Money not my God either, I can assure you, Cryrst.

I work as a lecturer in an FE college and have had to watch as more and more staff get trimmed, pushing the workload onto the remaining staff.

The level of stress in the job is immense as we are teaching the students who didn't make it to uni, are more kinaesthetically minded. In my subject, English, there are those who just don't want to do it and many will refuse, try to be disruptive and even violent in the process: all part of the job.

Control in the classroom is a challenge, I can assure you again.

As a lecturer, I trained in order to be able to teach: it's a highly - specialised profession yet many lecturers are now employed on a 'sessional' basis ie zero-hours contracts so they're only paid for their time in front of students. All the other, vital, work like prep, marking etc is not paid. That's being employed, essentially, on a casual basis, without the benefits of salaried staff.

Now, there are those who say (maybe you are one of them) 'well, you don't go into teaching for the money' and that is true-to a certain extent.

I'm afraid, though, that we've reached the point where it seems that the piss is being taken.

We carry out an very valuable role in teaching young adults as they prepare for the world of work. The College says they cannot give us more money because 'We are a business and would go into debt'. A business. Yet their funding comes, to a great extent, from the state and that funding has got less and less in real terms over the years and that means the colleges themselves are between a rock and a hard place.

Meanwhile, many of the students I teach have parents who do, indeed, go out and seek other jobs. Some have two or three but are still unable to cope financially; I really feel for them, working their butts off like honest citizens but finding themselves in the state they're in.

Yet, for all that, I don't despise other workers for taking industrial action. Wages in this country are being driven down further and further and I don't think that's fair. It's not like the workforce over the last 10 years has been militant; far from it. I think they've been very patient.

Most worrying is that, before long, young people who are the future of teaching will be saying: "Nah, what's the point of doing that as a profession? I'll find another job to look for", as you suggest, and the young students of this country, the country's future, in essence, are the ones that are affected.

Edited by Glazier#1 (01 Sep 2022 10.44am)

A formerly socially cohesive country at ease with itself now has real problems.....I wonder just why that could be?

Sweden would certainly have experienced far less rapes wouldn't it.

Perhaps we should reflect that those that want to live in diverse societies should go find them and live in them. Rather than change formerly content ones without specifically asking first.

I tend to find that, of those who want mass immigration, few of them tend to stay and live in those highly diverse areas or move to them. Instead, what is usually the case is that they move to nice affluent safe areas.

Diversity for thee, not for me.

Once someone has looked at this topic for some time it's quite easy to come to obvious conclusions.....though nice polite society prefers to censor them.

It prefers safe lies to inconvenient truths.

Yeah. "Bloody teachers: start work at 9, leave at 3, all those effing holidays and all they do is moan."

Familiar?

Yet, during the pandemic, after the first lockdown, when it was announced that schools would re-open and kids go back, you could almost hear a cheer all around the country.
All those who had slagged teachers off had suddenly realised how skilled a job it is to teach the young mind.

When we did go back, I had to regularly run the gauntlet, walking down crowded corridors of students to get to my class room, many of them refusing to wear masks.

Came across one group of lads - brickies- none wearing masks. when I asked them to put them on: "Don't see the f***ing point" one said and all his mates nodded.

A week later (9th Dec) I was flat-packed in my bed and very seriously ill. Totally fuxcked. Couldn't return to work until Feb and even then just knocked out. Infected my wife and daughter, too.

I wish that effing student had seen me. Then he would've seen the point.

But hey. Bloody teachers, eh? Always whining. Lol

Don't deserve anything. Why can't they be happy with 1.5% to reward them and be happy. Always bloody whining.

You actually think you wouldn't have caught covid if everyone was wearing a mask? You were going to catch it regardless.

What are you teaching PE? Humanities?

That 'effing' student was right.

You thinking that you could avoid catching covid, especially as a teacher by students...in the main wearing predominantly cheap cloth over their mouths is mistaken. Masks, made a marginal if any difference.

In fact, it makes far more sense for most of them to catch the bloody thing as quickly as possible (as no doubt happened) and become immune.

But regardless, you were going to catch it, whether that was at school or elsewhere.

Edited by Stirlingsays (01 Sep 2022 2.42pm)

Yes, they did catch it, were asymptomatic and passed it on to each other and anyone else, young or old.

I certainly wasn't going to catch it during lock down when I wasn't mixing. when I was told I had to return to college, I had to go and could well have died as a result. Still, I suppose I should stop whining like a snowflake.

But I sense there will always be people who advocate that we should've just let it run riot and have done. I'm not one of them and would rather not get into that debate, if you'll excuse me.

Edited by Glazier#1 (01 Sep 2022 3.03pm)