Teaching is easy? You wouldn’t last an hour
IN reply to ‘Teachers should just stop moaning’ (M.E.N. Viewpoints,
April, 6), trainee teachers are not usually told that there are ignorant people like Mr G Jarvis of Gorton, who can see no worth in ‘education,’ taking it for granted as some form of osmosis.
They are, however, told about the incredible workload, where every lesson has to be pre-planned, resourced, produced and then acted out like an episode of Coronation Street.
Each lesson has to appraised. Hours and hours of marking have to be fitted in. Disruptive parents, and students, have to be dealt with, along with interfering politicians, who are usually crass, blinkered fools, who know best. Add this to the appalling right, and often leftwing, together with scurrilous lawyers who are ready to pounce, if for example a teacher criticises the ‘Mohican’ haircut of a 12-year-old.
Then there is poor leadership from ‘yes men,’ obsessed with results from an ever-changing curriculum; the poverty of pupils; the clear unfairness in society; evershrinking budgets; special needs; the gifted and talented and having to cover for your colleagues if they are absent.
Dinnertime, playtime duties, in-service courses often after work, residentials, fund-raising activities, breakfast clubs, after-school clubs, Ofsted inspections, and finally nerve-shattering monitoring. I could add more. Funnily enough, they do know, because teachers are intelligent people that want to make a difference.
I would suggest that Mr Jarvis tries it for an hour or two before spouting such rubbish that infuriates anyone involved in the great profession of teaching. Bren, Urmston YES it is you, Mr G Jarvis, Gorton. Firstly as a teacher of over 20 years experience, prior to that 15 years in a UBO office, you seem to be missing several points.
Teachers are not well paid when they have been on a pay freeze for years and are only given increments below the rate of inflation.
They too have children who they pay taxes to get an education for (in over-crowded, under-staffed classrooms).
I know of no other job that they work hours of an evening and at weekends and are not directly paid an hourly rate of overtime for this work. The school holidays are not unpaid leave, the annual salary is adjusted to cover these times.
When I trained as a teacher, parents respected and supported schools. A teacher was valued by society – now it seems to me that people like yourself just berate the profession, have no idea of the complexities, endless scrutiny, paperwork and physical and emotional danger that teachers face daily – when were you last in a classroom?
Instead, you should look at why within two years of joining the profession two-thirds are leaving.
Teachers need respect and are much more than a person you need to be sweet to when you need your passport doing! William Hanna (teacher recently resigned), Manchester