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Child Item

Teachers, Bankers, and Job Security

Freddie59

Just looking at a clip from the Teacher's Conference in Sligo. Going on about reduced pay and 'diminishing job security'. WTF? in the past two weeks we've also had Larry Broderick lecturing the Government on redundancies in the banks and how his 'organisation' wouldn't be open to compulsory redundancies.

FFS what planet are these teachers and bankers on? NO job is secure anymore. It should stand (or fail) on its performance - and profitability (however it is measured). I am one of the lucky ones to have been blessed with employment for the past 35 years. The company I work for came very close to closing in 2002. Thankfully it didn't. Down through the years I - and my colleagues - worried about the next year, what it might bring and whether or not it would survive. I watched long-serving colleagues and friends being made redundant. Thankfully it is now profitable, thanks to judicious investment and a conscientious workforce.

And yet these people moan about rates of pay and job security:eek:. When Ireland, Inc (their employer) is, effectively, bankrupt.

We are talking about allegedly intelligent people here. And they can't see past their noses.

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mikemac

westendgirlie wrote: »

If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

Schools are not child minding services

HellFireClub

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I'm outraged at the outrage but also outraged at the lack of outrage (depending on how I'm having pints with).

There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country now who are extremely exposed to food poverty, children of unemployed people as a consequence are through pure circumstance, who now find themselves exposed to the kind of lifestyles and struggle that belongs back in the inner city tenements of 1901.

Gardai, teachers and other PS workers who are trying to hide under this mantle of abject poverty in an effort to obtain public sympathy and in an attempt to protect and preserve their very generous entitlements and their working practices that belong back in the Victorian times, when the reality is that they are completely and fully protected from any of the hardship that other people are struggling with daily, in my opinion they are absolute disgrace on themselves.

bobmalooka

westendgirlie wrote: »

Don't forget kids have to stay at home for teacher training days WTF

And why, oh why do they insist on having parent/teacher meetings during the day? The kids have to stay off school and the parents have to take time off from a job that they are trying to keep hold of.

Overall, you are looking at 17-18 weeks holidays for kids. If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

The holidays are too long but needing somewhere to leave the kids isnt really a valid argument and only feeds the feeling among teachers that they need to take a hard stance to any potential pay cuts/work changes because we the general public are being emotive and irrational on the subject

westendgirlie

feelingstressed wrote: »

Schools are not child minding services

Obviously not with the amount of holidays teachers take!

westendgirlie

bobmalooka wrote: »

The holidays are too long but needing somewhere to leave the kids isnt really a valid argument and only feeds the feeling among teachers that they need to take a hard stance to any potential pay cuts/work changes because we the general public are being emotive and irrational on the subject

I'll have to keep leaving em at the roundabout then

chocbisc

i'm amazed that freddie 59 hellfireclub and westendgirlie haven't considered teaching as a career seeing how handy teachers have it.

HellFireClub

westendgirlie wrote: »

Don't forget kids have to stay at home for teacher training days WTF

And why, oh why do they insist on having parent/teacher meetings during the day? The kids have to stay off school and the parents have to take time off from a job that they are trying to keep hold of.

Overall, you are looking at 17-18 weeks holidays for kids. If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

Because they are a crowd of instransigent f*cking wombats, every last one of them. I spent 14 years in the school system in this country, 8 years in primary and 6 years in secondary and I only ever encountered ONE teacher in those 14 years who was genuinely in the job to teach and who actually gave a sh*t about the quality of the job that he did, insofar as his coming into work and his approach to his job, had an huge impact on his students.

HellFireClub

chocbisc wrote: »

i'm amazed that freddie 59 hellfireboy and westendgirlie haven't considered teaching as a career seeing how handy teachers have it.

You see that's the difference between you and I.

I know I wouldn't be into teaching so I wouldn't put the academic and intellectual needs of a child, ahead of my own selfish need for a salary.

