Marking: the burden of the teacher, particularly the English teacher. We hate it, all of us, and there's no way around that fact. The guilt you feel is fortunately the only thing that can motivate you to sit down and get through the books. And there is nothing that makes you feel so low as failing to mark work, knowing that day after day the little things will look at you, imploringly, wondering if you've bothered to scrawl 'Well done, 8/10' on their efforts.
Dealing with that guilt, and still making your kids feel valued when your actions so clearly suggest they are not, is an art that simply must be prefected. You can't mark their books every day, but you can't let them feel you won't.
My colleague and mate, Jacqui, was asked yesterday by her Year 8 chicos if she'd marked their books. She replied no, for the third time, and they started to complain, widened their eyes like dogs wanting a biscuit. So, guiltridden, she decided to explain in detail why. I'd mentioned that one tactic I used was to explain exactly how long marking took, 'Doing The Maths', in order to get the kids to empathise. So Jacqui 'Did the Maths'.
'Sorry guys, but I have both my Year 12 Literature and Language papers to mark this weekend, and Year 12 have exams next week. I'll do the ame for you when you're in Year 12. But let's do the Maths. I have 15 kids in each class, two classes, so that's 30, two exams each, so that's 60 papers. They take about 30 minutes each, so that's around 20 hours. So, today's Friday, that would mean I need to do about 10 hours on Saturday and 10 hours on Sunday...'
Jac's then factored in things like eating and sleeping, maybe going for a walk, having to buy some food. Possibly even some time for herself, before concluding: 'So, little ones, that's why I won't have marked your books by Monday. OK?'
The kid were silenced, and looked at the complex sums on the board, no doubt empathising with the workload of the modern day teacher.
Eventually, a brave hand was raised at the back. 'Yes, Francisco?'
'I was thinking Miss. Why don't you start tonight?'
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