Ruairí Quinn: Teachers don't appreciate gravity of economic crisis

you cant blame the teachers or unions for creaming off as much as they can, the government ultimately are the ones to blame!

liammur wrote: »

Can anybody tell me what a primary princial teacher does if they don't teach in the classroom ?

This is the type of waste that needs to be tackled.

OK - Say it a medium sized primary school with about 350 kids. Managing budgets, managing staff, preparing tenders for contruction work/repairs. Dealing with ill-disciplined students, dealing with parents, trying to organise fundraisers, dealing with the DES on an ongoing basis, the paperwork involved in a school with about 400 people all in must be huge, covering for sick/absent teachers.



On another thread I did mention (might have been to you as well) that you don't expect the manager of a factory with a coouple hundred workers to be on the floor building the end product.

Thats just an idea of what they might be at, I hardly think they'd be sitting round watching youtube or updating their FB status!

Teachers are aware of the economic crisis seeing as most of us can barely cover rent, bills etc with what we earn! Its the politicians that live the life off all their allowances that need a reality check!

hungergamer wrote: »

Teachers are aware of the economic crisis seeing as most of us can barely cover rent, bills etc with what we earn! Its the politicians that live the life off all their allowances that need a reality check!

In fairness you must be new to the profession in which case I can agree, its not easy to be waiting around as a substitute scavaging for a few hrs while the smug seniors take yet another paid day of absence. I wouldnt like to be getting into the profession now thats for sure,but for those in 10yrs and more its a very nice gravy train.

doc_17 wrote: »

Just to confirm that absent might mean being awaywith a group of students in official school business and that not all sick leave is covered by paid substitutes.

Did you know that if a teacher cOmes down sick on Friday and misses school on a Friday and then misses monday it counts as 4 sick days for the purposes of the official stats? No idea why this is but just throwing it in there.

How many suck days do teachers take anyway?

I saw what you did their.

Vizzy wrote: »

Whair ?

SuckIng from the Teat

I'm going to qualify as a teacher next month, and I have to say I'm pretty pissed off at the way teaching unions haven handled themselves over the past few years. In my opinion, they have cared far too much about pay and conditions and not enough about the education provision, and they have obstructed necessary change and reform in the profession.

For far too long, disinterested and unprofessional teachers were protected from unions which lobbied against openness and scrutiny. We all have had experiences of absolutely terrible teachers who remained in schools year in year out, and nothing was done about them. Things had to change, and the unions should have spent their time engaging and initiating reform on that front, instead of standing in the way.

However, I think things have gotten a little too much out of kilter regarding attitutes to the public service and the teachers in particularly. In thread after thread posters state that the PS have had no reduction in take home pay. This simply isn't true. It's obviously not true. But still people persist with it, even in serious fora such as this.

The myth that teachers do not a tap of work outside school hours is also commonly perpetrated. Yes, the bad teachers that we all have experience of did nothing inside or outside school, but teaching demands far more than simply turning up and hoping for the best. I spent 3 hours today preparing for five classes next week. Admittedly, I'm a student teacher so all of this is new to me, but there'll never be a time in my professional life when I won;t be spending a decent amoutn of time preparing for classes. And that's not even counting correcting exams and copies. I took up exams to correct over the Easter. They were first year history so not particularly dense or demanding. Yet each took about 6 minutes to correct and mark and provide comment. Multiply that by 30 and one gets three hours. And that's for a single first year class. I know colleagues who spend a few hours every day of the Easter holidays correcting exams and copies.

The most egregious myth though, is that teachers live exist in a scrutiny free world, free from inspection and unaccountable to anyone but themselves. Again, this used to be the case, and unions had a lot to do with perpetrating that system. One retired teacher I know spent twenty years in one school without seeing a single inspector. Things have changed though, and the extent to which the critics refuse to acknowledge that is getting a bit perverse. The school in teach in has a Whole School Evaluation in a few weeks. Basically a team of inspectors descends on the school for a week, and goes through everything with a fine tooth comb. Classes are inspated at random, records are examined, management interviewed, checks are made on yearly and termly plans, parents are interveiwed, and exam classes are surveyed and interviewed. A report is then submitted to the Deptartment of Education and published online for everyione to examine. And yet people still maintain that there's no scrutiny! On top of that, there's the system know as drive-bys, whereby an inspector can just turn up without warning and inspect any classes he or shes wishes.

I'm not writing all this because I wish to defend the indefensible. Teaching unions have been far too concerned with pay and conditions oiver the years, and have done a grave disservice to ordinary teachers who work hard and who care about their job. I can honestly say I don't know much about teachers' salaries as the job really is a vocation for me. I know I'll earn enough to lead a decent lifestyle and that's enough for me. If true, those figures quoted in the first few posts are obscene and should be cut.

I am though trying to provide some balance against a lot of the baseless accusations and insinuations that permeate so many discussions about teachers and the Public Service these days. By all means, let there be a debate, but is it too much to ask that it be balanced and based on some degree of reality?

