NYC Educator: Thoughts on Class Size

NYC Educator: Thoughts on Class Size

Thoughts on Class Size

by Miss Eyre

As high schools prepare to reorganize for the spring semester* in the next few weeks, I'm thinking about class size, andso are some other folks. Large class sizes are, as a rule, problematic here in NYC. It's not so much the size of the class itself; rather, it's the ever-widening scope of what teachers are asked to do, multiplied exponentially as classes grow larger and therefore ever more demanding on the time of teachers. It's also the wide range of students that can be found in the now-typical heterogeneous classroom.

My class sizes tend toward the small size--mid- to upper-20s--for high school classes, and yet I yearn for their being smaller. I am asked to tutor students individually and in small groups; offer multiple opportunities for make-up work; contact parents frequently about grades and behavior; tailor lessons to multiple skill levels (more on this later); assist students with staying organized; and, at the same time, deliver rigorous, complex lessons that will help students to be prepared for the upper echelons of high school and