Maybe stop the testing to make time for in-class essays... Ugh. I did a Bach. of Education after teaching in a Creative Writing program at Uni for year. (What can I say... I needed to make more $$!)

I was SHOCKED by the ignorance that surrounded me, by the student teachers and those in the system. NO knowledge on how to teach writing, and less on how to have sound judgment of, and grade, it. My sponsor teacher told me that she was able to grade the classes English papers (28) within 90 minutes; it had taken me almost 8 hours to review their work and offer a bit--only a bit--of meaningful feedback.

The saddest thing was when I handed these bits back to them, and they all sat silently reading and absorbing in their seats; they'd never received feedback beyond a checked rubric sheet. I actually didn't know what a rubric was before doing a BEd. I did several years of homeschooling and quit in grade 9, and had the luck never to encounter one before then... (I also went to uni myself minus 3.5 years of 'education.") I could go on, but I'll stop... (This is in Canada BTW.)