mph wrote:
merseybeatle wrote:
mph wrote:
thats peanuts compared to most teachers. at school for 7:30am, home about 17:00 to 18:00pm then marking work or preparing lessons til midnight. i know cos me wife does it nearly every day.
my school was closed to the kids but we had to go in. we had 22 nut members off. i'm in unison and i represent the teaching assistants and it looks like we're on strike next.
sorry mph, n i don't mean this personally or against your wife at all, but the whole "overworked teachers" thing is one of the best bluffs of all time. i work in a school as well, and to describe the life of a teacher the way you just did is so far into the realms of fantasy it's untrue.
utter bollocks. the wife is just having her 'tea' at 10:45pm after writing an inclusion policy for the stephen lawerence award for her school. what exactly do you do in your school then? we work in two tough inner city schools and i can assure you it's no picnic some days but i wouldn't change it for the world.
i find your comments bewildering but your entitled to your opinion. you're just wrong!
sorry mate, you're the one talking "bollocks". maybe you're the exception the rule, i don't know, but i'm sure the 12 weeks holiday a year make up for a few late nights.. which I find very hard to believe anyway. lets not forget the free periods in the middle of the working day either, if teachers got their finger out during them instead of sitting in the staff room chatting then maybe they wouldn't need to do as much work at night. i go out with a teacher and the concept of constant 'after hours marking' is nothing but an urban myth, something she admits herself, and she teaches biology through yr 7-11 and a level. yes, she does some, but the picture you paint of constant 18 hours days is laughable. Most teachers conveniently forget how they don't need to plan lessons from scratch year after year after year, because the syllabus changes are minimal. but we'll brush that under the carpet. My school, the teaching staff come in as close to 8:30 as possible and by 4 you can't see them for dust. Every teacher I've ever come into contact with, be it through work or socially, has had pretty much the same ride, so sorry if I don't suddenly change my mind.
I'm not really sure how you find my comments bewildering, most people say the same thing; the trouble with most teachers is they've been in education their entire lives, and it gets really old listening to them harp on about how tough life is out on the frontline; other so called "professional" jobs don't run for 37 weeks a year. an inner city school? ok, kids can be unruly now.. i'd be the first to admit that sometimes it'd be like working with one hand tide behind your back because of the lack of things you can do to punish kids now, but moan about long hours and 'rough' schools to the lads getting shot at in iraq for less money, or the police, nurses etc who all do a damn sight harder and more dangerous job, and longer shifts than teachers for less money, and they'll probably laugh in your face.. the benefits of teaching far outweigh the drawbacks. If teachers don't like it, they should get another job, simple. but lets face it, nobody in the private sector would pay them 22k starting salary a year for what they do, which, judging by the way year on year spelling, grammar, and basic maths standards are falling, is not much, not very well. that's not to say they shouldn't strike for more money though....