are you a useful idiot

techteacher

excellent post below from another thread ? It should really be placed at the top of all the Teaching career queries... the current setup in teaching relies on "useful idiots" ( please remember that and read below for the truth it may save you a lot of time in the future!!!)

" Somebody must say it so I'll bite. Even with a full-time CID/Permanent job with history and geography under the pre-2011 conditions the finances are very poor if you have to buy a home in Dublin, where the population growth and accordingly the teaching positions are most likely. With the understandable focus on getting the CID, not enough people who are thinking of teaching are looking beyond that to the finances and the changing culture/increasing bureaucratisation of teaching. This is a mistake. (I write this as somebody with a CID and at the top of the pre-2011 qualification allowance).

Three steps:

1. Check your anticipated salary on the ASTI website in the year you want to buy a home: Secondary level teachers' salaries

2. Multiply your above salary by 3.5 times (the limit for mortgage approval)

3. Go to myhome.ie and find what you can afford and in what area (guideline: if the house is very cheap, it's almost certainly an area with a declining population and therefore with a declining number of teaching positions).

Addenda:

1. Don't get into teaching under any delusions #1. Look dispassionately at those finances, and be cued into what your after tax income will be by checking the 10% PRD/ASC tax on top of all your other taxes on all your income above €32,000. With PAYE, USC, ASC and PRSI you'll have well over 50% of your income deducted by the state on all income above €32,000. Furthermore, your public service pension is an unquestionably yellow pack version of public service pensions 10 or 15 years ago.

2. Don't get into teaching under any delusions #2. And while the holidays will be great when you're young and single, there's absolutely no such thing as a free lunch. You'll be working through your holidays to pay for the childcare (c. €1000 per child, per month) and then the after school childcare which runs for the duration of their primary school (c. €500 per child, per month) and mortgage costs (in Dublin, where most jobs are, just be ready for a life of commuting in traffic that's only getting worse as the whole of Ireland moves here)- and then when the kids are raised you'll be working through your summers in your 50s and 60s (retirement currently is 68 but will almost certainly be more by the time you retire - yayyyy!) to maximise your AVCs or pay for your daughter's wedding or her house deposit...

Forget the teachers' holidays: it's a massive carrot when you start out that crucifies you down the road.

3. Don't get into teaching under any delusions #3. Teaching has changed: A huge cultural change is being imposed on teaching that you should be under no illusions about. It's far more bureaucratic, loaded with buzz words, schemes of work, department planning, collaborative learning and whatever else has failed in England which our genius fonctionnaires in the Department of Education have, in their unbridled wisdom, decided to adopt 30 years after they first appeared in England. This is "reform", in a decidedly Orwellian understanding of language. So while you might very well have a great grá for teaching as a spiritual, rewarding endeavour, don't be surprised if most of your daily work as a teacher is connected with administration and paper pushing and enduring the latest Pollyanna types giving you in-services with a whole heap of new buzz-words and warning you about using the buzzwords from last year. (oh, and don't ever use a red pen to correct!)

Do get into teaching if:

1.You've a massive trust fund
2. You like loads of paperwork and learning new buzz words and loads of nonsense meetings to tick boxes.
3. You've a permanent job lined up for you in some deprived area of rural Ireland where you can buy a four-bedroom house for under €100,000. " excellent advise ...