School teachers - here are the real maths!

[Guest S.U.S.S.]

FFS, if they dont like the job or conditions get another job!

 

As usual people bitch and moan about things that are easy to fix.

 

Stop moaning get off your arse and get another job if something is wrong.

 

Not just teachers, everyone.

 

But no, apathy sets in and its just easier to bitch and moan.

 

And dont say striking is doing something, standing with a sign for 5 hours is not doing something. Its leaving it to the unions to sort out.

 

Get pen, get paper, circle jobs, apply.

Or, you can even look on tinternet now!

[hughesie27]

Wrong again.

 

No one is indispensable, but I think teaching is one of the most important jobs there is. That's not to say I have an over inflated opinion of myself, but without teachers you wouldn't have doctors, lawyers, accoutants, nurses or bin-men.

 

Yes teachers get a lot of holidays, but there are a lot of jobs with less pressure that pay a lot better than teaching.

 

I have a friend who is a recruitment consultant, a job with a lot of pressures. But at the end of the day his job is to find people who can work on building sites. My job is to educate nearly 200 pupils, get them through their exams and prepare them for life. He ears a lot more than I do.

Just out of curiosity what high school do you teach at?

[John Findlay]

This is a tricky one.

 

As in with all workforces you can get good and bad.

 

My personal opinioni is this.

 

When I first started attending school way back in the spring of 1968 I would say that at least 90% of the teachers so their job as a vocation and not just a job. They were poorly paid but, they loved it and did alot of out of hours activities as well as their normal teaching.

 

Then Unions started to flex their muscles and for all the good they do unfortunately they do alot of bad as well. In the end they were not clever enough to get the better of governments and alot of good will was lost between teachers and government but more importantly teacher and parent and teacher and pupil.

 

Teachers through their unions shot themselves in the foot with their campaigning to get rid of corporal punishment in schools. Although not entirely responsible it's abolishing has lead to a lot of the discipline problems in schools today which are responsible for a lot of the stress the modern teacher suffers.

 

This along with the previous paydeals they have through their unions agreed too.

 

Are they right to go an strike. Yes I believe they are however they have to have a good look at themselves as they have to start weeding out the bad uns and sadly nowadays there are alot of bad uns.

 

 

 

John

[Brian Whittaker's Tache]

Teachers are not indespenable

 

 

They have an over infalted opion about themselves

 

HAHAHAHAHAH

 

I think yours was!!

[Pete Seeger]

My wife is a teacher. She'd make mincemeat of you if she read this!!

 

I'd imagine she has plenty of time on her hands to think about her arguement

[coppercrutch]

The kids finish at 12pm on a Friday, I was on my lunch and have just finished an afternoon of meetings and presentations!

 

Here's how it is;

 

I teach for 21 hours a week ie. 21 classes. This means I have to prepare for 21 classes, which is not a 2 minute job. Each class is an hour long, and I need to plan so that every pupil is catered for, so the weakest pupils aren't out of their depth, but the most intelligent are still challenged. Gone are the days of simply getting pupils to copy down what you write on the board.

 

I have 5 free periods a week, which I can use to plan lessons. However, there are various other things teachers have to do during the day that take up some of this time - medial tasks that come with any job etc.

 

I get virtually no preparation done in my 5 free periods once I have done all my other tasks so I need to plan, mark classwork and prepare and mark homework at home. I get home about 5pm, and will finish marking and preparing work by 11pm at the latest. After my classes sat their prelims I also had 80 odd exam papers to mark.

 

I'm also obliged to enroll in 35 hours of Continuous Professional Development work per year, contribute to whole school and departmental development plans (improving standards of teaching) and commit to a "working group" which looks at improving other areas of day to day school life.

 

On top of this I voluntarily coach the rugby team (Monday night, Wednesday night and Sat mornings), run a table tennis club and two lunch-time revision clubs and I organised a ski trip to Austria this year. These are the extra things that many teachers do that are taken for granted.

 

Oh and for next week I have an S2 parents evening and 90 1st year reports to write! Plus I have the responsibility of getting 60 S4 pupils and 22 S5 pupils through their exams this month!

 

I accept that teachers get a lot of holidays, and I am not fully behind the strike, but I think the majority of people do not realise how hard teachers work these days.

 

You clearly do a lot of work. No argument about that. But you have to balance this out with all the benefits you also get. I don't think overall teachers get a bad deal.

[Eldar Hadzimehmedovic]

I love when people wheel out the old "those that can, do - those that can't, teach" line as if it should end the debate right there with its ingenuity and wit. That saying isn't talking about school teachers!

[Stewart MacD]

Teachers are not indespenable

 

 

They have an over infalted opion about themselves

 

Seems like a message from someone who has never been within a mile of a teacher.

[Bert Le Clos]

Just out of curiosity what high school do you teach at?

 

Have PM'd you