The vast vast majority of the teachers that I had in my school years, didn't give a fiddlers about anything other than the fact that they had landed a handy number with no measurable responsibilities, which gave loads of time off and paid very well...

westendgirlie

HellFireClub wrote: »

Because they are a crowd of instransigent f*cking wombats, every last one of them. I spent 14 years in the school system in this country, 8 years in primary and 6 years in secondary and I only ever encountered ONE teacher in those 14 years who was genuinely in the job to teach and who actually gave a sh*t about the quality of the job that he did, insofar as his coming into work and his approach to his job, had an huge impact on his students.

Bring back corporal punishment I say. Whack them teachers into line

westendgirlie

chocbisc wrote: »

i'm amazed that freddie 59 hellfireclub and westendgirlie haven't considered teaching as a career seeing how handy teachers have it.

I'm trying to offload my kids for more weeks in the year, not gain even more kids!!!:eek:

TheDriver

here we go again where everyone remembers the 1 bad teacher they had but never mentions their good teachers. Amazing how no one ever eats their Child's Teacher at PT meetings over their "massive salaries and holidays" but rather thanks them for their efforts...........

chocbisc

HellFireClub wrote: »

You see that's the difference between you and I.

I know I wouldn't be into teaching so I wouldn't put the academic and intellectual needs of a child, ahead of my own selfish need for a salary.

The vast vast majority of the teachers that I had in my school years, didn't give a fiddlers about anything other than the fact that they had landed a handy number with no measurable responsibilities, which gave loads of time off and paid very well...

didn't get the points, huh?

HellFireClub

chocbisc wrote: »

didn't get the points, huh?

I got the points all right and have a university degree now, thank you very much, but only down to having to basically repair a near complete inability in the area of maths, thanks to a huge amount of time and effort from a university lecturer, however I was very lucky to get out of school with any proficiency whatsoever in maths, no thanks to one spastic teacher I had who couldn't add f*cking two and two himself and should never have been allowed next nor near a secondary school.

Feeona

westendgirlie wrote: »

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

What's stopping you?

HellFireClub

westendgirlie wrote: »

Bring back corporal punishment I say. Whack them teachers into line

I say incentivise and protect the competent and the performing teachers and dispense with the useless ones.

The process starts, as it does with any other evaluation process, by setting the bar for the performance level that is required. Identify those that are operating above the bar and identify those that are not. Those that are not, identify those that with training, can get their performance level over the bar, and then identify those that cannot ever get their standard over the bar because are useless goons.

The problem is that this works everywhere else in the world, in every other profession, to get things done to a certain standard.

But when you try put this to Irish teachers, you get all this non-quantifiable rubbish, usually along the lines of, "oh we won't have that, you won't be analyising us, we do all these other important things that cannot be quantified or evaluated on paper"...

Either deliver the results in terms of grade achievements, or else f*ck off to some other place where you can't completely f*ck up the lives of those that let landed with your lack of proficiency and ability to take ownership of your job function, which should be all about results and nothing else...

zom

Feeona wrote: »

What's stopping you?

westendgirlie probably meant "to work as a teacher in public school", not just "to be a teacher"...

Feeona

zom wrote: »

westendgirlie probably meant "to work as a teacher in public school", not just "to be a teacher"...

Probably

Chips Lovell

HellFireClub wrote: »

Last week it was the Gardai and this week it's the teachers, WHO IS COVERING THESE OBVIOUS ABSENCES FROM WORK for "conference work" while we have Gardai up and down the country converging for a conference last week and this week the teachers???

How does all this waffling and finger wagging impact on productivity in these sectors???

I presume you didn't notice that the teachers had their conference during the Easter holidays?

Micky Dolenz

el tonto wrote: »

I presume you didn't notice that the teachers had their conference during the Easter holidays?

Be gone out of here you, and take you sensible jive talk with ya.:P

medicsie

Doesn't really help when you have Mr Miyagi as Min. for Education!.

HellFireClub

el tonto wrote: »

I presume you didn't notice that the teachers had their conference during the Easter holidays?

Ah I get ya. Due to more generous holidays, they are off anyway!

