Its a brave politician to mess with the teachers and their very powerful union. It is seldom there can be a rational and emotion free debate about teaching and the education system.
Dilbert said, "Change is good, you go first." I hadn't realised he was a teacher advocate.
I have talked about change in previous blogs so it is not my intention to repeat myself, and occasionally I have had a tilt at education and its importance. With the election looming, education is playing a large part in the campaign rhetoric. Of course there are many good points but anything one party mentions apparently can't be acknowledged as good sense by another party.
Education and community are featuring and I think it extremely courageous of National to be talking about performance pay and more professional management of schools. And in my next blog I'll talk about the misnomer of smaller class sizes (a radical change from my earlier views).
My initial work experience was as a teacher. My first year was in a great school where everyone worked as a team. However my second year was a very different story. The team spirit was not there and some of the teachers clearly wished they weren't there also. They turned up just before the 9.00am start bell and were in their cars and gone as soon as the last bell rang.
Apart from the first year teacher, I would have been the lowest paid there. I always made sure I was there by 8.00am at the latest to prepare the room, set up the day's programme and in particular look out for and greet the children who were dropped off early because their parents had to head off to work in the factories.
At the end of the day I would spend an hour or so most days visiting homes so parents saw me at least once during the term and a couple of times a year. I always had a great turnout at Parent/Teacher evenings and great support from parents for class trips. I organised their first ever gala day and the PTA were elated at the great support and especially the money we raised.
You are probably getting my drift by now. My colleagues got paid way more than me because pay was service or time served based. Regardless of how much time and energy I put in, I would never earn as much as these less than enthusiastic colleagues until after long service their salaries would begin to plateau, and my service would mean that I would be an old man.
You won't be surprised to know that when the offer came from Whitcombe & Tombs to join the private sector, I grabbed the salary and company car with both hands.
I loved teaching so much and what I learnt in training and experience has stood me in good stead for a variety of subsequent career opportunities. Wherever else I have been since, I have always felt effort, energy and more importantly performance was always well recognised.
The Prime Minister recently said, "We can all remember a good teacher." He is absolutely correct, but do the really good teachers remember being especially rewarded for being really good? In my opinion, probably not.
