To think teachers are taking the piss by striking?

[mdowdall]

They get decent pay.
Even after pension reforms, their pensions will still be way better than the private sector.
They get great holidays.
They have reasonably good job security (again, compared with private sector)
Let?s face it, you could teach a monkey to teach. And yet these lazy bleeders have the audacity to go on strike? Meanwhile, in the real world, people continue to lose their jobs...

has the OP said what her job is anywhere?

From the tone of the OP I'm presuming General Secretary to the UN? Brain surgeon? Astrophysicist?

Or just another disgruntled, unfulfilled "jobseeker"?

YAB a bit U - Ask almost any partner of a teacher if they would like to become a teacher and I bet the vast majority would run a mile, I certainly would. That said, in certain aspects they have it good - e.g. almost impossible to be sacked no matter how incompetent and a pension that every financial advisor says cannot be beaten and to stay in it. They cannot be immune to the current financial downturn IMO.

well, fakeplastic, I think a series of strikes is going to start actually and the disruption will last for several years. People like myself who could possibly still find better paid work in the private sector see this as more than an issue of 'our jobs'. The fabric of a once-decent country is being destroyed.

Frankly though,the Tories want an impoverished public sector employing as few people as possible. Even in prisons, police and the army- something I never thought I'd see from a Tory government. They will get it in the end, though not without a great big fight, and the country will suffer.

Personally i am predicting a massive brain drain, mostly to the East, from education in particular. Why would anyone decently qualified who gives a shit about teaching or education want to work in a country where education has decreasing value?

allegrageller - education has decreasing value because of the ridiculous grade inflation that got totally out of control under Blair's lot.
as for the cuts you allude to in the public sector, they are taking place because if they dont, the country will go bankcrupt and end up going cap in hand to the world bank and imf like greece, ireland etc. however, im sure teachers and other public sector workers would be happy to see that - and the disasterous consequences it would have for the wider reconomy - as long as they get to keep their cushy existence.

If teaching is so easy, I assume you are saying it is a piece of piss to get the attention of, teach and look after the welfare of 30 children. Fine. Being a parent must be an absolute doddle then, just looking after a couple of kids.
One of the most idiotic OP's I have ever read.
I wouldn't be a teacher for £100k a year.

I think teaching is hard work, but also think there is a culture of moaning within teaching, often due to many teachers not socialising much with nonteachers, particularly those in low paid crap jobs, so teachers moan to each other about how hard done by they are.
My job can be stressful but I know there are alot of worse, much poorer paid jobs out there.
I agree if teachers think their jobs are so awful they should leave, but I'm never sure why the people who think teaching is easy don't become teachers themselves, same with people who think doctors, lawyers, etc are overpaid.
If you think it's an overpaid easy job then why aren't you doing it?

Bankers with bonuses are overpaid though, that's a totally different scale of salary that bears no resemblance to life as most of us know it.

Society gets the schools society deserves. When you have a view that it's acceptable to call the educators of your children "trained chimpanzees", or "idiots", or "lazy" or any of the other insults hurled about on this thread - what message is that sending to your kids about listening in school? What message is that sending about complying with requests?

The first day of my PGCE we were told a number of things - that we'd get nits, worms and every bug known to man, and that everyone in the world is an expert on teaching and telling you how to do your job because everyone went to school once.

As for this whole perception we go into teaching because we're thick and not good at anything - I have a string of A grades at GCSE and A level, a first class degree from one of the top universities in the country and I went into it because it was the one thing that "clicked" with me as something I got a genuine buzz out of doing. Not because I was a thicko or anything like that - I turned down an office job working in regeneration to take my course. However, I opted out of the full-time game a few years ago, because of parents like the OP and me deciding that I was bloody well sick of putting my health and wellbeing and family life on the line, sick of being insulted and assaulted, of putting myself in the firing line of some children who really needed help and were being failed by all the systems going in order to protect the other members of the class - for parents like the OP who just would hate me whatever the fuck I did. So because of attitudes like that - teaching lost someone very capable (and those who know me will vouch that I lack confidence in my own abilities with anything - but the one thing I AM confident on, and backed up by ofsted, is that I'm an excellent teacher who made lessons so fun I couldn't get the damned inspector away from joining in with the science!) who did give a fuck, and I went off onto supply where I could walk away from the whining, the teacher-bashing, the ridiculousness at the end of the day. I'm posting in the middle of the day because, well, I can - I chose not to work today - that's the path I chose.

Like I say - the pensions thing doesn't affect me, and since the full-timers stood and watched their supply counterparts be hurt and laughed at our misfortune - I've got minimal sympathy, but the fact we're in for more than the usual summer of teacher bashing is really going to get boring fast.

