1. A teacher I know has 3 year 11 biology classes. She has 70 students in these 3 classes in addition to 3 other junior science classes. During marking times her work load is overwhelming. Imagine marking 70 EEI assignments or 70 ERT assignments where each assignment takes up to 60 minutes to assess. Remember that this is for the 3 senior classes, and she also has assessment for her 3 junior classes. She is very seriously thinking of giving up teaching senior Biology, and maybe even teaching altogether, as the work load is too much. She does not have a work-life balance. It is just work.
2. Imagine a class of 25 in year 11 physics.
- Imagine that the class has been arranged in 7 groups.
- Imagine that each group is studying a different experiment.
- Imagine that some of these experiments require a) a dark room, b) a quiet room, c) a real motor vehicle, d) a lot of electronic equipment, e) a lot of other basic physics equipment (eg. tuning forks etc).
- Imagine that in every lesson the students have to set up the equipment, use the equipment and the dismantle most of the equipment.
- Imagine having to go around and help each group, guide each group, cajole each group, monitor the safety aspect of each group, fix/modify the equipment of each group.
- Imagine helping each student produce a 1500 word report that requires organising room swaps so that you can get into a computer room, explain how to use Excel and its graphing function, explain the criteria used in marking the report (that is what you try to do), explain how to write a sentence, paragraph or report then make sure each student submits a draft that you try to mark within a week, about 10 hours of work, and then try to make sure every student hands in a finished report, followed by you spending in excess of 25 hours marking the finished reports.
- Imagine what I said is true. Well it is and that is just for one class!
I am no longer a teacher, but a project / report manager.
The students do not learn physics anymore. They are project / report developers.
3. Remember the 3 R’s, the good old days. Parents understood what they were being told. Is it any wonder parents do not know what is going on in schools today because teachers sure don’t. Your son/daughter if they choose to do senior sciences and mathematics could have 3 criteria each with 3 descriptors in each of physics, chemistry and biology and 3 explicit criteria (there are some implicit) in each of maths B and C. So 3 x 3 x 3 = 27 plus 2 x 3 = 6 plus add in 15 criteria for English your son/daughter must know about 50 criteria if they are even try to get an A.
For a Year 11 student to interpret 50 criteria is a big ask. If maths B is replaced with Modern History welcome to 12-15 criteria!
Parents of Queensland, if you can interpret “Demonstrate interrelationships of the aspects of enquiry” or “Values, motives, and perspectives of the author, and context of the source’s production and how does this affect the likely accuracy, likely reliability and representativeness of a source” then know how to provide the evidence for that descriptor then you fully understand the modern senior curriculum and your son/daughter should not have any problems.
If it is educational gobbledygook then complain to your Principal, local politician, federal politician and most importantly, complain to the QSA.