ATTN: TEACHERS! Thoughts?
I want your opinions on my teaching situation.
I teach high school and middle school. Wheel and hand building. 45 or 40 minute classes depending on the day. 6 classes every day. They won't let me make it a year long class (or require prerequisites), it can only be a semester long class. So I make one semester wheel and the other hand building. Students come and go at the semester change but the class is always full. 16 students in each class, 96 students total. No pug mill, so I have to recycle by hand. One working kiln (and one non-working one that I don't have the time/budget to fix). I do not have TA's or a studio tech or anything like that, it's all on me alone. Sometimes I get help from a few kind students but that's it.
I'm new to teaching so I don't have a frame of reference.
I just want opinions/reactions to my situation from other ceramics teachers.
Is this typical? If so, I'll stay locked in and continue figuring out how to make this work.
Or, is this unreasonable? As in, am I set up for failure/zero work-life balance with the situation I described?
Any feedback is helpful! Thanks!