UK Teachers are amongst the best paid and have the fewest hours in the classroom

[Arisbottle]

The story is not quite as simple as the headline would suggest but food for thought.

article from Daily Mail

I don't, however, think it is part of the required definition of a vocation that it should mean as much to others as it does to you.

I would be interested to meet a pilot who applied for the job because he or she thought it paid well, but who actually hated flying aeroplanes and going to different places. It's not exactly a job that you accidentally fall into, because you couldn't think of anything better to do.

soverylucky, without wanting to out myself, I work in learning technologies in a university. I'm on a much higher grade and pay scale then when I was a teacher, but the fact that I do have teaching experience is a major advantage.

I get to support academics in improving their own teaching and play with some seriously sexy tech kit at the same time.

The teachers at my DD's (French school) arrive at 8.55 am, with the DC, and leave at 16.35, just after they have handed the DC back to parents (unless the teacher is doing tutoring after school - cash-in-hand).

Marking gets done during school hours - nothing is marked from one day to the next.

rabbitstew

It would be interesting to have a philosophical thread about 'what is a vocation'.

I've no doubt that no one becomes a pilot if they hate flying. But if you follow your logic, you imply that anyone who enjoys, or has a passion for what they do for a living is following a vocation. That can't be right.
Someone might enjoy being a train driver, an astronaut, an HGV driver, or a road sweeper- each to their own!- but none of those would be a 'vocation'.

The accepted usage of vocation is a job where often there is some intrinsic good involved for mankind, or at least the intention of that, and where the financial rewards are often not commensurate with the effort entailed. That's not the same as saying anyone who enjoys their job ( which may entail a great deal of selection by aptitude or qualifications) has a vocation.

I have read repeatedly that what matters and improves learning when marking work is for DC to be given very rapid, precise feedback. Which is why I like the system whereby DC get their early morning work, which is a sort of test like a dictation or some grammar exercises or maths (in what is called the "cahier du jour") marked mid-day and given back in the afternoon.

This is yet another attempt by this government to put out tenuous statistics as facts. By the time they've been found out as lies, the lie has taken hold. This Tory party is doing wonders for voter confidence in politicians

And, indeed, none of the homework that DD is set requires a lot of marking - it is mostly consolidation or memorisation.

misbopeep - vocation may once only have applied to a religious calling or a sense of doing good for mankind, but it doesn't any more - there are too many opposing views as to what is and isn't for the intrinsic good of mankind these days and as to whether God exists and can actually therefore call you to do anything... It can mean no more, no less than a strong feeling of fitness for a particular career or occupation. It may well also in most peoples' minds require you to have a high degree of dedication to it, regardless of the level of pay. All this applies to many pilots, and train drivers and astronauts, hospital cleaners, even bankers and all sorts of other people. You could argue, anyway, that a hospital cleaner or road sweeper can have a vocation, because clean hospitals and un-rat infested streets are for the good of mankind in more than just their own minds. We all think these things are good.

Teaching is not a vocation for everyone who enters into it. For some people, it is just a job. Some people may say that being a vicar or priest is not for the intrinsic good of mankind, they might even say what they do is bad for mankind - that doesn't stop a vicar thinking he has a vocation...

Anyway, "vocation" these days can simply mean, "excuse not to pay someone a living wage."

rabbit- I don't know what you mean by 'these days'. I'm living in the same century as you!

I am required to be very precise with language with my work - and I've never been aware of a 'new' definition of 'vocation'- so not quite sure where you get yours from- which is at odds with dictionary definitions as well as common usage.

I gave the vicar as one example only. I am fully aware that not everyone believes in God (I don't) and that a vocation is not linked to religion.

I also agree that not all teachers regard teaching as a vocation. But I still hold out on the notion that a vocation as being a type of employment that has some intrinsic value which benefits others ( leaving out God as that was not what I was saying) .

I just cannot accept that the majority of teachers have no sense of vocation if they stick at teaching until retirement age, when they are also faced with- by and large- poor working conditions and slightly higher than average pay.

But it would seem that not many teachers these days do stick at teaching until retirement age. My dictionary (Oxford English Reference Dictionary) makes no reference to a vocation requiring an element of intrinsic good to qualify as such. It defines vocation as follows: "1. a strong feeling of fitness for a particular career or occupation (in religious contexts regarded as a divine call); 2a. a person's employment, esp regarded as requiring dedication; b. a trade or profession."

Not that Wikipedia is the best source of accurate information, but at the end of its description of vocation, it says, "Since the establishment of Vocational Guidance in 1908 by the engineer Frank Parsons, the use of the term ?vocation? has evolved, with emphasis shifting to an individual's development of talents and abilities in the choice and enjoyment of a career. This semantic expansion has meant some diminishment of reference to the term's religious meanings in everyday usage." which would imply that you are more than a century out with your definition!

rabbit

Why don't you read my posts more carefully instead of posting stuff from search engines and dictionaries?

I must have said at least twice, if not more, that the religious reference was only one meaning, and that there were plenty of other examples of a vocation, but you choose to ignore those parts of my posts. I don't see why you feel the need to be so persistent and a bit personal really!

here, Rabbit-

I gave the vicar as one example only. I am fully aware that not everyone believes in God (I don't) and that a vocation is not linked to religion.

I think lots of people no longer stick to one career all of their lives and that this may be even more the case when we are expected to work for longer. I could potentially have taught for 40 years, I can't ever see myself wanting to do the same thing for 40 years.

To be fair, missbopeep, you are the one who picked up on my view that being an airline pilot is not a vocation, which was a "bit personal" really. Also, if you read my posts carefully, you would see I do not think you believe that a vocation has to mean a religious calling. However, I do think that the idea that a vocation has to be for the intrinsic good of mankind stems from the original religious meaning and, with the severing of that tie also came the severing of the "intrinsic good to mankind" tie, in my view (and my dictionary's... and it was you who raised the subject of dictionary definitions, also, so don't go accusing me of posting stuff up from them as though it's out of the blue!...).

Sorry, on my view that being an airline pilot IS a vocation for some people....

But it would seem that not many teachers these days do stick at teaching until retirement age.

Indeed - 50% leave within 5 years, citing workload as the main reason.

And wasateacher is clearly confusing post-threshold with ASTs.

Bonsoir,

I too give back all 'test' marking within the day - or even the lesson - it is set in, believing (as you do) in the value of instant feedback.

What I mark after school hours is e.g. longer writing, independent maths work done in the lesson (as part of differentiation, I will usually be working with a group of children throughout the lesson, as a 'guided' group, so mark the work from 'independent' groups after the lesson), extended written or other work done in history, geography, science etc. With 3 lessons per morning and 2 per afternoon, marking every lesson's work at lunchtime is not realistic - or encourages the setting of 'easy to tick' type exercises that don't maximise learning.

The teachers in DD's school are lucky in that lunchtime last for one-and-a-half hours, and they also get a one-and-a-half hour break during the day when there are English lessons. Although they have to have meetings, do supply, meet parents in that time, there is also plenty of marking time.

I'm lucky to have time to visit the loo during school hours .. fortunately I don't have time to drink anything