Teacher bashing!!

[ClemFandango]

6 hours ago, sierra 11 said:

I had great respect for Teachers, especially my class Teacher. He was the finest shot with a wooden backed blackboard rubber or a piece of chalk in the whole school. I later found out that just a decade before he had been a F/Sgt  rear gunner in Lancasters...so he knew about lead and smooth tracking. After marking one of my Maths Equations papers he told me I had the IQ of a small Water Melon..He was a fine judge of character too..   

oof that's harsh! Not even a honeydew?

[bruno22rf]

Teachers at the school where I worked did not work 5 days a week with children. Teaching assistants did the majority of work day to day while the actual Teachers took one day every week to plan the following weeks lessons - this entailed them huddling in a room that we had to decorate in "relaxing " colours and ordering personal items from the internet and constantly chatting about their holidays.

[Scully]

9 hours ago, markm said:

My response is in 2 parts. 

1. Great pension? I work on 40/80th average Salary deal. Significantly different to what I signed up 22 years ago. If I don’t do the 40 years I suffer massively.....

Imagine trying to be a PE teacher at 67 (qualified at 23 years old) and trying to keep up on the sports field with 15 / 16 year olds playing football for 5 hours a day x 5 days a week. REALLY?

 

2.  I love my job (to sum it up, it’s a practical based subject). I’ve worked with scum and stars, many have gone on to be famous* and others are in jail for murder.

 

It’s shorter hours than many jobs, but much longer in many ways. 

 

* I taught Cheryl tweedy / Cole / versainy (spelling) 

Yes, a great pension, according to those I know. 

It wont just be you working until you’re 67; change of job perhaps? 

[team tractor]

I’ve nothing against teachers and I couldn’t teach kids. Maybe primary school I could. 

I’m only annoyed about the snow bit.

im always clocking up 50-80 hours a week and my hands paid the price. If I was employed I’d get £8-15000 for this but I’ll be in tomorrow after my operation. I need the money .

my mate moans about £38000 a year .  Maths teacher. Around here in shops and factories it’s £8 per hour . 

[markm]

4 hours ago, Scully said:

Yes, a great pension, according to those I know. 

It wont just be you working until you’re 67; change of job perhaps? 

Why should teachers change job after say 30 years? They have paid into the pot for a pension that is not transferable. 

Not sure what’s ‘according’ about it. I simply stated what it is. It’s ok, not great. Many private and public sectors have a much better deal. 

[CaptainBeaky]

4 hours ago, team tractor said:

My mate moans about £38000 a year .  Maths teacher. Around here in shops and factories it’s £8 per hour . 

Working in shops and factories doesn't require you to do a 4-year training course, racking up a debt of around £60k on current figures...

[team tractor]

5 minutes ago, CaptainBeaky said:

Working in shops and factories doesn't require you to do a 4-year training course, racking up a debt of around £60k on current figures...

Of course it does . I spent 3 years training on £45 a week .

to be a manager in a shop people regularly need to be qualified . 

Ive spent 6 years in colleges but I had to pay upfront with no assistance.

my teacher friends only get taxed to repay it.

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by team tractor

[Scully]

5 minutes ago, markm said:

Why should teachers change job after say 30 years? They have paid into the pot for a pension that is not transferable. 

Not sure what’s ‘according’ about it. I simply stated what it is. It’s ok, not great. Many private and public sectors have a much better deal. 

I’m not saying they should; it’s an option. Some certainly have changed jobs. 

I can only go in what I’ve been told; according to the retired teachers I know it’s a ‘great’ pension. 

[Dougy]

The job would be far easier if they would start.

Pupil bashing

Not 

Teacher bashing. 

[markm]

2 hours ago, Scully said:

I’m not saying they should; it’s an option. Some certainly have changed jobs. 

I can only go in what I’ve been told; according to the retired teachers I know it’s a ‘great’ pension. 

Actually you’re right. Approx 15 years ago it was absolutely golden......

I know some past retirees who live an ace life, most of these however didn’t have children so weren’t robbed for every single penny. 

2 hours ago, team tractor said:

Of course it does . I spent 3 years training on £45 a week .

to be a manager in a shop people regularly need to be qualified . 

Ive spent 6 years in colleges but I had to pay upfront with no assistance.

my teacher friends only get taxed to repay it.

 

Supermarket managers don’t earn £8 an hour. 

