France Bans Ketchup in School Cafeterias

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

I certainly agree with you as far as teachers being given responsibilities which should chiefly be for the parents to deal with, and then are often unfairly blamed for unruly behaviour or learning difficulties and so on and so forth.

However every job has its ups and downs and surely in the overall picture you would consider teaching a rewarding job?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

Well, there's an 8 week break in the summer time, and 2 x 2 week end of term holidays at 2-3 month intervals throughout the year, plus another break around Easter time. That doesn't include other special days off, public holidays, etc etc.

Sure, sometimes teachers are required to work extra during the holidays, especially around exam time, etc, but it's not as if it's back breaking labour.

How many days of holidays do you reckon i've had off in the past year? I'll tell you.... zero. Oh to have even 29 days of paid holidays!!

Cheers,
Adam.

My college is open all summer. In fact, it closes only on Bank Holiday Mondays and between Christmas Eve and January 2.

As I said, I get 29 days holiday a year and I have heard just recently that this is being reduced.

Teaching may not be back breaking labour, but it's stressful and teachers are given more and more responsibility for things that parents and carers should really be taking care of.

My husband is self-employed, so he gets no paid holidays at all ever.

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

Well, there's an 8 week break in the summer time, and 2 x 2 week end of term holidays at 2-3 month intervals throughout the year, plus another break around Easter time. That doesn't include other special days off, public holidays, etc etc.

Sure, sometimes teachers are required to work extra during the holidays, especially around exam time, etc, but it's not as if it's back breaking labour.

How many days of holidays do you reckon i've had off in the past year? I'll tell you.... zero. Oh to have even 29 days of paid holidays!!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

[I]As for it being a tough job....they get 4 months out of every year off, including virtually all of summer. Yeah, tough gig.

Cheers,
Adam.

4 months holiday?? I don't know where you live - but I get 29 days per year. The legal minimum for all full time workers in the UK is 28 days per year.

'Virtually the whole summer off?' No chance.

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

I never mentioned respect or sympathy in my post. I just pointed out we are not responsible for all of the ills in society.

Nobody said they were, and nobody lumped every single teacher across the world in same category either. But the fact is that in many cases, these teachers hold the future of our children and therefore our next generation of professionals in their hands, and we've all encountered examples that don't fill us with great hope.

As for it being a tough job....they get 4 months out of every year off, including virtually all of summer. Yeah, tough gig.

Errata:

Oh yeah, what you say is shocking, and sorry you had that done to you, but in the modern age it's certainly not surprising. Parents often have little understanding of the best way to educate their children, they want them to stay the little angels they were when they were 6 or 7 rather than teach them about the real world.

I know that in high school we had to have permission slips from our parents anytime the teachers wanted to show us an even remotely edgy film or similar. Why send your kids to school if they can't be allowed to follow the curriculum that's been approved by the educators?

The worst part is that the ones who are wrapped in cotton wool the most as youngsters are often the ones who turn out to be the biggest troublemakers in later years.

As for the shortages, it's the same in many professions these days. You know they're scraping the barrel when you visit a Doctor who searches for answers regarding your symptoms...on Google.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

So, I think I am certainly an exception to your 'universally bad' example.

I wouldn't consider you a bored housewife teacher at all. I would consider you a teacher, with an avocation and a calling. It isn't the deciding to teach after the kids have left that makes someone a bored housewife teacher. It's the decision to do it because they are in fact bored, and it is one of the 5 acceptable professions for a traditional married southern woman who primarily identifies herself as a mother. (The others are charitable works, interior decorator, boutique employee, and the ever popular cosmetics dealer). These women choose teaching because it fits their schedule, allowing them to be home when their children are home. And these women almost always teach in public schools and send their kids to private school. They don't care. And they are vocal about why they teach, and why they don't care. It's an issue here. And we are so short of teachers there is nothing anyone can do about them.

On the other hand, I taught sex ed for a couple of years, and if you ever want proof that the real problem with kids today is the parents and not the teachers, give that a try while living in the bible belt. I got threatened with a lawsuit almost every week. Because I taught "lies" like, oral sex can't get you pregnant, or that there is in fact no birds or bees involved in the reproductive process, or that condoms are a necessary part of any sexually active life. I actually got fired for telling kids that sex feels good, its how we evolved so that we would want to do it and therefore procreate. And half of the outraged parents were upset that I said sex feels good, as if it was some kind of secret I wasn't supposed to share, and the other half were pissed that I referenced evolution as though it were fact. It was at this point that I pretty much decided that if I needed a license to teach, they needed a license to parent.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

I get the sense that either you are are teacher or have some connection with a teacher, yes?

Down here at this very moment there is a case unfolding at an inquest where a local 15 year old schoolboy drowned on a school excursion to the river in 2009 because they went swimming and the teachers - five of them - failed to make sure every student was accounted for.

I can live with teachers making some mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, but that is a teacher mistake which cost a life.

