Lord Raiden wrote: Curiosity wrote: Lord Raiden wrote: GazChap wrote: I saw that documentary about the Big Freeze of 1963 and my overriding thought was "how the fuck would we cope if the same happened today?" ...We wouldn't. Cut to the chase here, teachers these days are lazy cunts with no work ethic. The end. Oh fuck off. That's the most offensive thing I've read in ages. Many of my friends are teachers, and they are the hardest working people I know. Stop spouting off rubbish that would make the Daily Mail blush. Oh come off it Curio. Of course I'm being deliberately OTT for comedic effect as you well know, but on the other hand it can't be denied that schools these days close at the drop of a hat, with one inch of snow on the ground like Markg mentioned, and that's definitely a big sea change from a few years ago. We've explored the likely reasons behind this and it seems to basically boil down to the fact that no-one can be arsed to get the sand and grit out plus everyone's terrified of getting sued. That is, without doubt, a shit situation. For each one of these hundreds of schools that take the path of zero resistance, that's hundreds, if not thousands of parents who are confronted with making provision for their kids at the drop of a hat - what sort of impact is that going to have on them and the ailing country's economy? What private sector jobs are there where you can just say to your employer, there's a couple of centimetres of snow on the ground so, y'know, I'm taking the day off on full pay, thanks? What impact on children's education anyway - it's not like our ever more poorly educated kids can afford to lose this time, half of 'em can barely read, write or add up these days?
I don't like school closures as much as the next man. Ditto nursery closures, as today the wife travelled in to work, got told nursery was closed and had to travel all the way home to look after the daughter. There's a chance that tomorrow I will have to take a day of my very-scarce annual leave to look after said child. This makes me extremely annoyed, especially as the transport links around the nursery are mostly fine.
Where I differ is that I wouldn't blame the closure of the nursery on the carers in general. Ditto for schools, when it closes I severely doubt they actually canvassed the opinion of a junior maths teacher or the chemistry lab assistants when deciding to make the call. So I find it wholly unfair to demonise teachers as a whole based on a decision taken by someone else.
Quote: You say you know many teachers and they're the hardest working people you know...? WHAT??? People in the private sector routinely took big pay cuts these last few years; we have to work umpteen unpaid hours just to keep our jobs and we don't get big fat pensions - or indeed ANY pensions, not to mention 12-13 weeks paid holiday per year. We work late into the night, we don't get to bugger off from the "office" in the middle of the afternoon, and even then, we're still welded to our laptops and phones virtually every hour of every day? You can't know very many hardworking people is all I can say lol.
Teachers routinely work far longer hours than the vast majority of the private sector. Most people I know work something resembling a 9-5, or if they work the long hour it is either because they earn big salaries or it's for a temporary project.
Teachers have a stressful job (over twice the national average in work-related stress illnesses), and get paid very poorly (27k average... I considered becoming a teacher a while ago, but realised I could earn more as an extremely junior layabout in an office than I could as a senior teacher) for what is arguably one of the most important jobs in the country.
My Mum used to teach, and she would spend several hours every day doing marking and lesson planning. Most people leave their work at the door, but teachers can't do that.
Plus their pensions are no longer as good, will doubtless be cut further to ribbons in coming budgets, and their pay deals are terrible.
I'd estimate the 90 hour week thing you mentioned earlier would indeed be very hard work, but also probably accounts for less than 0.1% of employed people.
Quote: As for the efficacy of the teaching profession in general, the ONS data as regards falling standards of education in this country of the last 20, and most especially the last 10 years is INARGUABLE. In any other profession, there would be universal concern... imagine if the standard of housebuilding was drastically worsened; architects and builders would be working to get to the root of such problems and where necessary, weed out the useless. But teachers? You must be joking. Apart from anything else, no-one would DARE to "out" an inept teacher; that is clearly and empirically true, otherwise standards wouldn't be dropping like a stone, especially in the face of unprecedented investment (without reform, natch).
Unprecedented investment? Maybe therein lies the problem. We have under invested and invested poorly.
Which ONS data sets are we talking about, BTW? Obviously the amount of kids passing exams is rising, so what is the comparison being made?
Quote: I like you Curio, and you can use all the Daily Mail jibes that you like mate, but that's my opinion. I might well be a knob, but shit man, I look around me and can't see anything AT ALL to change my mind, far from it.
I like you too. 
I just think it was a gross exaggeration, insulting to thousands of hard working and talented people who could be earning far more if they were bankers or even secretaries, but who decided to do a genuinely helpful and necessary job.
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