NUT - T'fuck Wiv' 'Em!

[Sam Slater]

[quote]Society IS going down the swanny though, Sam. Even politicians acknowledge this - though of course they all blame each other for it[/quote]

You answered for me here, Eric. Politicians will only usually say such things when it's advantageous to them. They know an admission sits well with the voters because if there one things we voters like and that's somebody like an MP backing up their beliefs. Of course, it's a great way to score points over a political adversary.

[quote]you're also missing an important point, namely that with age come both wisdom and experience.[/quote]

And also a romanticised idea of the past. Do you think Dibble's generation is the only generation that ever felt like him? Like I said: This has been happening for millenia and if half of it was true, we wouldn't be discussing it right now, over things like the internet.

[quote]When you hit 40, you're in a position to make comparisons between what things are like now and what they were like 20 or 30 years ago because you can actually remember it with a fair degree of clarity.[/quote]

I don't agree. I'm only 32 and only need to think back 20 years to remember climbing 60ft trees in 50mph winds. I remember with total clarity that I felt absolutely NO DANGER in my actions. Just because I remember something with clarity, doesn't mean that that memory was in any way true. In reality I just remembered my perception and comparing it to my present perception.

Which brings me smoothly along to my next point:

As a youth, anybody's perception of danger is ignored, laughed at, or glossed over with boisterous, spunk-filled ideas of freedom with quite a large dash of confidence. Who cared that their Gran warned them about going 'downtown' at the weekends? It was laughable that you'd come to harm. Silly Granny!!! Of course, as you age, you perceive things differently. Because you see the dangers -yet have no memory of those dangers as a youth because of a different perception- things always look worse when compared to your past. It's a well known phenomena and isn't solely a UK problem. You only have to look at Iran to see how a country goes when stupid ideas of a better past are brought into reality. Iran is gripped with keeping things as they were, by old blokes blinded to the phenomena I've described here. (I know this isn't really a fair comparison with the UK, but it stands as a general, albeit exaggerated, point.)

In reality, things were always slightly worse/more dangerous than what you thought they were as a kid, and are slightly better/less dangerous than what you think they are as a middle-aged bloke.

Generally, your average 19 year old thinks you're just a moaning old cunt and generally, you'll think they're blind to the facts and a bit thick. When he gets to 40 he'll think you were right all along and that the kids are blind & thick - and they'll think he's a moaning old cunt......ad infinitum.

Lets see what happens over the next 20 years, eh? If we're both unable to type due to living in a mud hut, no electricity and cannibals at the door, I'll confess to the people I'm with that you & Dibble were right all along.

I'll hazard a guess that things will be pretty much the same.

[one eyed jack]

I'm not too knowledgable about this area but one thing I'll say:

Good teachers, like good lawyers and mechanics are hard to find I'm sure.

The right kind of teacher can be an inspiration to many students.

Why dont you lot educate me. How much is the average teacher on these days?

If its 40k average then I'll be inclined to agree with the naysayers. Anything under 30k is just outrageously wrong....Well, depending on where one is living in the UK that is.

[diplodocus]

generally teachers are on between 22 and around 35k for the top end of the pay scale

35k is a decent wage you may say, but bear in mind that is the top end of the scale ie a head of department and it may take you 15 years to reach that level, whereas other professional jobs could normally expect to earn much higher wages after so long and being successful

if you want to earn more you can but that usally means either teaching in a private school or moving into management ie head of year which a lot of teachers don't want to do as they no longer do much teaching which is not why they entered the profession

[one eyed jack]

I've just been informed that a teacher earns 20k per year for the first 6 years in Scotland and that this may well be lower in the South.

If that is the case then I am disgusted how teachers can be paid so poorly.

This may well be part of the reason why the UK is in a fast state of decline. If its such a shit paying job, who in their right mind would want to do it.

In some places you need danger money just to work there. i certainly wouldnt be trivialising the NUTs cause if this is indeed the case.

Its a travesty is what it is.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]If that is the case then I am disgusted how teachers can be paid so poorly.[/quote]

'T'fuck Wiv' 'Em!'

