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You thoughts on the teacher dispute?

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King Elvis said:
I was being sarcastic mate :)

What you've said is obviously spot on; comparing wages without taking into account the differing costs of living is a waste of time.
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So, why are the wages in other states not directly linked to the cost of living differences between them?

We should be using our low cost of living as a way to attract workers, not as a reason to deny them pay increases.
 
Raskolnikov said:
:eek:

Thanks for demonstrating how little you know about the profession fryingpan. Students may go home at 3.30 but most teachers rarely leave before 5. We have do marking, preparing lessons, tidying classrooms, reports, portfolios and other things. Also there is usually at least one staff meeting a week which can go to 6 o'clock. We also have a lot of extra curricular activities. Parent-teacher interviews, sports and camps. I spend most weekends during the term in at school, or at least doing stuff at home.
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Thanks for repeating what three other people have said in this thread. Maybe you should read thru this thread properly. You're acting as though staying till 5pm is brutal. Then you have one single staff meeting a week which CAN go to 6pm. Wowser! 6pm! That's like, a 9 hour day! Shitballs!

I'd like to know why you are so passionate about it. Did a teacher of yours tell you you would never amount to anything and it turned out to be true?
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No actually all my teachers loved me :)

Poor fella. I really hope you can knock that chip off your shoulder because it really seems to be weighing you down and making you very bitter.
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lol bitter. If the teachers, god forbid, do get their 21% increase over three years, I won't be losing sleep over it buddy.
 
Call Centre people earning more then teachers? Regretting getting into teaching?


Please, enough with the overreactions. Sure you deserve the pay rise but enough with the overreactions. I don't know of any teacher that has left there job before. And I have many teachers within my family and friends.
 
KingsCrow said:
Call Centre people earning more then teachers? Regretting getting into teaching?


Please, enough with the overreactions. Sure you deserve the pay rise but enough with the overreactions. I don't know of any teacher that has left there job before. And I have many teachers within my family and friends.
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My dad. His ex-wife. His best friend. My year 3 teacher. Anecdotal evidence isn't worth much though. Retention rates for teachers past 50 are shocking. Here is a pretty comprehensive study on the education labour market.

http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/_resources/part_ei.pdf

Its not just about keeping teachers, its about encouraging other teachers. First year education retention rates at university are much lower than in other degrees.
 

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fryingpan said:
Thanks for repeating what three other people have said in this thread. Maybe you should read thru this thread properly. You're acting as though staying till 5pm is brutal. Then you have one single staff meeting a week which CAN go to 6pm. Wowser! 6pm! That's like, a 9 hour day! Shitballs!
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I'm just refuting your claim that we're out of school by 3.30.

Anyway, I refuse to wage a battle of wits against an unarmed man.
 
Raskolnikov said:
:eek:

Students may go home at 3.30 but most teachers rarely leave before 5. We have do marking, preparing lessons, tidying classrooms, reports, portfolios and other things. Also there is usually at least one staff meeting a week which can go to 6 o'clock. We also have a lot of extra curricular activities. Parent-teacher interviews, sports and camps. I spend most weekends during the term in at school, or at least doing stuff at home.
.......
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ahh yes the myths perpetuated.....
the occassional out of hours extra work is extrapolated to become a permanent daily arrangement....how convenient...how misleading...

Perhaps instead of strike action, teachers could "work to rule" - ie work at school and in school from 9 to 5 and during the non-contact hours of each day actually spend the time marking,preparing etc etc..........then the general community would soon discover the effect of teachers doing all those free hours at home :D

...and perhaps instead of having "Long Service Leave" every year, teachers could have 4 weeks holidays just like everybody else
 
johnnypanther said:
...and perhaps instead of having "Long Service Leave" every year, teachers could have 4 weeks holidays just like everybody else
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Ok, now it seems you might have missed a bit about what is going on in this country, here is the really simple version for you...

there is a teacher shortage coming...that means we wont have enough trained teachers for specialist subjects.

How does your brilliant suggestion help? Teaching as a careers ISN'T like everything else. It is obviously not that attractive as a job, otherwise we wouldnt have a shortage... Making the conditions less attractive wont help much.
 
fryingpan said:
Well you suspect wrong. If I stay in this job for another 15 years, I will be on around 65-70k and that's more than enough for me when I'm 35. I could probably be happy living on that but am confident that I could find work elsewhere offering more than that but that's in 15-20 years so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
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you don't seem to have considered this, so I am going to point the obvious.

in 15 years, using the current 4.25% official RBA as the discount rate, that 65K would only be worth approximately 33-34K in todays money.

so in 15 years, you could have the purchasing power of 33K today.
 
Southerntakeover said:
So, why are the wages in other states not directly linked to the cost of living differences between them?

We should be using our low cost of living as a way to attract workers, not as a reason to deny them pay increases.
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the cost of living in adelaide is not so cheap though.

when you take into account lower salaries, high interest rates, and high taxes... adelaide's cost of living is more than you might intuitively expect.

on topic however:
my view has always been this. education is a very important, foundation stone of any progressive modern society. it is valued very highly, and we can use the amount of money that some people will pay for the best education as a proxy for the level of importance it has.

I don't think anyone, bar the most foolish (frying pan I am thinking of you), would dispute that in the right circumstances most people would be happy with teachers being paid considerably more. and in the private sector they are, which in part stems from dissatisfaction with the public sector, though that is a political issue as much as anything.

the problem will always be, that teachers like to see themselves as profession. however, one of the defining characteristics of a profession is that it self regulates its members. like the law society for example, or the ama. basically a profession will take steps to get its own house in order.
teaching does not do this, and we all know there is a wide discrepancy between the best teachers and the worst. I would have no problem, doubling the salary of the good teachers, but would not pay the bad ones a penny.

before we can really move on to pay teachers what they're worth to society, then they need to take steps too to do something about standards within the ranks.

as for this offer, it was SFA. of course they want more. that's 4% a year, after inflation? it adds up to nothing. give them more.

but I still want them to take steps to get their house in order, so we can do something about valuing the properly.
 
baased on personal experience with teachers I know, and the fact I have 2 sisters that are teachers (both who leave for work soon after 6 in the morning and are home after 6), my observation is that the teachers not protesting are generallythe teachers I'd rather have teaching my kids.

