Middle-school teachers in the United States are teaching for hundreds of hours more than their international colleagues. But what is being taught and why?
An article I read recently caught my eye and completely caught me by surprise. In the January 2007 issue of NEA Today, a small blurb titled “Time on Task” made me look twice—actually, it made me look several times. The colorful clocks inside the basic box showed a comparison of annual net teaching time for middle-school teachers around the world. These statistics that demonstrate our time on task as middle-school teachers in the United States continue to amaze me; it begs the question: are we working longer or smarter?
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the source which provided the statistics, middle-school teachers in the United States spend more hours teaching than many of our counterparts. The annual net teaching time for middle-school teachers is as follows:
- Japan: 534 hours
- Denmark: 640 hours
- Australia: 809 hours
- Mexico: 1,047 hours
- United States: 1,080 hours
So, if we’re spending over twice as much time teaching than our colleagues in Japan and hundreds of hours more than middle-school teachers in places like Denmark and Australia, is it time to ask, what are we teaching our students? And more importantly, is it worth it in the end? Before you answer that, consider just a few more statistics. In a call to action by the National Middle School Association (NMSA), they report that one-fifth of the eighth-grade students who took the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) performed below the basic level. And just as startling, according to NAEP, one-fourth of eighth-grade students lack fundamental reading skills.
With a new year upon us and new policy makers in place, it might be time to for a new focus on middle-level education in America. It is not acceptable for adolescents and their teachers to be stuck in the middle any longer. It’s quite clear that teachers are spending a lot of time teaching middle-school students. What’s not clear is exactly what is being taught and why.
