I don’t care much about money really, I’m very lucky in that regard , my wife has a great job and we own our house.
So that’s not something I need to worry about, you can’t buy contentedness, I can walk to work. Things would be very different if my wage was feeding the family and paying a mortgage, I couldn’t afford to remain a teacher,
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It’s nice to see a fella at peace with himself. Good on you.
That’ll drive lads spare 
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Surely you could pal, How do your fellow teachers manage it?
You’re living in Limerick and you couldnt afford to feed your family on a teachers salary,
I find that hard to believe.
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But you incorporated far more risk when you tiled a kitchen.
Presumably you were self employed if you earned more tiling a kitchen in day that you would in a week as a teacher? So if you had an injury and accident you lost your money, you were exposed to economic risks, worked longer hours, had to pay or do you tax affairs yourself, pay for insurance, run the risk of some gangster failing to pay you for work done, no holiday or paid annual leave etc, etc, etc.
Everyone knows a few very successful people in the building construction game but they generally all work like dogs and I’m sure we all know some very skilled tradesmen who worked like dogs and ended up getting fucked over due to an accident that put them out of work, a guy who never paid them, issues out of their control that went wrong with a few jobs etc.
I certainly wouldn’t envy any self employed tradesman and the pressures and risks that the jobs carries.
A weekly salary for a teacher 10 years in the game is about 900 a week. So if you stuck at the tiling you could be clearing 4.5k a week after incurring all your costs?
I think you’re talking out of your hole there.
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From my limited experience teaching can be a a breeze or it can be one of the toughest jobs you could ask for. There’s just no comparison between imparting knowledge in a gentile girls convent grammar in terenure and fighting your corner in a boys community college in iballymun. And then you’ve massive differences across subjects. Half a dozen pupils in a leaving drama/art/music course versus 25 lunatics in junior maths or English…where the marking alone should add an hour or three to your day. I’d say most of you can remember teachers who were just worn out by 55.
Three months in the summer is pushing it but the holidays are well deserved for most…and they’re actually unpaid, it’s just that the salary is paid out over the 12 months.
It needs to be an attractive profession if it’s going to attract the best, if anything it should be incentivised more. When I hold the joint role of minister for discos and education I’ll shorten the holidays but make non academic and life experience 50% of the curriculum. The way the system is set up youngsters are learning nothing given the time and money invested. None of you can speak french, meet @Tierneevin1979’s expectations of basic mathematical literacy and despite tens of thousands been spent on your geography lessons, most of you believe in global warming.
I’d invest the bejaysus out of underachieving schools in places like southall, ballymun and tyrone. Halve the class sizes, incentivise teachers to work there, reward attendance and achievement. It’ll be a game changer so it will.
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Have you any kids?
Just one, pal.
10 year old son.
I’m not having a go at @backinatracksuit , I just find it hard to believe teachers are that badly paid.
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There’s not a hope I could pay a mortgage, support a wife and 4 kids with all the associated expenses on my salary, it could be done but it’d be a miserable existence, I have the skills to earn far more money
That’s having your cake and eating it.
If the holidays are unpaid leave then you have to gross the pay up 4/3 for their paid work and also reflect the less hours in the week.
You think I earn 900 a week 
You must be on 45k minimum? How long have you been teaching?
Do you think teachers are exempt from tax?
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That’s fair enough, the way society is now unfortunately both parents have to work really.
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Just fuck off now with the personal question when all you want to do is twist whatever information I give you to suit your ‘argument’
You’re just an angry prick with a bee in your bonnet about the teaching profession, you know absolutely fyck all about it,
And you’ve never once suppiied any personal information about your own employment as comparison, all I know is that you have time to type away in your phone all day
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It’s cheaper for me if my missus doesnt work
I never get this argument of comparing teachers salaries by dividing it by 3 and multiplying by 4 to get the comparison. Teachers don’t get paid that way, their salary is their salary. Yes, some do other stuff to earn more money but not all, they’ve holidays to go on remember
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In fact you actually skip points 4 and 8 on the scale apparently. So if you’ve been teaching for 10 years you are earning €54k a year.
That’s unreal money for a part time job where you have complete job security and a good pensions plan with 1/4 or 1/3 of the year off.
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Depends on your circumstances - if you’ve young kids in creche etc
That could be true too.
I’m not sure what the policy in your school is but in a friend’s school they take turns sitting on school/parent/community committee or whatever it is… anyway for her turn there happened to be a big legal case that wrangled on for over a year and given the sensitive nature of it she had to remain in committee the following year, hundreds of unpaid hours. She was also aggressively harassed by a parent for the best part of a year who some reason wanted his daughter confirmed as slow or remedial as she wasn’t meeting his expectations… There was another case of having to work with child services… obviously this doesn’t happen all the time but there’s loads of stuff other than teaching and just supervising kids, as some maintain, that teachers have to contend with… Not to mind being a pillar of the community.
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