Many, but of course not all retail staff (on the shop floor) who have degrees, are in ‘wishy washy’ subjects, so can’t get employment. 

As an example - we only need so many  artists and interior designers. 

Granted there will be skilled engineers etc in the same situation, but there for different reasons. 

[CaptainBeaky]

2 hours ago, team tractor said:

I've spent 6 years in colleges but I had to pay upfront with no assistance.

my teacher friends only get taxed to repay it.

 

Nope - tuition fees of £9k a year, maintenance loan of £6-8k per year, without earning £45 a week in the meantime, and you start paying that £60k (plus interest) back as soon as your salary goes over £22k, for the next 30 years.

Edit: a small saving grace is that the loan payments come out before tax. 

If I had to make the choice again now, I would think twice about doing a degree.

Edited March 15, 2018 by CaptainBeaky

[Blackpowder]

16 hours ago, markm said:

My response is in 2 parts. 

1. Great pension? I work on 40/80th average Salary deal. Significantly different to what I signed up 22 years ago. If I don’t do the 40 years I suffer massively.....

Imagine trying to be a PE teacher at 67 (qualified at 23 years old) and trying to keep up on the sports field with 15 / 16 year olds playing football for 5 hours a day x 5 days a week. REALLY?

 

 

Nothing to do with the OP actually but markm's post took me back to the mid-50s and the small school where I was pupil then.  There was a combined teaching post in Art, History and PT which stood for physical training.  The incumbent in this for my last two years as pupil was a bit advanced in years and would never have worn a track suit in his life.  He took PT in his 3 piece blue serge tweed suit and simply picked out a mug from the class and talked him through the various exercises which the rest of the class imitated.  Great guy just the same, and could really dish out the belt when he discovered his whole class in the outside toilets having a crafty smoke when they should have been leaping around the playground.

 

Blackpowder

[Wb123]

Teaching can be a very attractive career if the alternatives for the individual are worse. I wouldnt touch retraining as a teacher with with a bargepole but at the moment I can get more appealing work. If the bottom fell out of my industry I would be tempted by teaching.

 

At home finding an art teacher is no problem, but a maths or physics teacher with a decent degree from a decent uni is next to impossible without putting up a lot of cash as these people have much more appealing lines or work open to them. A local private school who market themselves as having each teacher having a good degree in their field ended up offering £45k, free housing, and fees paid for two kids and still the job took three years to fill (no need for a pgce as private, just need a 2.1 or 1st from a university that will be prestigious enough for the customers, and a vauge ability to teach). 

 

My sister currently works as a teacher in the private sector and enjoys it very much, but says there is no way in hell she would touch state school teaching even if she was exempted from having to go back and do a pgce. The pay and working conditions are much worse and only partially compensated for by the better pension.

[Aled]

Quite interesting spread of replies here. My wife is a primary school teacher, and has been in front of a class for over 20 years in her own words "she enjoys teaching, doesn't mind the marking but hates the bureaucracy"  which seems to be increasing every year.

Cheers

Aled

[old man]

What's wrong with having to retrain a few times in a working life. Just suck it up?

The Chingford Skinhead told us when we were repeatedly made redundant in Engineering in the 60's to get on our bikes. 

Never saw him break into a sweat mind.

Edited March 15, 2018 by old man

[Big Al]

I've been a teacher and Vice Principal for 25 years. Prior to this I worked in the "real" world.

The pension is good, the holidays are great and the pay is grand too. But the job has changed significantly - mainly due to the extreme societal changes since the 1980s. The number of stress related health issues I have is embarrassing. I'm 50 now and have been overpaying the mortgage for years so I can leave teaching at 55. I won't retire - I will take a minimum wage job to keep me ticking over until it is pension time. There is no way I could teach until I was 67. The psychological demands are immense. Unless you have done the job, or know someone close who is in it, it is difficult to comprehend how different my job is to the teachers who taught me.

If I was to do it all again, I'd have a trade or something with transferable skills. What else can a teacher do?

[redfish77]

https://www.aldirecruitment.co.uk/graduates/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=graduate#benefits

Pretty decent compared to a classroom teachers starting salary.

[walshie]

I wouldn't mind the 4 day breaks whenever there's snow. 

[team tractor]

58 minutes ago, redfish77 said:

https://www.aldirecruitment.co.uk/graduates/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=graduate#benefits

Pretty decent compared to a classroom teachers starting salary.

