This thread from Latin Best Practices (John Piazza and Bob Patrick are the founders) concerns every one of us. This is from Bob:
Does the subject line describe you? It has described me before, and I think it describes more than fewer of us.
I have been having an off list conversation today with a teacher who’s feeling the heat of this sort of set up. It’s great when your program grows, but often admins require more time to be convinced that you need a second teacher, or the second teacher is hard to find, or there isn’t money for a second teacher, etc.
What I learned to do is to find ways that take some of the pressure off of me while still allowing me to do good work with students. The way I have most often done that with so many preps is to streamline the “method for the day.” For example, on Monday, the method for the day could be a dictatio. So, every class I teach is going to be getting a dictatio so that HOW I teach is just ONE way. That eases some pressure on me in terms of method. The next day may be One Word Pics and PQA, but that’s what I do in EVERY class, every level.
If you have control over your curriculum and can pretty much do what you want to, you could also streamline content. Most Latin teachers do have almost absolute control over their curriculum, even when they think that they do not. Set the textbooks aside.
Let me give some examples. You could decide to teach Ovidian myths all year, all levels. Embedded readings become your best friend. You still have to create enough levels of embedded readings for the easiest one to work for your 1’s, but you would be working on the same story, all levels, every day, using the same method, all levels, every day. This takes some pressure off you not only in method but in content while your whole program gets Ovid all year. Hard to argue with that.
You could decide to do Fables all year, all levels. It’s not like you would run out of them. There are hundreds! It could really be any body of work. You would just have to turn them into embedded readings with enough scaffolded tiers to work for all levels. Convince another teacher to do this with you and you divide the work in half. Get a third? You see how the math works.
If I were once again the only teacher teaching all preps, this is exactly what I would do. I know I would still be working VERY hard, but I’d have taken off pressure in some significant places, and maybe that would be enough to keep me smiling. Even if sometimes! Now, stop reading this and start relaxing. It’s Friday.
Bob Patrick