Here's an interesting little "technical point", I've just found in the ASTI "Croke Park Agreement" implementation guideline:

http://www.asti.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/Guidelines_on_implementation_of_CPA.pdf

1. Where a teacher is timetabled for a class period with a group of students and where that group is participating in an “out of school” activity and as a result the teacher is “freed up”, then the “freed up” teacher may be reassigned to supervise the class of a teacher who is required to be absent in order to accompany the group of students in the “out of school” activity.

2. The “freed up” teacher may only be used to facilitate the absence of the teacher or teachers accompanying the group of students.

3. The “freed up” teacher is not required to “cover” for the absence of other teachers who are absent for other reasons.

Does that sound like progress to you, where a teacher who is freed up due to an out of school activity (meaning his/her pupils are off the school site for the day), doesn't have to supervise another class even though they are paid to be there in the school for that time? Because it doesn't sound like progress to me, it sounds like more of the same old "that is your job and this is my job", hopelessly demarcated PS mentality to me...

melekalikimaka

Feeona wrote: »

What's stopping you?

remember the drink driving ad...

could you live with the shame.

Chips Lovell

HellFireClub wrote: »

Does that sound like progress to you, where a teacher who is freed up due to an out of school activity (meaning his/her pupils are off the school site for the day), doesn't have to supervise another class.

Are you reading that properly? Because it says they have to cover the absences of the teachers who are taking students out?

HellFireClub

el tonto wrote: »

Are you reading that properly? Because it says they have to cover the absences of the teachers who are taking students out?

Yes but it also says that a "freed up" teacher, freed up because his/her class that he/she is paid hansomly to teach, is not on the school site due to some event or visit somewhere, DOES NOT have to supervise (as distinct from teach), another class that might require supervison, due to a teacher absence, but where that absence is not caused by a teachers having taken students off site...

I find this kind of qualification to be quite incredible, considering that it is still in place after what is cited as an agreement to bring about improved efficiencies has been accepted by teachers.

What this means is that if a teacher is idle, or "freed up", due to his/her class being off site, then that teacher only has to provide supervision, if it is required by reason of one of the other teachers classes (another teacher who is off site), needing cover.

For any other absence of a teacher, not associated with this off site day or event, an idle teacher at work, has been instructed to stay idle, rather than get with the team effort and supervise a class that someone else will have to be paid to do or else a class sent home...

In a private sector environment, this is what is known as a "PETTY RULE"...

delta_bravo

HellFireClub wrote: »

I say incentivise and protect the competent and the performing teachers and dispense with the useless ones.

The process starts, as it does with any other evaluation process, by setting the bar for the performance level that is required. Identify those that are operating above the bar and identify those that are not. Those that are not, identify those that with training, can get their performance level over the bar, and then identify those that cannot ever get their standard over the bar because are useless goons.

The problem is that this works everywhere else in the world, in every other profession, to get things done to a certain standard.

But when you try put this to Irish teachers, you get all this non-quantifiable rubbish, usually along the lines of, "oh we won't have that, you won't be analyising us, we do all these other important things that cannot be quantified or evaluated on paper"...

Either deliver the results in terms of grade achievements, or else f*ck off to some other place where you can't completely f*ck up the lives of those that let landed with your lack of proficiency and ability to take ownership of your job function, which should be all about results and nothing else...

There is no easy way to quantify (or cheap way) a teachers ability. I would love to be assessed and have an incentive scale.

This year I have pupils who will do well to scrape a D in a Junior Cert O.L. exam due to them being constantly absent,suspended or simply not caring. They will most likely drop out after that. If they fail is that my fault? I put the hours in correct copies, making lessons interactive and visual as most have literacy difficulties. I spend far more time planning lessons than teaching them. Most of it has little effect. Should I get the boot or docked pay?

dvpower

Feeona wrote: »

What's stopping you?