It’s not so simple .ive said to my mrs about this but check out the turn over of staff . 

The top bosses are £250k + .

its a mega high stress job. 

[markm]

23 minutes ago, walshie said:

I wouldn't mind the 4 day breaks whenever there's snow. 

They are amazing.

But for me it was only 3 days, the last 2 were 8 years apart.......

 

anyway walshie, what do you do for a job?

Edited March 15, 2018 by markm

[12gauge82]

I don't think anyone particularly bashes teachers apart from the odd annoyances like recently with the snow, but it seemed to me more of a knock to the over zealous health and safety policy of the schools than the teachers themselves. Teaching I'm sure can be a tough job at times, but so can many others and they all have pros and cons, look at team tractors job and his recent incident, I've worn that hat before and it's a tough job, the pays good bit probably not as good as it should be especially with the risks involved and no sick pay ect. Take the prison service and imagine the stresses involved in that day after day, often unlocking the same offenders that try to take your head off, day after day, but I would imagine the commeradery would be great, the point is pros and cons in all jobs and I'd taking teaching over working minimum wage or being sat on the dole any ay.

[old man]

1 hour ago, Big Al said:

I've been a teacher and Vice Principal for 25 years. Prior to this I worked in the "real" world.

The pension is good, the holidays are great and the pay is grand too. But the job has changed significantly - mainly due to the extreme societal changes since the 1980s. The number of stress related health issues I have is embarrassing. I'm 50 now and have been overpaying the mortgage for years so I can leave teaching at 55. I won't retire - I will take a minimum wage job to keep me ticking over until it is pension time. There is no way I could teach until I was 67. The psychological demands are immense. Unless you have done the job, or know someone close who is in it, it is difficult to comprehend how different my job is to the teachers who taught me.

If I was to do it all again, I'd have a trade or something with transferable skills. What else can a teacher do?

I think all jobs have changed due to circumstances beyond an employees control, the way of the world that will continue?

Not personally knocking any one but think stresses go with all jobs, try having a young family and 3 redundancies in 4 years, one with 4 hours notice. Had to go and sign on once for about a fiver, was made to feel pretty carp in front of a line of others who all received the same insults in their turn. It eventually, as times got harder, turned a bit lively with security guards on standby. Try working in a paper mill under huge turning roller presses in a foot of stinking water with 3 phase electric wiring all around and two feet of headroom? Exciting times.? Elf and safety?

Fancy a go down the pit or in the Abattoir? ?

 

[12gauge82]

4 minutes ago, old man said:

I think all jobs have changed due to circumstances beyond an employees control, the way of the world that will continue?

Not personally knocking any one but think stresses go with all jobs, try having a young family and 3 redundancies in 4 years, one with 4 hours notice. Had to go and sign on once for about a fiver, was made to feel pretty carp in front of a line of others who all received the same insults in their turn. It eventually, as times got harder, turned a bit lively with security guards on standby. Try working in a paper mill under huge turning roller presses in a foot of stinking water with 3 phase electric wiring all around and two feet of headroom? Exciting times.? Elf and safety?

Fancy a go down the pit or in the Abattoir? ?

 

Yep, my thoughts exactly.

[Howling Hound]

had a RE teacher who was a POW of Japs in WW2. he had written the new testament out long hand and bound it in two Kalamazoo binders. Complete nutcase (poor sod) but he could maintain discipline in class. Probably used some techniques learned of the JAPS. I remember been belted round the back of the head with one of the binders for doing my Maths homework in his class. His words at the time  "the word of God lies heavy on your Head" Good times and good practice for been married.

[Howling Hound]

25 minutes ago, old man said:

I think all jobs have changed due to circumstances beyond an employees control, the way of the world that will continue?

Not personally knocking any one but think stresses go with all jobs, try having a young family and 3 redundancies in 4 years, one with 4 hours notice. Had to go and sign on once for about a fiver, was made to feel pretty carp in front of a line of others who all received the same insults in their turn. It eventually, as times got harder, turned a bit lively with security guards on standby. Try working in a paper mill under huge turning roller presses in a foot of stinking water with 3 phase electric wiring all around and two feet of headroom? Exciting times.? Elf and safety?

Fancy a go down the pit or in the Abattoir? ?

 

Good training for Weatherspoon's though