Religious School Math - Let's Do the Numbers!

One of the biggest challenges facing supplemental school teachers is TIME.

We talk about “a year” of religious school. How much time do we REALLY have? For a six-hour per week program, we can use the following figures (formulae are provided below):

180 hours per year - 6 hours per week x 30 weeks
-15 hours per year - Gathering time (attendance, collect tzedakah, etc.)
-15 hours per year - Wrap-up time (assign h/w answer questions, distribute papers)
-15 hours per year - Break time (bathroom, stretch time)
135 hours per year- SUBTOTAL: Time in class

135 hours per year x 7 years that we hope students will attend= 945 hours in total.

This assumes that a student has perfect attendance and is present for the entire class each time the class meets.

NOTES:

• Any cancelled sessions (“snow days”) should be subtracted from the total.
• Other factors that may affect the total number of in-class teaching/learning hours include music classes, tefillot sessions, family education programs and/or special programming. While these types of programming can add significantly to a students’ overall experience, they decrease the amount of in-class time available to cover designated material.
• Also included in that total is the time spent on community-building within your classroom, on discipline issues, and issues “du jour” which need to be dealt with before the lesson can proceed.
  

And if your program meets less than six hours a week.... your total number of hours for learning is decreased significantly.

And what do we expect our supplemental teachers to be able to teach? And our students be able to learn?

More on that later.....

Formulae used to calculate the data above

Hours per year: 6 hours per year x 30 weeks in the religious school year (some years, it's less)

Gathering time: 10 min/class x 3 classes/week x 30 wks/year divided by 60 min/hour

Wrap up time: 10 min/class x 3 classes/week x 30 wks/year divided by 60 min/hour

Break time: 10 min/class x 3 classes/week x 30 wks/year divided by 60 min/hour [NOTE: this total will increase significantly if food is involved or students go outside for a break]

"Stop the Merry-Go-Round - I Want to Get Off!"

I am my own worst enemy at over-committing myself.

Now, that’s not a particularly new insight – what’s new is that I “got it” this week BEFORE making the commitment. Usually, it doesn’t sink in until I’m up to my eyeballs and paddling frantically to keep my head above water. And then I wonder how I got there.

This week, as I said, I took a step in the right direction.

I’d seen an ad in last week’s Jewish Week for a new, two-year class that would be starting in the fall. The topic was interesting; the contact person is someone I’d love to study with. So I popped off a quick email asking for more information and began (in my mind) to try the idea on for size.

When I received a response to my request for more information – I stopped cold in my tracks: did I really want to commit to being out another night each week (I’m currently running at least two nights many weeks next fall)? Did I really want to make a two-year commitment, when my life is still in a state of transition? Did I really want to obligate myself to read 100 pages a week, when often it’s all I can do at the end of the day to play mindless games on my computer?

But, I argued with myself, the teacher is great – energizing, exciting; I’d learn a lot. Furthermore, it was time to make a commitment to study – after all, I’m not working full time anymore. Best of all – it looks interesting.

Ultimately, I kept coming back to the question of time. Midway through this discussion with myself, I realized that just because things have eased up this past month (it is summer, after all!), they won’t always be at this relaxed pace – and the class time and prep time were more than it was reasonable to commit to during this period of transition. For me. For right now.

So I guess I’ll pass on the opportunity for right now. Maybe I’ll catch it when it goes around again.

Whew! I'm grateful that I recognized that the only one that can over-commit me is me. (I wonder how many more times I have to practice this lesson before it really sinks in?)