There are no jobs for new teachers. The useless ones aren't being replaced.:rolleyes:

Chips Lovell

HellFireClub wrote: »

Yes but it also says that a "freed up" teacher, freed up because his/her class that he/she is paid hansomly to teach, is not on the school site due to some event or visit somewhere, DOES NOT have to supervise (as distinct from teach), another class that might require supervison, due to a teacher absence, but where that absence is not caused by a teachers having taken students off site...

OK, lets say a science teacher takes a class on the field trip for a day. There are eight periods in the day and he's rostered for one. That means seven periods need to be covered. There are also seven other teachers that don't have to teach a a class because their students are on a field trip. Seven teachers supervising seven periods. Who's being idle?

TheDriver

I dare any of you to go in and try a days teaching and deal with parents. I guarantee most people on this thread won't be saying another word.................

Freddie59

TheDriver wrote: »

I dare any of you to go in and try a days teaching and deal with parents. I guarantee most people on this thread won't be saying another word.................

Try dealing with the general public every day. The parents will look like kittens in comparison!:p

HellFireClub

delta_bravo wrote: »

There is no easy way to quantify (or cheap way) a teachers ability. I would love to be assessed and have an incentive scale.

This year I have pupils who will do well to scrape a D in a Junior Cert O.L. exam due to them being constantly absent,suspended or simply not caring. They will most likely drop out after that. If they fail is that my fault? I put the hours in correct copies, making lessons interactive and visual as most have literacy difficulties. I spend far more time planning lessons than teaching them. Most of it has little effect. Should I get the boot or docked pay?

I'm hearing some of what you are saying, but I personally recall p*ss poor teaching standards in my school years, along some very simple lines, particularly in the area of maths, a lack of ability on the part of some teachers to teach fundamental mathematical concepts. I'm blessed that I had the opportunity to have these addressed very early in 3rd level, and the problem all along was that the imparting of the basic fundamentals of mathematical concepts hadn't been done properly.

The weirdest thing was that when I landed into 3rd level, our maths lecturer couldn't believe that he was landed with a whole class of mainly young lads who couldn't add properly in terms of what to do with variables, etc, even though we had all come from different schools all around the country! The poor lecturer spent weeks working with lads like myself, going back over the Leaving Cert Ordinary Level curriculum!

There is no excuse for this, for finding yourself lecturing a room full of lads in 1st year of university and finding that they are struggling with the absolute basic competencies in maths...

I don't completely blame the sh*t teacher that I had, but I blame whatever over arching union or department allowed a situation to arise where I wasn't taught maths properly for years and there was no system to detect this or to remedy it, when it was the same very system itself which had failed to get basic concepts across to me...

Maybe it's not the teachers responsibity to "manage" the system so that money goes in at one end and results come out at the other, but it ought to be someone's responsibility, and whoever is responsible, they should make the decisions that are necessary to fix a problem, such as the one I've previously identified on thread, which is that 20% of students sitting the LC are failing to demonstrate a basic competency in maths, and whoever is responsible for fixing this serious problem, they should be free to make the decisions and others involved in the process, such as teachers, should cooperate with it and get fully behind it, instead of working out ways, through collective behaviours with unions, to frustrate change and say no all the time...

Having said that, I believe teachers who are in the right job and have a vocation in teaching should be highly renumerated and basically spoilt rotten by the state, because they are a hugely valuable state resource.

But equally, the ones who have identified it as the handy number that it currently is and who are happy to lodge themselves in the job for their careers and mess up the chances of the next generation through their incompetence, they should be rooted out of the teaching industry.

I'm not saying that teachers should be sacked summarily, what I'm saying is that where there is a trend of poor results year after year, some kind of a task force needs to go in and identify what the problem is and put a plan in place to fix the problem and the teacher should have no option but to cooperate with it. The whole thing should be based on improving the results gradually every year, using technology, new teaching techniques, etc...

But all I've been listening to for the last 30 years is, "we withold cooperation on absolutely everything, until we see what the shape and size of the next pay agreement will be"... That's no way to improve standards, and while we have a chance to sort all of our issues out in this country now, I think we should take it and stop tolerating money going in but f*ck all coming out at the other end.