Dear Editor,
Today I believe that I have come to the end of my proverbial rope! I am a teacher and have been for the past 15 years. Working hard and dedicated every day to give my contribution to those young minds that will one day in the near future be among our nation’s leaders. Imparting to our youth, love, wisdom and many times my own resources.
I am positive that I am just one of the many dedicated teachers, social workers, school managers, student care coordinators and other school staff members on the island who share the exact same experience.
Our society has evolved drastically over the past several years, and this has brought with it some positive but also many extremely challenging factors such as severe behaviour problems and a lack of social skills. The effects of these changes have unfortunately also brought with it a moral and economic breakdown. The extended family unit has become extremely scarce and parents have to do what they can to make ends meet.
Often this means that children are either left alone for many hours because their parents make long hours on the job, some even need two jobs to make ends meet. The result being that many children do not even have a warm meal to look forward to when they get home!
Now we are all aware that these social ills are taking place around us, and I am sure we all agree that we can no longer turn a blind eye to the reality. Surely we as a society can put our heads together and look for meaningful ways to remedy a significant part of these cases.
Sponsored afternoon school classes would help in a great way. One such suggestion is that the business sector could contribute by sponsoring a number of children per school to be able to participate in already existing after school or community programs. I am sure that there are several other ways we can band together to give our support to those families who most need it.
Having said that, I would strongly urge the Catholic Schoolboard to revisit the already implemented initiative of extended school hours. The Division Public Education should seriously reconsider their plan to implement longer school hours in the new school year as well. You are overburdening your teaching staff! We are the same teachers who go out of our way to make sure things run as smoothly as possible in our class rooms, sometimes without the proper tools. Sometimes going in on weekends.
Remember that teacher’s task do not only comprise of teaching, but correction work as well as preparation. All of the above mentioned certainly brings us to eight working hours and even more during those peak periods of test week, CITO’s etc.
Extended school hours entail that teachers have to teach students till 2pm and stay at school till 2:30pm (or possibly until 3pm if Division Public Education follows through with their plans). This does not work for teachers, parents or students. Especially since most teachers and student’s days start at 7am! Students are tired at 1pm and teachers are becoming burnt out!
Keep in mind that our climate also plays a significant role, as many do not have the luxury of air-conditioned classrooms. Parents are forced to make other arrangements for their children to get home, because they can no longer pick them up during lunch hour. Initially a survey was done among parents and staff of the Catholic schools and neither party was in favour of the extended school hours. Lo and behold, a few months later it was still implemented. It is high time that those in managerial and administrative leadership positions stop being arrogant and start to pay attention to the experiences of those working in the field. Put a stop to extended school hours! Teachers it is time for us to make our voices heard
Name withheld at author's request.