Einhard wrote: »

The myth that teachers do not a tap of work outside school hours is also commonly perpetrated. Yes, the bad teachers that we all have experience of did nothing inside or outside school, but teaching demands far more than simply turning up and hoping for the best. I spent 3 hours today preparing for five classes next week. Admittedly, I'm a student teacher so all of this is new to me, but there'll never be a time in my professional life when I won;t be spending a decent amoutn of time preparing for classes. And that's not even counting correcting exams and copies. I took up exams to correct over the Easter. They were first year history so not particularly dense or demanding. Yet each took about 6 minutes to correct and mark and provide comment. Multiply that by 30 and one gets three hours. And that's for a single first year class. I know colleagues who spend a few hours every day of the Easter holidays correcting exams and copies.

I applaud the hard-working teachers out there. But I know from the teachers I meet through work that there are many who don't work hard. Many teachers that do the bare minimum. Many teachers that don’t ever go to in-service training to improve their skills. The teachers I know dislike these lazy colleagues as much as anyone does but here's not much they can do about it.

meglome wrote: »

You may not be aware, I certainly wasn't until I worked in the area, Teachers get continuing further training. Which is great. There's a big push on for example over the last years to have better training in technical subjects, woodwork, metalwork, tech drawing etc and maths too. However what really surprised me was teachers are not obliged to go to the training. The training up until recently was held during school hours and still many never went.

The rough figures are about 20% will not go to any training and about 25% of people who are invited and agree to go don't turn up. Now there will be good reasons for some of these figures but my impression of the majority is they just don't bother.

I believe in-service is run in the evenings or Saturdays now but every teacher should have to go which is not the case still.

How much scrutiny is there of lazy parents I wonder? It's all well and good to blame teachers for little Johnny "Tiger" Cub's failings at school as that's the easy option. At secondary level it's up to students to "study" what was taught in school that day.

How many parents are happy to take the easy approach and let Johnny spend all his time out of school texting, Facebooking, playing Call Of Duty or Minecraft?

Parents are supposed to parent also. Give a teen the choice between 2 hours of study or 5 hours of Minecraft and see which one wins out.

It was a bit strange though yesterday when Quinn began to campaign for a yes vote on the Fiscal Compact. He did get heckled for that!

Einhard wrote: »

I'm going to qualify as a teacher next month, and I have to say I'm pretty pissed off at the way teaching unions haven handled themselves over the past few years. In my opinion, they have cared far too much about pay and conditions and not enough about the education provision, and they have obstructed necessary change and reform in the profession.

For far too long, disinterested and unprofessional teachers were protected from unions which lobbied against openness and scrutiny. We all have had experiences of absolutely terrible teachers who remained in schools year in year out, and nothing was done about them. Things had to change, and the unions should have spent their time engaging and initiating reform on that front, instead of standing in the way.

However, I think things have gotten a little too much out of kilter regarding attitutes to the public service and the teachers in particularly. In thread after thread posters state that the PS have had no reduction in take home pay. This simply isn't true. It's obviously not true. But still people persist with it, even in serious fora such as this.

The myth that teachers do not a tap of work outside school hours is also commonly perpetrated. Yes, the bad teachers that we all have experience of did nothing inside or outside school, but teaching demands far more than simply turning up and hoping for the best. I spent 3 hours today preparing for five classes next week. Admittedly, I'm a student teacher so all of this is new to me, but there'll never be a time in my professional life when I won;t be spending a decent amoutn of time preparing for classes. And that's not even counting correcting exams and copies. I took up exams to correct over the Easter. They were first year history so not particularly dense or demanding. Yet each took about 6 minutes to correct and mark and provide comment. Multiply that by 30 and one gets three hours. And that's for a single first year class. I know colleagues who spend a few hours every day of the Easter holidays correcting exams and copies.

The most egregious myth though, is that teachers live exist in a scrutiny free world, free from inspection and unaccountable to anyone but themselves. Again, this used to be the case, and unions had a lot to do with perpetrating that system. One retired teacher I know spent twenty years in one school without seeing a single inspector. Things have changed though, and the extent to which the critics refuse to acknowledge that is getting a bit perverse. The school in teach in has a Whole School Evaluation in a few weeks. Basically a team of inspectors descends on the school for a week, and goes through everything with a fine tooth comb. Classes are inspated at random, records are examined, management interviewed, checks are made on yearly and termly plans, parents are interveiwed, and exam classes are surveyed and interviewed. A report is then submitted to the Deptartment of Education and published online for everyione to examine. And yet people still maintain that there's no scrutiny! On top of that, there's the system know as drive-bys, whereby an inspector can just turn up without warning and inspect any classes he or shes wishes.

I'm not writing all this because I wish to defend the indefensible. Teaching unions have been far too concerned with pay and conditions oiver the years, and have done a grave disservice to ordinary teachers who work hard and who care about their job. I can honestly say I don't know much about teachers' salaries as the job really is a vocation for me. I know I'll earn enough to lead a decent lifestyle and that's enough for me. If true, those figures quoted in the first few posts are obscene and should be cut.

I am though trying to provide some balance against a lot of the baseless accusations and insinuations that permeate so many discussions about teachers and the Public Service these days. By all means, let there be a debate, but is it too much to ask that it be balanced and based on some degree of reality?

and how many poorly performing teachers have been sacked as a result of the increased inspection?

The problem for the teaching reputation is that the majority of people in society have been through the Irish educational system and have experienced excellent and shocking teaching which is why many people have strong opinions on this.

You do make an excellent point about unions being more focused on pay and conditions rather than the quality of education being provided.