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.
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