Being a teacher and striking

Being a teacher is an amazing job that many of us love (probably 99.9% or more) and are entirely dedicated to. Striking, we do not necessarily like and do as a last resort because we feel we have reached our last resort. Can you imagine what it must be like to reach your last resort? To feel pushed in to a situation you don't want to be in but know there is nowhere to go. How do you feel when your right to speak is removed? Angry? Unappreciated? Like you want to break out?
To hear some of the things I have tonight about not caring about students and their welfare cuts to the bone and makes me feel genuinely sad.
Last year I dealt with some of the most stressful times as students felt the pressure to get to University before the fees become impossible to manage. Students were in tears as they considered their future.
Tonight, I have been accused of having no ethics and being selfish for striking (irony is, I'm not) about a deal that has been in negotiation for a very long time between unions and the government.
Yes, I could go in to the private sector (did it for over ten years) but then wouldn't there be lots of other people then vying for the same jobs? And who would be the people attracted to teaching if everyone was leaving the profession? I'm sure we've all read the horror stories of excessively large classes, disruptive students, impossible targets ('just go one higher'), working conditions (12 minute breaks in the morning barely enough to prepare your next lesson and go to the loo which is in the next school block, 35minute lunches to phone parents and prepare for the next lesson which is in a room 5 minutes away, five different year groups in five different rooms across a school in one day. Not much chance for a 'SMART' start then.
To be called a 'bitch' for striking shows the level of misunderstanding focussed at teachers who work bloody hard and are never rewarded. Yes, we have holidays and certain benefits (not as many as people think) but we also work bloody hard at the same time and are never thanked for it and regardless of our input will only receive the same as others. I could get every student an A after spending all my time with them and no thanks from the parent ever as it's assumed that's just my job.
I would remark to the person in retail that at least when I am served in a shop, pub, restaurant, service on the phone, I will say 'Thank you'. How many teachers can say they have heard that?
If I have to pay an extra £100 a month for the next 28 years (until I am 67) that is £67,200 that is not in the economy to pay the self-employed people who are dependent on our wages too.
If you add to that the already about £200 a month I pay into my pension it makes £134,400 plus £67,200 = £201,600 not in the public domain but apparently in a pension fund. Bearing in mind, the pay freeze means I will spend less of my money to other services it's more than that £201,600. If we continue to earn less than the cost of living it's going to be a lot more and that impacts on everyone.
Less money to builders for extensions, less money to buy non-essential sundries, less money to spend in shops and the same which means those people lose their jobs because no-one spends any money.
For the next few years I won't be employing a window cleaner, carpenter to fix those things that need doing, plumber or painter and decorator to do some work or the dry-cleaner or spending money on clothes or holidays. We're in this together. Aren't we?
To suggest I don't care is offensive and insulting.
Perhaps those that do care would take a job in teaching if they cared so much.

Phone messages

Answer phone message 1:
Hello, just to let you know we are back. The landline doesn't work, the car won't start and Allen has shingles but apart from that we are fine.

Answer phone message 2 (three days later):
Hello, just to let you know we are back, we don't have a landline because BT are bastards but phone me when you get back.

Phoned back (during Eastenders = cardinal sin):
Hello, yes Eastenders is on. It's very exciting (this means 'get off the phone'). We don't have a landline, the car won't start, nothing works, the door is broken, the bell doesn't work and neither does the printer.
You know my operation is on the 20th?

Yes. Is Sheila coming this weekend?

Yes, but it's a bit inconvenient as there's so much to do before my operation.

What needs doing?

Well, there's the garden to do.

Isn't it in two weeks?

Yes but we'll get by. Anyway, see you soon.

click, brrrr




I'm fine by the way.

The long and winding round.

I phoned my mother today and had a conversation, the like of which happens often. It went a little (quite a lot) like this:
Mother: What's new?
Me: I went to Anonymous College today for my induction.
Mother: Oh, I saw it the other day. I was going to the cinema with Julia to watch a French film so Allen said take the blue car because the white one might break down. So, we're driving in the car park and the turns are very narrow so it was probably my fault but I caught the kerb and burst the tyre. So I managed to move the car on to the double yellow lines and phoned the Co-op Insurance and said that we had breakdown cover with them and they said no we didn't but I said we had Green Flag through our Co-op insurance but the woman said we didn't. But I was sure we did and found a paper in the car so phoned back again and got the woman to check and she found us so they sent a breakdown vehicle in about 50 minutes but he couldn't get the wheel off because they are alloy wheels with special rims or something. So we had to go to a tyre place but he couldn't get the wheel off either because it needed a special tool. Well, we couldn't find it but then we found it in the compartment where we keep the tapes. I thought I had seen a bit of metal in there but didn't know what it was. So they got the wheel off and made it back to the car park to hot foot it to the film.
Pause.
Pause.
Me: Sorry, what's this got to do with Anonymous College?
Mother: I drove past the back of it. It looks like a factory...

This was the start of the conversation. It didn't improve.