THE teachers’ strike on Wednesday was both illegal and ill timed.
There are plans to continue industrial action until the matter is resolved of principals having 70 per cent of the say in hiring and firing of staff.
One of the arguments for the industrial action is that this will lead to less permanency and more casual staff being used. Not if you are doing your job!
The reality is that it will lead to the long-overdue removal of “dead wood” in the teaching ranks. For far too long, too many teachers, particularly secondary teachers, have simply modified old and outdated programs with minimum effort and even less thought.
The real reason teachers are taking industrial action is that they are scared of having their comfort zone removed. They may actually have to try harder and remember why they are there. This is sad, because among all the loafers and the whingers are some genuinely sincere and dedicated practitioners.
As a former teacher, my commitment was to the duty of care and welfare of the students. We didn’t have disruptive stopwork meetings; we had staff meetings after school.
We didn’t inconvenience parents and students, particularly those in rural locations; we accommodated their needs.
Bus duty means a concerned effort to ensure the right students get on the right bus; a duty of care. It is not a time to natter or gossip, ignoring the approaching buses and not getting students ready for departure.
As a schoolbus driver I find the lack of attention to this most basic of duties appaling. Tamworth High is the exception and only because the deputy principal is on duty more often than not.
I have a number of Year 5 students on my bus who don’t know their times tables.
They haven’t been taught them because too many of their teachers are gasbagging and whingeing about “The Department” or “The Government” instead of identifying the needs of their students.
Perhaps if you just get on with the job of teaching you will find that your jobs will be safe. You don’t know how lucky you are. We had Michael Yabsley as the minister of education.
I have never voted Liberal in my life and don’t ever intend to. But the O’Farrell government is right in trying to clean up this mess that is the public-school teaching profession.
Once admired and respected, now loathed and scorned. You only have yourselves to blame.
AL LEFEBVRE
KOOTINGAL