Teachers' Strike 26 March

[Toshi 975]

There I was scrolling down to the sections I look at that are all about cars & bits and this caught my eye.
I had to keep reading the threads , having had a career in engineering and also in teaching.
If you go back in time the "Land fit for heroes" that was promised after WW2 did start to flourish in the world of education for the masses up into the '70s then the true cost of running an all encompassing education system became a focus. The thing was that unless you were a developer building schools , many of which were unfit for pupose, there was no money in it.
So the political football kicked off . Not sure if even Jose can sort this one as how can you get a highly skilled and qualified team, overwork them & at the same time as you are abusing them send off a few players and kick the crap out of the rest do a good job.
As for the use of the english language I had classes where I was supposed to extract the subjuctive clause from sentences. to this day I still have no idea what that means.
I do remember the english teacher belting me round the head. Guess I deserved it but being dyslexic, which was a bit like being left handed in Scotland, it was all white noise to me.
Kids will flourish given the right chance and environment.
I never met a bad teacher, maybe a misplaced one but I have met quite a few politicians,
I did wash my hands afterwards

 

[bonkersbassist]

I think it is harsh to just blame the parents of those on "benefits street", I've met plenty of middle class parents who also don't care about their child's education, or worse, think they know better than the school (which brings us back to supporting the school).

However I do agree that students in this country have a very different (and often negative) view of education, but are the schools to blame for this attitude?

[On another note, this is a great thread! Thank you for everyone's contribution on both sides of the argument, you have led to a mass argument in our staff room!]

 

[Liquid Knight]

I'm trying to organise a Pupils Strike for the 25th just to show teachers how inconsiderate they are being.

Any teachers not on a picket line outside the schools should be taken to court for truancy.

 

[middo85]

Just wondering what everyone's opinion is on this.

I am a teacher but I feel (yet again) at this time that a strike isn't the right way to go. I don't think we have enough public support or understanding. Plus with Gove constantly harping on that we only work 9-3 with too much holiday we probably never will get that support. I also think the unions are not doing enough/the right thing to gain public support.

Any thoughts?

I fully support any teacher who decides to go out on strike, my brother is a newly qualified teacher and its astonishing how much work he does in his own time. I wouldnt be surprised if he works 70hr weeks for nit a lot of money.

The current incompetent clowns in government are undertaking an idiologically driven attack on teaching, the NHS and emergency services and lying about it all being about bringing the deficit down.

That said the general public wont support you as most have no understanding/interest, only caring about what directly effects them.

It always makes me laugh how the public sector is lambasted for being inefficient but the rest of my family work in either construction or utilities and none do anywhere near as much work and are all paid quite a bit more.

 

[pooroldcodger]

I think it is harsh to just blame the parents of those on "benefits street", I've met plenty of middle class parents who also don't care about their child's education, or worse, think they know better than the school (which brings us back to supporting the school).

However I do agree that students in this country have a very different (and often negative) view of education, but are the schools to blame for this attitude?

[On another note, this is a great thread! Thank you for everyone's contribution on both sides of the argument, you have led to a mass argument in our staff room!]

The main problem in my humble opinion is that if we use an analogy of a tug of war.
If you have a team in which everybody pulls on the rope in the same direction as hard as they can manage then if they get beaten they have lost to a stronger team, but they have tried their best. If some of the team are not only failing to try, but are positively hampering their team mates then nobody in the team will reach their potential.
This is the same as a class room.
A good friend of mine came to live here from Pakistan nearly 6 years ago because he is a Catholic Pakistani who grewq tired of his kids school (a Catholic school in Lahore) being shot at on a daily basis by people who couldn't accept their right to be non-muslims. When he came to live here (under his own steam and at his own huge cost) he thought he would have to pay for private education and was terrified when he found out the cost for his three young kids.So he accepted the inevitable and they went to the local state schools (two at junior and one at senior).
He was so relieved that they were going to get a "free" education.
Then two things struck him and the kids (well it was better than bullets!):
One was that the standard of work being done, and the quantity was far less than they were used to in Pakistan (kids were 7, 9 and 13). The kids thought it was great!
The other thing was that how so many kids had no intention of working and were positively disruptive, and were not in the slightest worried about being punished by the school or by their parents.
The point of this ramble is that if all children and their parents returned to the situation that if they had no education they would starve, then standards would improve by first playtime on the first day, and costs would drop dramatically.

 

[Ulpian]

I think it is harsh to just blame the parents of those on "benefits street", I've met plenty of middle class parents who also don't care about their child's education, or worse, think they know better than the school (which brings us back to supporting the school).

