How many papers would a teacher have to correct during their week off? How many free classes do teachers have during a particular week? When you compare with any job teachers have it good. They have a short working day. They are extremely well paid for the actual hours they work. They get an obscene amount of holidays. Good luck to them but don’t come the poor mouth (new entrant teachers are excluded from this critique).
Doesent warrant an answer,but just to please you- I’m on about promoting our national games practically at school and club level through great sacrifice when it wasn’t cool to do so in the middle of s conflict, without any funding and little or no help from central council,some of these kids who got involved in hurling would otherwise have been on the streets of Derry rioting etc,easy for you to make cheap comments which incidentally are ridiculous
1 Like
I can only imagine. We had a horrible situation. We trained twice a week and it finished up around 19.30. I used do the training with another fella and we’d drive separately. There was one kid there who’s father never picked him up earlier than 20.00. We’d have to both stay there. Neither of us were qualified to deal with that shit. The kid ended up getting punished because it kept happening and the club told the father not to bring him anymore
2 Likes
I’m not sure Mike. I’d imagine most teachers teach a couple of examine subjects. If they’ve a class in 3rd/6th year in each that’d be about 90 papers. Some have it easier obviously and some have it tougher. English and languages are generally accepted as the worst corrections wise, I believe. But this week they get to sit in the bath smoking a joint with the Joe Malone’s going while correcting little Sylviah’s essay on modern feminism. How bad?
Was promoting the GAA and keeping kids off the streets exclusive to teachers?
you have a very myopic view on this. You’re only looking at the happy path.
Tell me could you deal with a child who’s Daddy was beating up on his Mammy and he came to you for guidance. Or tell me how you’d deal with a child who wasn’t getting a packed lunch because Mam and Dad were junkies, and he came to you for guidance. Or a child who was coming in with bruises. Or a thick child, who’s parents think he’s misunderstood or a prodigy. It’s a fucking nightmare of a job.
2 Likes
I can’t imagine a more mundane task than correcting 90 papers on your week off but do I think a teacher should be paid more to do it? The answer is no because correcting exam papers should be considered a basic requirement of the job.
I can explain much of this. A lot of this is historical and goes on how pay talks have been done in Ireland for years. In many jobs when it came down to the horsetrading over pay etc employers (particularly the government) refused certain monies as a bulk pay rise but structured them as other things. This served both sides well. The government got to give extra money without bulking up the full nominal wage per say and this also had an excellent side benefit of making pensions less expensive(calculated on basis of nominal basic pay. Unions got extra cash. Problems arose when the government went in to strip the wages and all sorts of ridiculous sounding benefits came to light.
So yes, supervision of yards etc sounds ridiculous but were separated for good reason, or so it seemed at the time. After school running of teams/ doing the school musical etc have always been unpaid extra curricular as far as I know.(Although some private schools use them as a way to bump teachers’ salaries I believe. )
Social workers deal with this too. Do they get 4 months to de-stress.
1 Like
In Derry at the time our club na magha consisted of 4/5 teachers,2 brothers I mentioned were Sean Mellon/ Pearse Mellon, Derry GAA through through,da on county board Tommy , hurling was dead without them,formed our club,and at the time were the only PPL coaching,/ managing/ playing in Derry city ( thriving now) being teachers they had the opportunity to introduce Gaelic games to kids who never saw hurling,and kids at school overlapped into the club scene,so a win win for all,they were educated/ respected and able to teach/ coach
2 Likes
I agree Mike. And they are not paid more to correct exams as far as I know. (school exams, not leaving cert). But it should also be recognised that this work does not take place in a magic time zone between 4pm and 4.01pm before the teacher gets into their beamer and fucks off to salsa lessons before hitting a different european capital on the lash every weekend.
5 Likes
it is a different profession.
what do you want teachers to do? work in a chain gang during their holidays, cleaning up roads?
1 Like
Can’t please some ppl
No, cessation of general poor mouthing and strike action threats will suffice.
the threats on action are for the pay gap you agree with though right?
almost everyone moans about their job. do you think teachers shouldn’t because they get a nice holiday.
It’s a very difficult profession. I would say it is a lot more difficult than yours and mine.
1 Like
the other complete fallacy is happening here too. All the teachers getting branded lazy and greedy when they look for more money. yet those looking for more money are the new teachers who many agree are getting a raw deal. But because the older greedy teachers on the way out are the ones who voted for it, they all get placed under the one bracket.
There are a cohort of older teachers, those who voted for their own needs and sold graduates and future teachers down the river, who fuck things up. They have become lazy and greedy, doing as little as possible but milking the last of their paid role before they get to retirement age. And of these a large number keep going after that age and keep picking up a handy wage and keeping onto a permanent position that would be more beneficial going to someone starting off and who actually wants to teach.
But yet when any of the younger more enthusiastic new breed who want to do well, they get the hours and wages and everything else thrown back into their face and they knew the conditions.
Another part on this, if wages are reduced, then its not going to be an attractive job. The requirements for it reduce and as a result, the quality of teachers will significantly reduce. People already slate the education system and quality of teachers, reduce their wages and watch the quality reduce even more. They are the ones education our future generations, making a fuck of the ones educating them is not a good idea.
3 Likes
hauld up… cicero’s on a tea break
Teaching (primary anyway) is completely different now also — Younger teachers are teaching in a completely different way to the old chalk and talk stock… it’s nearly a different job in lots of ways now.
No problem with new entrants being on a par with those who sold them down the river. I would fund the former’s increase with a cut to the latter, they deserve a pay cut for being such cunts.
My job isn’t difficult. While I could get a larger salary by moving I prefer the quiter life. Getting out on time is worth more to me than a pay increase.
Also, while no one is disputing that teachers’ actual holidays in the summer are a sweet deal, it is a very inflexible situation in terms of taking days off outside of those three months. I’ve known of teacher-other-halves of mates of mine not being able to attend a wedding of a close mate due to not being able to take time off for example and even struggling to take compassionate leave.