Many of the issues with teachers go back to the 1970's, and I knwo because I was there. At that time over 90% of university graduates could not get jobs so the alternative for many was teaching. Not because they wished to be teachers, but because it was a job. I graduated as a geologist and was offered a teaching post in any science and would have been paid extra because I was a geologist, but this was not a curriculum subject. I turned it down and joined industry because I felt I was not cut out to be teacher. However, very many of my peer group did, especially those with MA degrees in what we now call the Social Sciences. Basically do 1 lecture per week and take part in a political demo, and you were a graduate. I know, I watched them.
These people were disappointed in themselves because they adopted not their first choice of career, and used the system to make chaos for many years by striking and downgrading everything they touched. We now do have young people wishing to become teachers because they do care, but are still being thwarted by these dinosaurs from a previous life who are in senior positions. As they themselves were failures they cannot accept anyone else being sucessful. Many joined politics and can be seen in the ranks of the Labour Party, again always sneering at anyone trying to improve themselves. Of course, they get to retire at the age of 50 and have a full taxpayer paid pension, but will never be happy.
I do accept that the school environment today does not always lead to an educational harmony, but again feel much of this lies at the door of these so called teachers from the past who have always destroyed, rather than creating. The kids just follow their example. I know from personal experience when my own kids were doing their O and A levels in the 1980's the teachers went on strike, just before the Prelim exams. On going to a school meeting the opinion of the teachers was that they did not give a toss for the damage they were doing to the kids, they just wanted more money and shorter hours. I, like others had to mortgage myself to the hilt, to pay for a private education in order to give my kids a fair start in lfe. So I have very little sympathy to teachers over the age of 40.
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