But you get really good holidays
 | Posted by The Editor on Thursday 31 January 2008, 10:23 pm Categories: Education Tags: Tags: career, school, teaching |
Back in 2002 when I was deciding whether to quit my relatively young (but well paid and fast-advancing) career as a television director and retrain as a primary school teacher I made a list that looked something like this:
FOR
* Start at 9am, finish at 3:30pm.
* Tonnes of holidays.
* Autonomy in workplace.
* Worksheets to keep kids busy while surfing net.
* Gender imbalance in teaching workforce means lots of chicks to perve at.
* Really relaxed dress code.
* Chance to brainwash students with leftist ideology.
AGAINST
* Shit pay.
* Four poverty-stricken years at uni.
* Have to work with children.
* Actual responsibility.
It’s two days into term one of my second year in the classroom and I’ve had another 8am to 6pm day with no lunch break to speak of and work I had to bring home. I’d like to add one more item to the AGAINST list:
* Absolutely, totally, fucking exhausting.
GrodsThink Ep.29 (26/8/08)
Thursday 31 January 2008, 10:58 pm #Ant Rogenous
What grade are you teaching?
Thursday 31 January 2008, 10:59 pm #The Editor
5/6.
Thursday 31 January 2008, 11:08 pm #THR
But at least, according to Bolta and Julia Bishop, you get to indoctrinate ‘our’ kids with Maoist propaganda.
Thursday 31 January 2008, 11:11 pm #Ant Rogenous
Do teachers all think the year level they happen to be teaching is the most difficult, or is there an acknowledged toughest group?
Thursday 31 January 2008, 11:12 pm #The Editor
I would almost rather eat my own testicle fried in garlic than teach Prep.
Thursday 31 January 2008, 11:22 pm #Ant Rogenous
What’s so bad about Prep? Is it because when you mention Mao they giggle at what they think is a pissweak cat impression?
Friday 1 February 2008, 7:55 am #Damian
If they giggle at Mao, you could perhaps ease them into it with some oh-so-cute Chairman Meow propaganda. Get the kids to make their own caps.
Friday 1 February 2008, 7:59 am #The Editor
The little bastards fall asleep while I’m reading them The Communist Manifesto and bitch-and-moan when I have them paint portraits of Karl Marx.
Friday 1 February 2008, 9:45 am #Magic Bellybutton
Bloody kids. They just don’t know how good they’ve got it. They should try walking 10km through snow in bare feet to get to school like the rest of us did.
Friday 1 February 2008, 11:01 am #jimmy
loooxury
Friday 1 February 2008, 12:39 pm #Steve
Just think of the 3.25% payrise that is imminent (once your Maoist union bosses stop agitating) that will bring you damn near the poverty line.
On another note, do the kids call you “Mr Editor”?
Friday 1 February 2008, 1:10 pm #The Editor
No, we’re a first name school (another leftist consipracy.)
Students call me “The”.
Friday 1 February 2008, 1:17 pm #Wah
I salute you for becoming a teacher. TV producers get to accept awards at ceremonies, but teachers cop shit for an extremely important job.
I leave you with this quote from The West Wing to ponder.
Sam Seaborne: “Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.”
Friday 1 February 2008, 2:01 pm #Ant Rogenous
Students call me “The”.
Surely comment of the day.
*applause*
Friday 1 February 2008, 3:45 pm #John Surname
I visted his class one morning, and his kids were singing “song of love for our beloved leader”, followed by “the anti-semitism song”.
It was heart warming.
Friday 1 February 2008, 3:48 pm #The Editor
After lunch we sung The Internationale.
Friday 1 February 2008, 4:03 pm #THR
I visted his class one morning, and his kids were singing “song of love for our beloved leader”, followed by “the anti-semitism song”.
Ah, that brings back fond memories of my school days, when we’d look at overhead projector pictures of Goldstein, and indulge in the ‘Ten minutes hate’ each morning.
Then, after lunch, we’d denounce our parents to the teachers. Working bees were held in Siberia for some reason, and called ‘re-education camps’…
Friday 1 February 2008, 4:33 pm #John Surname
Siberia? No kidding? Ours were held in Prussia.
Sweet Prussia, how I long for thee.
Friday 1 February 2008, 4:42 pm #THR
This was our school anthem:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oFCcPEEgZ_4
*wipes tear* I can still see the tanks…
Friday 1 February 2008, 5:10 pm #Ant Rogenous
My school was a little less highbrow. Each morning we’d watch a tape of the WWF grudge match between Nikolai Volkoff and Corporal Kirscher, dutifully joining in with Comrade Volkoff as he sang the Soviet anthem and jeering when Kirschner stormed the ring and bashed him with the American flag.
Saturday 2 February 2008, 6:30 am #1735099
Seriously, check out teaching in Vietnam. Get yourself a qualification in TESOL (fairly straightforward) and you can live there very cheaply. I’m a Vietnam Veteran (also a teacher) and travel back regularly.
It’s a great lifestyle - and you can blog from there.
The kids respect teachers, and they’re lining up in droves to learn English, as it’s a ticket to prosperity.