Teachers going out on strike

in the middle of the year twelve examination period seems unbelievable - and irresponsible. The union in this state is very different from the one which was in place when I left the teaching profession.  

When I was growing up and in my first couple of years as a teacher there was the "teachers' institute". It was not actually a union at all. It was run largely by the heads of schools and teachers with more senior positions. It ran training sessions in things like the "new maths" and conferences about educational issues. It was considered to "useful" rather than "political".

I suppose it started to change around the time the Senior Cat was given the task of running a very big international conference. There were speakers from all over the country and from overseas. Some of those speakers saw education as a political issue. I remember the Senior Cat being concerned about what some of them were saying. He could see where it was going but also knew it was going to happen anyway. He saw his role as damage limitation and he had plenty of backers even among the rank and file of the profession. Teachers, like nurses and firefighters, did not go out on strike.

They do now. There was a one day strike earlier this year. The kittens in this street thought they were getting a day off. They didn't. Some of their teachers broke ranks. 

I hope enough teachers will break ranks this time to ensure that the students doing exams will have someone there. It's too late to be learning anything more perhaps but just have your teacher there can be comforting...or just someone you know who has listened to your worries about exams.

Our local library staff are doing their usual outstanding job of looking after all the high school students who come in for a quiet place to work. I took in more chocolate frogs yesterday and one of the staff quietly took them around. One or two of the students I know guessed where they had come and gave me grins and thumbs up as I passed. There was no need to say anything. If they need to talk about a point in their upcoming psychology exams they will contact their teacher now. It's not my role to see them through the exam with anything more than chocolate and sympathy. It will be up to their teachers to listen to last minute cries for help and, just as importantly, to be there when they have finished those anxious hours of answering questions. 

There really are roles in which it is unacceptable to strike at certain times. Just as a surgeon would not go out on strike part way through an operation teachers should not go out on strike part way through that final push to the best pass possible. Those sort of politics have no place in education.