Teacher pay rise

Teachers chalk up a historic history! announces The Age.

Melbourne newspapers have been in an ecstatic flurry the past few days since a pay rise was announced for Victorian teachers, meaning that they’re no longer be worst paid in the country; a fact I found unbelievable considering Victoria comes only second to New South Wales in the grand scheme of everything – population, education standards and probably even drunk drivers [this is due, largely to the fact that we're the two most populated states in this great island wasteland of ours.] In the lead up to the decision, there were photographs of teachers enraged over their lack of a pay rise with signs declaring: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”

The outcome of this is great and all for those who deserve it but I do have a few burrs on my back in regard to some degenerates in the teaching profession who will – no doubt – do even less work for their money.

Now that aforementioned sign is the first of my burrs. Thank a teacher for my ability to read? I think not, you arrogant bastards. Having arrived in Australia and attending my first primary school, I was shoved off to ESL class (English as a Second Language) where I was supposed to pick up elements of verbal communication by osmosis. I say by osmosis because the ESL teacher employed at my PS did Jack Schitt in terms of enseignements and instead spend the lessons laughing at us poor immigrants’ accents. I only realised what she was doing when I had learned sufficient language skills to be able to understand her sarcastic and ill-tempered remarks. I did not learn English at school as my first [useful] steps were taken by my father’s initiative in dragging me to the library and dumping me in the children’s fiction section. Thank a teacher? I’d rather sack that incompetent disgrace and thank my local city council for providing the appropriate learning environment. And even from then onwards, my learning process was hindered by these incompetents who kept me from the joy of learning so that they could rigidly follow the guidelines set down by the state government. I’m sure in many developed countries children who have already learned, or understand, the material are encouraged to go further with what they have. Instead, my friends and I were ‘allowed’ [grace à la générosité de mes profs] to sit in the corner and do nothing. I even have one painful memory of receiving detention for speaking Mandarin with my friends, having been told that I was now in a country where that language was not spoken, by Italian/Greek descendant teachers who later went to the staff room and had a nice chat in their own native language. Mathematics was a farce [I knew more than the teacher did and she was all too often wrong,] Italian was a waste of time watching the same reruns of Muzzi over and over again, scientific knowledge was non-existent in these poor excuses for instructors and English/Creative Writing was the only class in which I paid attention and that was, again, a let down.

Thinking that it would all get better in Secondary School, I went off to private school with my hopes all elevated, only to have them dashed against the proverbial rocks yet again. Teachers whose knowledge of their subjects had faded with time and misuse, an uncaring attitude towards learning and results and an over-stressed importance on extra-curricular activities and the dramatic arts. I supposed that I had chosen the wrong school and took solace in the fact that among these hundreds of over-qualified idiots there were a few gems. [Namely the Veque, Trufitt and Upperton trio.]

So while I am happy for the few teachers deserving the pay rise – the few who love what they do, who are willing to pass on their knowledge to future generations and who know what they’re doing with the minds of the young – I’m irritated that the thousands of lazy teachers across the state just got a pay rise for doing nothing but being lazy.

Oh, you be sure this applies to everyone who works, I’m not just saying that this ‘money for no work’ exists solely in the teaching profession.

/angry tirade