all kinds.
- Days of recognition for “special occasions or people” legislated by different states.
- Frequent problems with heating and/or cooling systems.
- Classes that are too large to allow individual attention.
- Teachers who are absent excessively.
- Useless appointments to serve on committees.
Wasted Time Creates Problems
Clearly, the most serious consequence of wasted time in schools is that instruction suffers. But there are other negative effects. For one thing, teachers endure additional stress trying to juggle multiple tasks without enough time. Some surveys list teaching as among the most stressful jobs. The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future states that 46% of teachers leave the profession after five years.
Schools can create confusion for staff and students when the schools are involved in too many activities of an instructional and extracurricular nature. Principals must be aware of the constraints of time and evaluate suggestions for new activities accordingly.
When teachers are involved in secretarial work, inventories, cleaning rooms, etc. it is not particularly good for their image publicly, nor does it help when teachers classes full of students who have no instructional need to be in class like is often the case when school in gearing down at year’s end. Teaching is reduced to child care.
Solutions to Wasting School Time.
Obviously the best solutions to wasted time are to directly confront those events and activities that are responsible. Principals should be the gatekeepers and maintain and awareness of teachers’ workload. The practice of overloading schools has become easy and accepted in many schools and is accepted as the status quo.
Awareness is half the battle, and teachers also have a responsibility to speak out. In identifying issues of wasted time it is important to avoid whining. Base requests for relief on demonstrable problems that evolve from lack of time. When principals or teachers present the problems to others, it helps if they have developed solutions to be considered. Teachers and principals should be proactive.
More money needs to be spent on staff that can reduce secretarial tasks and aides in the classrooms. Volunteers can help alleviate some of the load as well.
Teaching is hard work. For teachers and principals to become overwhelmed with too many tasks is easy. The list of ways schools waste time is long. The primary harm from squandered time is its effect on instruction. Also stress is engendered by the pressure to get many things done quickly. This stress forces many teachers to leave the profession. Principals and teachers must maintain awareness to the increasing workload and resist efforts to needlessly intrude on their time.
Source:
Etta Kralovec, Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in Schools and What We Can All Do About It (Boston: Beacon Press,2003)
Harvey Craft - I am a retired educator with diverse experience. I read anything science, education, and history. I write to share what I learn.