My example to Robert was just one of many I could give you, I once had a teacher who taught us that the plural of "fish" is "fishes", and plural of "mice" is "mouses". You wouldn't read about it.

Those sorts of things are not difficult to get right, you'd expect a 5 year old child to know that, never mind a University graduated and accredited teacher - which only re-affirms my belief that university is often a waste of time.

You plead for us to have some sympathy and respect for teachers - respect has to be earnt, mate.

Oh, and by the way, i've not been a teacher, but i've been a Teachers Aide - and I lasted more than an hour.

Errata:

Wow. One hopes that they teach their own children better than that! They sound similar to relief teachers, who just fill in for sick or holidaying regular teachers....

For the record, the majority of teachers are pretty good, but the bad ones tend to be REALLY bad.

Cheers,
Adam.

I never mentioned respect or sympathy in my post. I just pointed out we are not responsible for all of the ills in society.

Of course you can find examples of bad teachers. Every group in society has bad examples. As you state, the majority of teachers are pretty good and in some regions, they do a very difficult job.

[Limehouse]

I had a teacher tell us that we (the US) won the Bay of Pigs Invasion. And I told her that was wrong about five different ways, and she said "well thats how it is on the test. I get paid whether you learn or not."

But she wasn't a real teacher. Here at least we have the "bored housewife teacher", which is a woman who get her teaching creds after her kids start school so she isn't in the house watching soaps all day. They don't want to teach. They want something to do until their kids get home, and they don't particularly care about the money. And they are universally terrible teachers.

Wow, Errata, it isn't like you to just write off a whole group of people based on groundless assumptions.

I graduated when my children were small. I did so because prior to that, I did not have the opportunities or the money to go to university due to deeply personal circumstances. I graduated with a First Class degree and followed that with a PGCE and other post-graduate qualifications.

I work with some of the most difficult young people you could encounter. I also work in teacher training. I have been graded by Ofsted as being 'outstanding' and to top it all, I have considerable visual and sometimes mobility difficulties due to a complex and progressive genetic disease. Both my children have grown up but I am still teaching. So, I think I am certainly an exception to your 'universally bad' example.

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

I get the sense that either you are are teacher or have some connection with a teacher, yes?

Down here at this very moment there is a case unfolding at an inquest where a local 15 year old schoolboy drowned on a school excursion to the river in 2009 because they went swimming and the teachers - five of them - failed to make sure every student was accounted for.

I can live with teachers making some mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, but that is a teacher mistake which cost a life.

My example to Robert was just one of many I could give you, I once had a teacher who taught us that the plural of "fish" is "fishes", and plural of "mice" is "mouses". You wouldn't read about it.

Those sorts of things are not difficult to get right, you'd expect a 5 year old child to know that, never mind a University graduated and accredited teacher - which only re-affirms my belief that university is often a waste of time.

You plead for us to have some sympathy and respect for teachers - respect has to be earnt, mate.

Oh, and by the way, i've not been a teacher, but i've been a Teachers Aide - and I lasted more than an hour.

Errata:

Wow. One hopes that they teach their own children better than that! They sound similar to relief teachers, who just fill in for sick or holidaying regular teachers....

For the record, the majority of teachers are pretty good, but the bad ones tend to be REALLY bad.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

I once had a teacher argue the point with me that Athens was the capital of Italy and Rome was the capital of Greece.

Cheers,
Adam.

I had a teacher tell us that we (the US) won the Bay of Pigs Invasion. And I told her that was wrong about five different ways, and she said "well thats how it is on the test. I get paid whether you learn or not."

But she wasn't a real teacher. Here at least we have the "bored housewife teacher", which is a woman who get her teaching creds after her kids start school so she isn't in the house watching soaps all day. They don't want to teach. They want something to do until their kids get home, and they don't particularly care about the money. And they are universally terrible teachers.

[Heinrich]

French food is so tasty and nutritious there should never be any call for such junk as ketchup.

[Limehouse]

Hi Adam

LOL. Maybe we should find out what the teachers are eating. Perhaps too much junk food is making the teachers hyperactive and hence they find it difficult to learn...

Maybe teachers are just sick of being held responsible for everything that's wrong with society these days. Perhaps some of you should try the job instead of taking every opportunity to have a sly dig. I bet you would not last for more than an hour.

[Robert]

Hi Adam

LOL. Maybe we should find out what the teachers are eating. Perhaps too much junk food is making the teachers hyperactive and hence they find it difficult to learn...

[Adam Went]

Sadly, Robert, as i've come to find out a few times first hand, the teachers themselves struggle to do basic mathematics - indeed, sometimes, students have been known to correct them, which is indeed a very sorry state of affairs. Of course everybody has their knowledgeable points and their weak points, but if you're being paid to teach a certain subject, then you should know enough to be able to impart something worthwhile on that subject.

I once had a teacher argue the point with me that Athens was the capital of Italy and Rome was the capital of Greece.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Robert]

Adam, I'd be happier if teachers could bring themselves to teach their pupils to add up, subtract and spell correctly.