I've found in teaching (and in my industry) those that devote so much time to conditions and what they are 'entitled' to are generally the same people that are not bums down heads up types of people.

I support higher salaries, but I also think there should be performance evaluations, as there are in almost every other professional industry. I reckon if you are not willing to put yourself up for scrutiny, then you are not entitled to a salary rewarding the 'best' behaviour.

Any suggestion thats it too hard to measure is in my opinion hogwash, as its done in many other industries many of which are harder to measure performance.
 
Malibu#27 said:
baased on personal experience with teachers I know, and the fact I have 2 sisters that are teachers (both who leave for work soon after 6 in the morning and are home after 6), my observation is that the teachers not protesting are generallythe teachers I'd rather have teaching my kids.

I've found in teaching (and in my industry) those that devote so much time to conditions and what they are 'entitled' to are generally the same people that are not bums down heads up types of people.
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it may be your experience, but I don't think this is a relevant or helpful observation.

I support higher salaries, but I also think there should be performance evaluations, as there are in almost every other professional industry. I reckon if you are not willing to put yourself up for scrutiny, then you are not entitled to a salary rewarding the 'best' behaviour.
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whereas this is exactly relevant.

when you negotiate or collectively bargain on aggregate, then you limit the earning ability of upper tiers, and raise the compensation of the lower levels. giving everyone the same ensures that no one is paid what they're worth.

but I still think that under the circumstances, it was not unreasonable to reject the offer given the strings attached.
 
Correct if I am wrong, but I haven't seen a single evaluative method that hasn't been resoundingly refuted.
 
The only teachers who get paid for their holidays (12 weeks) are those who are on a contract that goes for longer than 1 term. Relief teachers and those who get their contracts renewed just before the commencement of a new school term do not. If you get a contract that runs for two concurrent terms, then you will get 2 weeks paid leave.

Hopefully this information will clear up the fallacy about teachers getting it easy with 12 weeks paid holidays a year.

Having worked in the manufacturing, retail, transport and service industries over the last 25 years, the last 5 of them studying and working full time, I feel I deserve to reap the fruits of my labour.

It is without doubt the most demanding and mentally tiring occupation I have had, yet it is also immensely satisfying. There is a glut of primary teachers, but if you are prepared to go to the country or to areas where behavioral management issues take a large chunk out of your day you will find work and schooling communities that appreciate your efforts.

It is the respect from the schooling community and the students I teach, that galvanise me from any negative and/or ignorant comments that are made about the teaching fraternity. You only need to offer your services to a school for an hour or two if you wish to see the current state of our public schooling system and the daily list of demands on the teachers.
 

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fryingpan said:
Haven't heard a peep out of the teachers for a few weeks now.

Oh that's right, they only strike during the school term when it's convenient for them. :rolleyes:
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What the **** good is striking when both schools and parliament are on leave?

You really dont understand the idea of industrial action, do you?
 
You can dispute about the pay, people have arguments over everyone's pay, but here is my average daily routine as a teacher:

8.10am arrive at school
3.30pm staff meeting/sports coaching/other meetings/preparation/marking
4.30pm leave, some days 5.00pm, some days 4.00pm

Plus Saturday sports/extra curricular coaching or supervision.

So don't say we start at 9 and finish at 3, and don't say we don't work on weekends. Teachers who exaggerate the role of the teacher annoy me - of course we are very important, and the job is very difficult, but for the holidays we get I don't complain about the pay as such. I love my job and the pay I get doesn't phase whether I will teach or not, I will teach because it's what I want to do. If I had to argue though, I think the starting wage of 50k is too low.
 

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fryingpan said:
Yep great post :thumbsu:

So working 8-4 or 8-5 Monday to Friday with the possiblity of a few extra jobs to do on Saturday.

Sounds like any other job to me.
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8-4 each day with 12 weeks leave per year ... and they call it a "profession".

Time some of these teachers worked in the real world where you get 4 weeks leave per year (and not always able to take it), 8-6pm work day and no days off for strikes a few times every 3 years.
 
mb2326 said:
8-4 each day with 12 weeks leave per year ... and they call it a "profession".

Time some of these teachers worked in the real world where you get 4 weeks leave per year (and not always able to take it), 8-6pm work day and no days off for strikes a few times every 3 years.
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Of course it's a profession. Four years at university, it's a profession. And teachers work in the real world - we see the real world every day, mate. Like I said above, I don't complain about the pay - it'd be nice to get more, but I'm not demanding it. The way the media has covered the "pay dispute" is farcical though - it's about much more than pay. But many on here are choosing to overlook that so they can have a crack at teachers.
 
fryingpan said:
Sounds like any other job to me.
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The hours are like any other job, yes. But the job itself should be valued more - not amongst society, I think most people value education very highly - but by the Government.

I don't think I will offend too many people here (or maybe I will) by saying that the job of a teacher (and for that matter, nurse, doctor) is more valued amongst society than a person who works at a call centre? I'm not saying they should be valued less as people, teachers/public servants etc are high and mighty etc. I am saying that if education is the cornerstone of our society, then should the job of those with the resonsibility of directing the future of education be seen as more than "any other job"?

Just putting it out there, I don't intend to offend anyone who works in a call centre :eek:
 

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