Reform of teacher's pay system mooted,

And to the people that thought I was “complaining” about my family, I was reminding people that teachers also have families whom we love to spend time with and usually sacrifice time with for the job – if they truly want to do a good job.

I also want to reiterate that I was being sarcastic and for some, the opportunity to take the sarcasm as fact still astounds me.

I’d rather spend the school holidays with my children, however, I do still have to work at that time – which most people assume teachers don’t do.

No vg, you’re insinuating that as a teacher I have nothing to do in the holidays.

Newsflash, I do. Hence my reminding you I have children to look after. I have two roles, one as a teacher and one as a mother.

Twist and turn my words to suit yourself.

12 hour shifts, seen that, it’s nothing new. Standard for the navy.

I’ve not been on a “holiday” since 1992. Shall I cry now?

I spend my holidays, as you call it, working. But that’s bad right? Teachers are bludgers over those times of the year.

I’ve been up since 5:30am marking essays. I have parent teacher interviews tonight as well. Do I get paid to sit and talk to parents? No. Could I call them during the day when I am being paid? Yes.

So why am I going? Because it is a part of my job. Does it mean that those teachers who always opt out of parent teacher interviews bad? Some want to spend time with their own families and some can’t be bothered. Should they be penalised?

How can you measure a teachers performance? They either bust their guts for their students or they are the slackest arseholes in the world.

The point is moot. You can’t have it both ways.

And might I say LG and I are about 50/50 on the agree/disagree thing

You don’t work 52 weeks a year. You get holidays, which are contemporarily defined as blocks of time away from work, not Maldives adventures.

Using that logic, my last ‘holiday’ was in 2002 when I went to Hawaii. I work, my wife will soon be going back to work part time, and our little boy will have to go into childcare. Not what either of us want but its a financial reality.

I work rotating 12hr shifts. I work all through the night as well as all through the day. Sometimes I even have to get out of bed at 11am, after getting in at 6am, to look after my child or tend to normal domestic type stuff. Its part and parcel of being a family. I dont complain.

You moan about something that just about everybody does every day. I am so with LG on this its not funny. You are complaining about having to do what every working mother since Eve has had to do. Look after their offspring during ‘holidays’. Jesus, the only time my parents had holidays is when we were on school holidays and they also had to bear the hideous burden of a family vacation rather than locking up their kids in the cupboard and jetting off to the Whitsundays together.

You are completely, and unsurprisingly, missing the point

I meant to add, my whole family is defence, and I knew what I was getting myself into, but again, I hate people “assuming” re: holidays.

LG, no I hate people “assuming” that teachers get 10 weeks holiday. I have to put my children into holiday care at least once or twice a week because I have to do PD or have a meeting at the school.

Non-teachers also get the luxury of 40weeks a year 9-3 without their children.

Nyssa you are completely missing the point. You get 10 weeks holiday to look after your children. Non-teachers get 4 weeks holiday to look after theirs. Doing it without your husband is because you married a sailor. It’s normal. My mother did it with 2 kids for 10 years. It sucks, but her pet hate is people bitching about it because only an idiot would not realise sailors go to sea.

I was being sarcastic re: overtime.

Do people want teachers who put in the effort or teachers who don’t give a damn and work from 9-3?

Pretty simple question.

My argument re: family was that I don’t get a “holiday” which is the catchcry of people who say teachers get 10 weeks holidays etc.

I work during my holidays, I look after my kids and I do it all without my husband.

So again vg, when do I have time for what you call a “holiday”, please let me know.

yes and no….. Yes in that in relies on constant monitoring and a controlled environment – No in that it encourages high performance and nuturing with financial gain…

hmm, sounds suspiciously like a big brother arrangement AD.

Okay ongoing regular pysch tests on students and family… if teachers have a positive impact on students from troubled families then they get further bonus’s….

Yes I can see some flaws in this early model… but I welcome any advice….

Hey AD,

How would you extend that concept to parents? I’d argue they are a much bigger factor in the equation than any single teacher.

Best way to judge teachers… evaluate where the kids they taught are twenty years down the track (including summary of the 20 years passed)…
So if in twenty years kids have good jobs and stable mentality then teachers get a pay rise… if their students are dole bludgers (with nothing to show eg are bludging on the dole for the greater purpose of art etc) or have killed themselves etc it cut’s how much they get paid…

This way a teacher will stay on the same wage for the first 20 years of the career…. then the better they have taught the better they will do…. of course there is variables like other teachers doing a bad job….but that is too bad..

of course you would make the wage increases at each year very substantial….

Its all about making life choices, then complaining about them…a la the above.

I have had to put my potential career as international playboy, bon vivante, raconteur and Monaco resident on hold due to
a) Getting married
b) Having a child; and
c) Having a job here

All 3 are my life choices, and I don’t complain about any of them. In fact I enjoy actually taking holidays to spend more time with my family. And guess what? I quite regularly get the 4am phone call to come to work (because I am on call) when I am in the middle of a block of days off but, again, that is my choice and I don’t complain.

