Disappearing Teachers
Teachers around the world have quit and retired since 2015 and the amount has grown. Now there is a shortage of teachers. What would this mean for your school and for you? Studies show that one of the main reasons teachers are quitting is due to low pay and high stress. A cause for the stress is the rising school violence that makes people fear school and act more aggressively to show that others can’t hurt them. If a fight broke out at your school, would you be scared? What if you had to break up the fight because you just had to, then would you be scared? I’m not exactly sure about you, but I’d be worried about myself and the students. I think that is exactly how the teachers might feel.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
Some school districts look for possible solutions to fix the teacher shortages. A few strategies that seem to work are boosting teacher pay and updating teacher prep programs. Another reason why people might not want to be teachers is because of the kids. Children don’t want to go to school and study so they act out. Since it’s illegal to not go to school, teachers usually have to encourage them to work with games and prizes. The teachers have to find a reason that would persuade the students and that could be a lot of effort, so people don’t want to be teachers. A way we could fix this is to be considerate about our teachers and try to be easier to handle. Although these solutions seem to work, the members of the newspaper club think that we should have a 3 day weekend! In addition, studies have shown that student attendance improves under a four-day school week. With a longer weekend, students have more time to rest and engage in extracurricular activities, which can lead to better attendance during the week.
Concerns
Although there are many who would love the option not to go to school five days a week, some think otherwise. Anonymous students have commented “4 school weeks make people be dumb,” and “Which day would we remove?”. Although we hope to decrease school hours, we don’t have specific information. We propose to have the day be Monday and at least a half-day. If you have your doubts about a half day, remember that we had the same thing for two years during Covid. During those times we had something to look forward to and it seemed that more people were ready to learn the next day. Another concern is about what adults would do on that day because, although the kids are at home, adults need to go to work. Now all students need SSL hours and the half day could give them that opportunity. Students could get SSL hours from babysitting, tutoring, or any other activity that just happened to be at that time.
Summary
Teachers are quitting all over the world and we should be helpful and encourage them to stay or others to come. One of those ways is to get 3 day weekends or maybe just a half-day, so if you love school then do this to help teachers; if you hate school, do this to get an extra day off.