Someone go start a breastfeeding dogs with kids party invitations thread.

Just as well you are not a teacher mdowdall, you would get a huge shock and I also don't think you would make a good one with that attitude.

I love teaching, but I opted out of full time years ago and have now opted out altogether -I wanted a work life balance. Teaching doesn't give you it. Love the DCs-love the classroom-hate the rest.

It's quite why people HATE teachers so much that I will never ever understand. I can understand resentment that they get your kids during the day while you have to go to work, I can understand resentment over July and August (it ain't actually that awesome - everywhere's packed, you run into kids you teach all over the place and you pay an arm and a leg for a holiday - plus you quite often get situations where your spouse isn't allowed holiday from work while you're off because parents get priority)... but the utter utter rabid hate for the people who are working to get your kids to be the best they can be? I will never understand that.

Amongst your other ignorant claims, OP, did you actually claim that teaching requires little in the way of brain power? Why? I'd love to know what amazing job you do. No doubt it requires great brain power .

the 'bankrupt country' thing is bollocks, mrdowdall. As is the idea that public sector workers have a 'cushy' existence. Sheer Daily Fail bollocks.

you've clearly never done a public sector job, let alone a skilled one. So ddon't make idiotic claims about them and the people who do them.

Did you read my previous posts? I gave up a pretty much guaranteed 6 figure salary to work in the public sector, because I believe in education not pointless profit.

Cushy eh? Believe you me, if I'd stayed in the banks effing around with the country's money and getting bailed out by the government, I'd be having a far cushier existence now and doing a much easier job to boot.

emptyshell, resentment against teachers is I think partly personal and I think it's often people who've failed at school, or just can't bear anyone with any 'authority'. Also the Daily Fail et al have relentlessly stirred up public-sector hate as they consistently spew out the kind of rubbish recycled word for word by the likes of mrdowdall on this thread.

Go ahead and wreck education mrdowdall....you'll find the country makes rather less money for the future generations you apparently care about so much as a result.

allegrageller - two things. First, the bankrupt country thing isn?t bollocks. Do you think the Coalition is making these cuts just to see how unpopular it can make itself with the electorate? Do you think there is loads of money really but that Cameron and co have thought: "Ah, let's see if we can get ourselves voted out after one term by deliberately alienating half the country." Get real. Labour left a huge hole in the public finances - the figures are there in black and white on the National Office for Statistics website.
Secondly, people who are in positions of turning down 6 figure salaries don?t boast about it on internet forums. What a frankly embarrassing attempt to 'big up' one's self.

Agreed with OP initially, but then she lost me on "you can teach a monkey to teach"....

', people who are in positions of turning down 6 figure salaries don?t boast about it on internet forums. What a frankly embarrassing attempt to 'big up' one's self.
'

Why would that be true? Don;t we all have different sets of values after all?

I turned down an RG Uni for a new one, because it was better for my family. Others prioritise other things- faith, voluntary work and the drains it has on their time, a caring role.

That doesn't make them better people, it does mean they exist.

emptyshell - good post.
Teaching - hardest job I have ever done and whilst I think there is a lot wrong with the system I admire the majority of the people who do it becuase I know it is not a cushy number

Why can't Teachers strike!!! I am sick and tired of public sector workers being slammed for striking

At the end of the day WE ALL HAVE THE SAME EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS REGARDLESS OF WHAT SECTOR WE WORK. Your contract of employment is something which is covered by the Employment Rights Act 1996, and if that's what you signed up to why should you be forced to accept worse terms and conditions? Would you accept worse t and c's I wonder????

You are a moron for creating this. Btw I work in the private sector, which is my choice. If you think that public sector is so great why do you work in it?

And breathe

DH is a teacher. Does work long hours. Thinks he gets a great deal though overall.

I work in the private sector and in 2009 65% of my team got fired, with most taking around 8 months to find other jobs. So far his school hasn't shed any staff.

This is just one example. I would be interested to hear if some schools did lose people. We have a wide network of teacher friends and I haven't heard about any redundancies.

If I were a teacher and striking about anything it would be over OFSTED related matters and their goal post changing which has made life ridiculous for schools.

Harriet - I know of schools where there have been redundancies...

Interestig. Tell me more.

Are there figures anywhere I wonder? Would be keen to look at this.

My best mate is a teacher at a 6th form college. Lots at his place have been offered - and taken - voluntary redundancy. Departments merging, that kind of thing.

no bigging up of self necessary, mrdowdall. That you think it is bragging to say you could have earned a lot more, says everything about you and not me.

I don't think having a six figure salary is a good thing at all. Especially for shuffling paper at a desk all day. That's why I went to work in a university for considerably less.