Are there really people out there who feel this way about teachers?

[lossoflibido]

"Pre-kids, you would look at a teacher and think - low pay, low prestige, low aspirations. Now those same teachers have the upper hand - long paid holidays, final salary pension and a big say in your beloved child's future."

It's from timesonline.typepad.com/alphamummy/

can i say i never thought of a teacher having low prestige and low aspirations.

i don't think they nearly get paid enough, i certainly wouldnt teach even if they offered me substantially more.

i am not sure what upper hand refers to

but i do envy them long paid holidays ( i know i know, your not paid, but you are really c'mon now) i have a pension so no envy there. they do have a bog say in a kids future

you can get good ones and shit ones - just like any other profession

yep, I've had many friends who have been sniffy about dh's profession - all assumed he had a crappy education, had no ambition.

oops 'big' not bog, obviously my spelling teachers were not v. impressed

really! i think teachers are to be admired.

the holidays thing is driving me nuts this week though - he had 10 days off over Christmas after working 70 hour weeks last term and he marked 170 papers which had to be done by first day back and 200 exercise books - it took him 5 complete days (8 hours a day).

We used to argue a little about it - he would point out he had holidays until I worked out properly after logging his actual hours for an academic year (without telling him) that he averaged 46 hours a week, every week (no holidays) over the whole of last year- so he shut up about holidays

Dh is a teacher and there is no way I could do his job, and no way I would for the money he gets paid. We once worked out, if he got paid hourly and we included planning, marking, after school clubs etc, it would have been less than £5 an hour.

Both of my parents were teachers, so I never thought the lows.

I used to have an automatic respect for teachers; now that I have children that has gone. But some teachers have been such a huge force for good in my children's life (especially my son's) that I would never be able to put my gratitude into words.

So, I suppose, I don't have an opinion on teachers as a group anymore, as there is too much diversity.

I thought having a degree was quite good, surely no graduate profession is low aspiration? She isn't living in the real world.

i used to think having a degree was the dogs bits, it seems to be worth moist poop.

i relegated my picture to the upstairs landing where only i admire it

It's not the best paid graduate job, and the promotion prospects aren't the best either. It all depends on where you are coming from though, doesn't it. If you think merchant banker, consultant, barrister are the sorts of jobs to go for, then teaching might appear a bit of a poor choice (and it's the money really isn't it). The pension thing is a big change. Lots of careers had fantastic pensions, and many of them have gone, so private sector bods now envy the public sector (esp as their taxes go to pay for them). Holidays might only be an issue when you have children, if you were a thrusting young things before, bent on getting tot he big bucks. But I think it does come a surprise to many parents to find just how much power teachers have over their lives. Schools it seems to me are very old fashioned when it comes to consultation and participation. They are still set up in a very paternal way IMO, and that can rub very badly, especially if you are used to being in control of most aspects of your lives.

When I was at music college the last thing most of us wanted to do was become a teacher. Once I got married and had ds I absolutely wanted to be one.

Since ds started school I have looked at alternatives, but once I factor in losing 8 weeks holiday and not being able to choose my own hours (I know this would not apply to most teachers) it simply does not stack up financially.

upper hand? do you have any idea how hard it is to teach? especially teach 30 students at once? teaching is not something every one and anyone can do.. try it yourself try to explain a concept to a child and when they don't understand for the 100th time try a different way and then a different way even more thats what teachers have to deal with these days. These days the kids are not easy to deal with either. I would not dream of talking back to my teacher or making fun of them but hey.. that's an everyday thing now. Try to teach when half of the class is talking over you. Yes quite frustrating.

No I am not a teacher if you are wondering. I would never consider it it's not worth the grey hairs, long hours and plenty of disrespect from the students and parents.

That quote comes from somebody who clearly has a big chip on their shoulders about teachers? Envy maybe?

What?

It never crossed my mind to think of them in that way. Someone has issues

I used to look at a teacher and think 'WHY do you enjoy torturing children?!!' (bad school experience) but not that they had low aspirations or anything. just short memories.

And I don't perceive them all that way now. some of them seem fairly human, in a way.

I don't even think they've got low pay. Dh needed 20 years in a highly skilled job with managerial responsibilities, requiring a BA or PhD and extensive ongoing training, to achieve the starting salary of a new teacher.

Teaching is not the best paid graduate job- but it's not exactly the worst one either.

You could not pay me enough money to teach, especially at secondary level.

But teachers are certainly not underpaid.

And whether they work for 70 hours a week during term time or not, the fact remains that they do get 12 weeks holiday a year, something which others who work similar hours do not.

It is fairly damning isn't it! I would hope that there are not that many people who have that sort of view of teachers.

However, once I read the article in full, I took it more to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the way that once your kids are at school you suddenly feel as though you are back in the classroom yourself and start calling other adults "Mrs so-and-so" in a slightly sycophantic way (I have head myself do it!). There is a definite power pecking order teachers-pupils-parents and it can come as a shock . And then of course your DC bombard you with "Mrs so-and-so knows everything"!

A lot of my friends are teachers (all friends from uni) and I have always been a bit jealous of them because they seemed to love their jobs.

The pecking-order can come as a shock. Particularly when dealing with a subject where you are far better qualified than the teacher, yet the assumption is that because you're Mum you must be completely ignorant.

I always thought public sector workers were underpaid and undervalued; they still are imo. Long holidays ha ha ha ha ha.

Newspapers are the spawn of the devil [wanders off shaking head and making crosses with fingers while going cross-eyed]

I do think the pay puts a lot of young people off.
I know when I was deciding on a career my Mother said teaching would be great and I thought, buggar that.

Ah yes..the "I could do that, anyone could teach" argument. So many journalists seem to think that because they sat in a classroom and have seen teachers working that they could do it.

I have a friend who always used to bang on about performance related pay for teachers. Then he got made redundant from his IT job just as one of the lecturers I worked with in the IT dept at a FE college died of cancer. We were desparate for a short term replacement. I mentioned it to him and he came in for 6 weeks. Most of the actual teaching had been done by then, it was assignment preparation mainly. Now he's a bloke who is very sharp, both intellectually and verbally. He knows his subject and has a commanding presence. His lessons were prepared for him and he was given a lot of support. He lasted two weeks.

The experience traumatised him so much that 5 years later he still talks of it with a shudder in his voice. I've noticed a new found respect for me and no more talk of performance related pay. It's really not as easy as it looks.

This is interesting as I am now on the outside of teaching looking in. I taught secondary for 5 years then had to move abroad to be with dh, and find dealing with some of my ds's teachers a nightmare.

Some treat me as a human being and can talk reasonably to me. Some talk down to me when I ask a question about differentiation or lack of in their lessons, and tell me to let the professionals worry about that! I am one!

Some try to obfuscate issues and feed you the standard bullshit and wince when you wade in with a technical question and they realise you do know what you are talking about.

I sometimes want to go in with PGCE tattooed across my face!

I am using the time away from teaching to get an MA, and will decide if I want to teach again when I get back to UK. Not sure that I will though. I can sleep all night now without waking up at 0500 and thinking oh shit I haven't done my planning...and I am much nicer to be around or so dh and ds tell me.

Good luck to all of you still hanging in there. I miss it, but I don't as well. There is life outside!

I am aware that I don't get a typical parent experience from ds's school/teachers because I am one of the teaching staff too.

One of the reasons that I like teaching as opposed to my previous job is that I am treated as an expert in my subject and respected.