Some of us are just sick and tired of certain occupations that people enter with open eyes and complain about as soon as they’re in the front door. Nurses and teachers are the most highly publicised at the top of that list.

Other occupations use more mature industrial measures to achieve their end goals, rather than disrupt the public they are meant to serve.

It seems to me the teachers wages situation is in a mess, but there are far more mature and well met means to approach it by, as well as having cogent arguments that get the public behind you, not alienate them. Complaining about your family lot is not one of them. I gather no-one held a gun to your head and forced you to conceive, nor is your partner being press-ganged out to sea. Its part and parcel of being a sailors wife (spoken as a former Naval man myself).

Life choices aren’t the way to win our hearts

Re this comment”….Each 2 week break I am working plus my duties as a mother. I don’t have help as hubby is at sea so I do it 24/7. In the 6 week holiday break, I have 3 children at home – damn, I’ve missed my chance at Aruba.”

So please tell me when do I get holidays? Let me know so I can book that long awaited trip to the Shinto shrines in Japan.

Sorry Nyssa, you jumped the shark. I’m a single parent also. Does that mean my 4 weeks of holidays don’t count because I have a child at home. Focus on work holiday, not home situation, which is completely irrelivant.

It’s a bit rich to use the fact that family responsibilities eat into your holiday time to then argue that you don’t actually get holidays.

Simply adopt out the kids and Aruba awaits.

sorry nyssa, let me amend that single mother comment to mother with absentia father.

actually nyssa, that was me being lazy and not logging in. i alwo pressed say it before i managed to add “inefficient or exploited”

as for being a single mother of three kids, that is hardly relevant to any discussion about what teachers wages should be.

Sorry ‘you’re awake’

Onward Christian soldiers. Next time your awake at 4 in the morning in the middle of a 12hr shift give me a yell.

And I dont complain about it, in fact I love my job.

Teachers and nurses, the 2 biggest whingeing collectives ever created

Good try vg, try four. Each 2 week break I am working plus my duties as a mother. I don’t have help as hubby is at sea so I do it 24/7.

In the 6 week holiday break, I have 3 children at home – damn, I’ve missed my chance at Aruba.

So please tell me when do I get holidays? Let me know so I can book that long awaited trip to the Shinto shrines in Japan.

riotgirl, see teachers can’t win. We don’t work longer hours, we’re seen as “bad” teachers. We do work longer hours, we’re see (in your eyes) as “stupid”.

So what is it? Do people want teachers who do put in the hours for your children to learn or not?

“Anyone want me to put in an overtime form?”

I think your roughly 10 weeks of holidays a year makes up for it

nope, working longer hours than u are paid for just makes u stupid.

Think of all the overtime teachers aren’t claiming Jazz…..now that’s a hell of a lot of money.

I’m paid for 38.5hrs (roughly). I work 60hrs (which includes weekends and holidays). Anyone want me to put in an overtime form?

ha ha. obviously the solution is to pay teachers less then GnT., and think of all the money that would free up for busways 😉

It is impossible (or at least darn difficult) to judge an excellent teacher. You can’t judge teachers on student outcomes because, as influential as they are, they aren’t solely responsible for every student’s results. Even if every student got an A, since in most cases it is the teacher doing the assessing, they could easily arrange this to make themselves look good.

You can’t necessarily judge teachers on rapport with kids, because the most liked teachers aren’t always the most effective.

And teahcers can’t usually be judged on their classroom performance by a supervisor or colleague, because most of the time teachers are in the classroom by themselves and everone else is also busy teaching – supervisors don’t have time to sit in on classes to judge teachers’ performance. And what would the criteria be anyway?

Any suggestion to judge teachers in any way is almost impossible to implement.

Really quite simple; pay more to those who take on greater responsibilities. Rather than using curriculum outcomes to judge good from bad, how about simply all those extra-curricular tasks that teachers endlessly take on?
Pay more for Year group co-ordinators, organisers of excursions, teachers that supervise at socials, etc. Pay less to those teachers who never bother doing these things (and they are out there).

Oops, typo – you’re (second paragraph).

By their ability to teach the curriculum effectively so that EVERY child gets more than a C. (sorry being cynical again)

But some people (ex-Fed Ed Minister) believes that no one should fail, and that’s all well and good if your in the ivory tower.

Some kids just don’t do well in school – that’s been a fact since the dawn of time. You can spend hours outside of class – lunches etc – tutoring them but sometimes not even that works.

Honestly, it should be judged (if it were to be judged) on rapport with students, ability to work with difficult students, completion of curriculum and unit outlines (whether students pass or fail) etc.

It’s still unrealistic. Hell I’d LOVE to judge the pollies on their actions and pay them accordingly. For some, they’d be no better off than those poor homeless in Civic.

How can someone be judged as a good or a bad teacher ?

It almost seems like a “dob in” the bad teacher game.

Yes teachers work hard but in the next 5 yrs 50% will retire and that includes principals and deputies. Replacements will be needed and the Dept will be looking to those who have taught 8+yrs.

I just think anything like this is a joke.

Then again, I’ve become too cynical about teaching (i.e. colleagues).