Say what?

[JonathanWilson]

Can't be arsed to read all this... however from my own personal experience of having my mum work as a teacher...

The addage of 9 till 3 is crap! My mum used to do her working day then do a further 3 or 4 hours marking and working out the next days teaching every day.

Weekends involved at least 3 hours, each, on sat and sunday sorting out stuff for the next week.

Yes there were some perks, such as "training/sick days" but with various adjustements these dont really exist any more and sadly the "training" days are as usefull as a chocolate house in the desert! A total waist of time as there is no training, just BS from on high from the covernment in psudo-bs "PC" shit; such as how to mark report cards so the poor darlings and parents cant be offended and sue the school.... things like wording reports "doing well and gaining understanding" instead of "has done much better and is learning how to get on with his peers" (which can be read as "was crap before, has finaly started to learn how not to beat the crap out of his class mates")

The problem is not the NUT, or teachers in general... it is, and has always been, the covernments who every time they get into power or a new "minister" gets a position they have to change everything and heven help any teacher should acutally word something that makes a kid seem "lacking" opening the school up for being sued thanks to the nu-labia's want to follow the way of the US.

Give it a couple of years more and every report card will be pre-defined and never an input of reality will be given.... just "teacher select from the following...." "A; kid is good, B; kid is good, C; kid is good" as it is saying a kid has improved is bad/not allowed as it says the kid was bad before... go figure....

Also what is actually wrong with the teachers wanting their pay to be better than the BrIF? Surely the whole point of life is to get progresivly better off? So if they want more than the Baserate InFlation then thats a good thing? They get to have more each year.

I understadn that parents of the children they teach may not get more than BrIF, but surely that is the problem... that under nu-labias policies that basically are thatcherisum its a case of "show me the money" just as long as that money doesnt come or cost the covernment anything.....

Its all very well any covernment saying "pay under BrIF" is good... but ultimatly it means that wages below BrIF means more poor people, even more so with the fact that BrIF is well below the real increase in basic cost of living... with bread going up 15p a loaf, meat going up 20p a pound, and elec/gas going up 25% how the hell can anyone say that BrIF is only 2.4%...... bull shit!

This year will be nu-labias "winter of discontent"

Sadly... I dont think the cuntservative party have a clue... and if they get into power they wont be able to do anything to stem the tide of global meltdown affecting the uk... infact if they get in they will be out within 4 years... labia will be in after and then cunts again.... by which time the econemy will have stableised and it doesnt really matter who is in then just as long as they dont try to fiddle with things as screw it all up... thats what nu-labia has done since thatcher... dont fix what in't broke! Now they actually need to do things due to the global market... they are screwed!

Jon Xx

[diplodocus]

it's interesting that everyone who has has direct experience of teaching all attest to what a hard job it is

you say you're mum worked well over the hours ppl harp on about, both my folks were teachers and as a kid I always recall them marking books until around 11pm most nights


one thing ppl havn't latched on to is the extreme stress the job brings, as both my folks were teachers a lot of their friends were too, and the number of them that died of heart attacks in their 40's is disproportionate to other professionions (including my old man, who peversely died whilst marking books)

peolpe who slag teaching have never experienced it

[Flat_Eric]

Sam - as usual, you argue your corner very articulately.

But I still say that if you seriously don't believe that the UK is going to the dogs, you really need to remove those rose-tinted specs and give 'em a good wipe!

The occasional slight statistical fluctuation notwithstanding, the past 10 years or so in the UK have seen drug use and drug-related crime rise to record levels, knife crime rise to record levels, street violence rise to record levels, teenage delinquency at record levels, teenage pregnancy at record levels, truancy at record levels, family breakdowns at record levels, the health service has become a post code lottery, the education system has been increasingly dumbed down and wrecked in the government's obsession with giving "prizes to all", that other government sacred cow of "multiculturalism" has (to a large extent) failed miserably, the country's economy is now largely propped up by unprecedented and unsustainable levels of personal debt (chickens now starting to come home to roost there), respect and manners have become alien concepts to a lot of folk (especially the younger generation), everyone seems obsessed by their "rights" (without being at all concerned with their responsibilities), a whole new industry based on greed has fuelled the burgeoning "compensation culture", with people being egged on by advertising to try and make a fast buck on often highly spurious grounds - and to top it all off, what used to be called the "working class" has now been superceded by a rapidly growing "underclass" forever trapped in a cycle of low pay (or poverty), high crime and living on sink estates that are more or less no-go areas for outsiders.