I never mentioned "Benefits Street", a programme I have never watched.
The following is what I wrote, and I was talking about parents who, in "many cases" care more about their benefits and their holidays. Not in all cases.

But look, we have selfish, lazy, indifferent parents who appear in many cases to care more about their benefits or their holidays than their children

But I do agree with the last poster, in that we have created monsters (my word) in this country, who believe that everything should be given free (in other words at somebody else's expense) and who consequently value nothing very much.

Having said that, and coming back to the strike, I continue to believe that our teachers are very well paid and that they really shouldn't complain about doing work in their own time, because I don't know anybody who doesn't. They themselves are products of a 'do as little as possible and get huge rewards' culture, and the country can no longer afford it.

 

[middo85]

I continue to believe that our teachers are very well paid and that they really shouldn't complain about doing work in their own time, because I don't know anybody who doesn't. They themselves are products of a 'do as little as possible and get huge rewards' culture, and the country can no longer afford it.

Whilst i agree with the first bit of your post i cant think of any job where more work is done in ones own time for no extra pay.

Your last sentence is rubbish IMO, what huge rewards?

 

[Ulpian]

The very good pay, the time off, and the excellent pensions.
And they do get a lot of time off, and every lawyer, social worker and doctor I know works longer hours. How much does a head teacher earn these days?

 

[middo85]

The very good pay, the time off, and the excellent pensions.
And they do get a lot of time off, and every lawyer, social worker and doctor I know works longer hours. How much does a head teacher earn these days?

The pay isnt good until they have been doing it for years though. They do get decent time off, although its a lot less than the actual school holidays when you factor in all the lesson prep, marking etc.

I assume you dont know criminal law solicitors, as my experience with them is they actually do very little work, same goes for social workers in my experience. I cant comment on doctors.

Head teachers are on silly money though, your right

 

[custard]

The pay isnt good until they have been doing it for years though. They do get decent time off, although its a lot less than the actual school holidays when you factor in all the lesson prep, marking etc.

I assume you dont know criminal law solicitors, as my experience with them is they actually do very little work, same goes for social workers in my experience. I cant comment on doctors.

Head teachers are on silly money though, your'e right

 

[Ulpian]

Social workers have the worst time of the lot of them. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, and every inadequate member of society expects social workers to miraculously sort their problems out. Try working in children's services with problem families if you want to experience the nightmare of modern society.

 

[homeward]

Social workers have the worst time of the lot of them. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, and every inadequate member of society expects social workers to miraculously sort their problems out. Try working in children's services with problem families if you want to experience the nightmare of modern society.

I have to agree with you on that one. Mrs homeward is deputy manager of a group of Children's Centres (although about to be made redundant: and is therefore, hopefully, returning to pre-school management...) -- and they work closely with social workers and other support staff. The horror stories she brings home -- almost every night; and to do with very small children... -- are the stuff of nightmares....

 

[middo85]

Police officers have the worst time of the lot of them. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, and every inadequate member of society expects police officers to miraculously sort their problems out. Try working in policing with problem families if you want to experience the nightmare of modern society.

Fixed it for you. As a cop we have to step in when its either too hard for social services or not between the hours of 9-5 Mon - Fri.

That said, Childrens social care are much better than their adult counterparts

 

[Ulpian]

You obviously don't know that social workers work out of hours too, weekends and all night long, every day of the year. They work with the police and on-call doctors sorting out the problems of the remedially thick and stupid.

And please don't miss-quote me, we're not in court now lol!

 

[Gavv8]

You obviously don't know that social workers work out of hours too, weekends and all night long, every day of the year. They work with the police and on-call doctors sorting out the problems of the remedially thick and stupid.

And please don't miss-quote me, we're not in court now lol!

If that's the attitude that social workers have to their charges then i'm not surprised they are lambasted by the public at large.

 

[middo85]

You obviously don't know that social workers work out of hours too, weekends and all night long, every day of the year. They work with the police and on-call doctors

Of course i know that, i also know how much we have to step in and do social cares job when its out of hours.

I also know you are understaffed and underfunded but my experience with a lot of social workers is that they are head in the clouds idealists and nothing much gets done as a result. I dont know if you are a social worker or know one but from your posts i wouldnt put you into that category.

sorting out the problems of the remedially thick and stupid

Gavv8, you clearly dont work with the sorts of people he is talking about. His 'attitude' is entirely correct

 

[Gavv8]

I don't think there's anything 'clear' in this entire thread.