Blog 8: Education

Bigger classrooms, but smaller staff
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html


If you compare schools all around the world, there are going to be classrooms with 5-10 students, and there will be classes with 30 plus students. Unfortunately this all depends on different factors; environment, budget, and the type of students in the classroom. In the article by Smith, she writes that the number of students per classroom more than tripled just over the last year. Smith argues that legislators say it is due to budget cuts, but many will agree it is not fair to go past the capacity in each classroom. By adding even just two students to a classroom, it intensifies the challenges for a teacher and planning out lessons. In addition to having too small of a classroom for more than 22 students, more and more classrooms are short of staff. Smith says that many teachers have students in their class that aren't even in their district for school. This puts even more pressure on the teachers to excel at their end of year standardized testing. In developing countries that have fewer students in their classroom see this as a good thing because they are able to focus on each individual students and cater to their needs and developing their education. 


As a future educator in public schools, I feel strongly about the number of schools increasing. I believe that there is not really anything we can do to avoid this, because it does depend on the type of school, the environment surrounding, and most importantly, the budget the school has. However, I don't think it is fair for one teacher to have 20 students and be able to plan an ideal lesson, where another teacher at the same school has 24 plus students. One day I hope to teach in Africa, where the focus on students receiving an education is valued more, and the classrooms are smaller than those in the United States. I believe that pulling staff from other schools and distributing them to less fortunate schools is unfair, and that legislators who disagree with that should find in their budget to hire more teachers. It is a profession that is always going to be needed. I agree with Smith and her opinions in the article. She states that classrooms are just not meant to hold over 20 students to 1 teacher and it impacts the students' learning in a major way. Schools are supposed to be a safe house for many children, where they can come and feel comfortable and learn, but at this rate it doesn't appear that way anymore.