Have you ever noticed that some teachers think the work of being an educator would be absolutely awesome if it wasn’t for the damn kids?

Or those stinkin’ parents?

Or those silly administrators?

Or those reprehensible peers?

Or those annoying blogger types? (Okay, I made this last one up as I really couldn’t find any examples of folks who fit this profile. And yes, I searched and searched and searched. Matter of fact, I looked everywhere except in the mirror. LOL!)

All of us have an opinion on what is wrong with education, but how much time do we spend in our conversations speaking about that which is right?

I like the damn kids.

I seek to break bread with the stinkin’ parents.

Okay, screw the administrators. I mean even they feel that way about one another, right? (JOKING!! Admins are so often placed in untenable positions that I don’t know why more people do not recognize that we are often seeing in our schools is a crisis of administration. Too much work for too few people with too many skill sets required to sensibly prosper in the position. I’ll leave that for another blog.)
As for the annoying bloggers, if you come across any, please let me know. Truly, they ought to be tarred and feathered.

While perusing the web, I ran across this article which claims studies prove that taking the SAT in a crowded room is a detriment to student scores and performance.

They call this the”the N-effect.” Basically, as the article says, the larger the “N”—the number of participants involved in a task—the worse the outcome for the individuals who are participating.

Hmm… really?

So if a 4 hour stretch of time in a crowded room is detrimental to test scores, WHAT ABOUT LEARNING IN CROWDED CLASSROOMS OVER THE COURSE OF AN ENTIRE YEAR?!

Kindergarten with 29 kids per class.
Middle schools with 38 kids per class.
High schools with 41 per class.

Does anyone care to do a study on this? Matter of fact, I am sure there are scores of them. But then again, isn’t this simply self-evident stuff? I mean teaching at 39 to 1 versus teaching at 22 to 1 is an immense difference… and one sure way to improve the quality of the educator is to reduce the amount of students on their roster.

A fair teacher is a better teacher with they are not forced to teach in impacted classrooms.
A good teacher is a better teacher with they are not forced to teach in impacted classrooms.
A great teacher is a better teacher with they are not forced to teach in impacted classrooms.

A bad teacher — well, even they are able to be less bad if they have less kids. Or at least they negatively affect less kids when they have less kids so there’s even some benefit in that, right?

Just remember, every time you hear the term “budget cuts” one thing that surely follows is larger class sizes… and that’s not good for anybody.

So how in the world can we affect the N-effect in our classrooms?