You say it's all about perception - well yes there may well be an element of that. And what I personally "perceive" every time I set foot in the UK shocks me every time I drive into town.

Because compared to your average large European city, Sheffield is a dirty, chav-infested shithole of a place - as indeed are most UK towns & cities of any size these days. It pains me to say it about my home town (which for all its many faults I still love), but that's what I see.

- Eric

[harmonyluvver]

One of the biggest problems is the education system itself. The NUT may support progressive techniques but they dont implement them. Yes if you count kids all having a calculator and being incapable of mental arithmetic and every classroom using computers more they are progressive. Buuuut whether you use powerpoint to show information on the industrial revolution or you write it on the board it is still a useless, dry and ultimately pointless few hours, unless you want to become a curator at the museum of the industrial revolution. And no changing maths to numeracy whilst teaching the same things doesnt count either. English - still reading the same books and being expected to write what you are told to write rather than have your own ideas. I still don't think I have ever used my knowledge of whether Macbeth was a victim in my day to day life.
The first 10 years of school education are an absolute waste of time. it is simply memorise a few facts a bit of basic history and science learn to read and write. It does not focus on the strengths and weaknesses of pupils kids would be far better served being taught how to learn and being given a bit of self belief along with how to get by with reading writing and useful number skills. Prepare kids for real life dont just pour useless information into them.
Some kids will never have a talent for academic subjects, why force them to study it? They get frustrated and their self esteem shrivels and they either drop out or become problem students. Equally some kids will never be any good at woodwork/metalwork or more physical activities. What can you expect from a system that prided itself on the 3 R's, well one out of three isnt bad. There are plenty of kids that become pissed off with the whole education thing because they get that Jaded cant be bothered teacher who would be better served being born in the era of slate and chalk. Dyslexic kids are still made to feel stupid by insensitve teachers and there are still dyslexic kids not being diagnosed until their mid teens. only 15 years ago a teacher made my brother stand on a chair in front of the class whilst he called him stupid. Some kids are never given a chance, being branded bad eggs from nursery. The nursery I went to, 25 years ago, is still being run by the same woman who is still teaching in exactly the same way.
The kids that are going to the schools have parents that are still at school themselves in a lot of cases. Where are these kids supposed to learn how to behave when their parents havent yet learned. Who decides what should be taught in schools? Teachers...no. Education specialists....no politicians are the ones who ultimately decide.
You want your kids to have the best education send them to private school. Why havent the techniques and practises of private schools been adopted by the non private schools. We are being overcrowded and overpopulated which is obviously affecting class size as well as many other areas of society. Either build more schools and employ more teachers or start restricting the amount of kids people have. Which would solve many of the problems we currently have.
Teachers do an important job and largely it is a thankless task and there are good teachers out there who deserve a good wage. They are outnumbered by the "doing it for the money" and the "cant be arsed any more" teachers. There really need to be many sweeping reforms to the education system which would take a long time to implement but long term they would be better. It is a shame that quick fixes are opted for. Instead of looking at ways to cut class size they draft in teaching assistants (someones mum) that simply dont have enough training or the sense to keep their mouths shut when dealing with something they arent sure about yes the class size thing is more a government problem but the teaching assistants are the responsibility of the schools. instead of dealing with why a kid is acting up and then adjusting their learning programme they still send them outside and scream and shout or stand them in the corner. Teacher assessment should be a far more regular occurrence. You have to pass some very vigorous checks to become a teacher surely you should have to continue being checked. These are our children and our childrens future in their hands after all.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]The first 10 years of school education are an absolute waste of time.[/quote]

How on earth did you write your epistle above, then? !laugh!