Strike!

[flip_flop]

There was a teacher on the BBC this morning who said teachers 'can't' work until they are 68.

Was he confusing 'can't' with 'won't'?

Why can't teachers work until they are 68?

[joeluke]

Of course our poor overworked teachers can't (won't) work until they are 68

They will be too burned out from having to work 39 weeks a year, only having 13 weeks (which is 3 times the number of holidays an average worker gets) holidays a year

How many of us would love a job which gives 13 weeks (and 6/7 weeks of that allowance in peak summer time) of holidays a year?

Lots of people are facing having to work beyond the age of 65, why should teachers be any different?

[askyourgran]

I'm sure my music teacher was about 80. Maybe with todays larger classes and larger, taller children it is pobably safer for the teachers to be younger and fitter (black belts even).

[NiceCupOfTea]

If you think being a teacher is so great, go and be one then. Don't moan about their holidays, they have always been like that. You can't suddenly complain that they're too lax. When someone has terms and conditions attached to a job, and those terms and conditions are suddenly changed it is only right that they should protest if they get worse. Do you really want some push-over wimp to be teaching your children? I don't.

[modeller]

Teaching is a stressful job and made far worse by being prevented from punishing young thugs. Discipline is the greatest necessity in the classroom but whenever a teacher tries to applies sanctions he/she is rarely backed up by the management , the government or the parents.
I loved teaching and taught until I was 65 but when you see youngsters who had been suspended for drug dealing or violence being allowed back into school within two days because of their human rights then it was time to retire.

[sherrardk]

I would rather stick wasps up my ar$e than go back to teaching. I was spat at, shoved (when obviously pregnant), followed home whilst driving by a student in his car, sworn at, sent into the toilets (by the head) to check on a girl pupil who was being held against her will by her boyfriend, threatened by parents - the list goes on. As Nicecupoftea says, if you think it is such a cushy job, why don't you do it?

[landscaper2]

68 is the new 60 - we are being told time and again that we are living longer and are in better health. What should have happened is that our various weak governments should have spotted this coming years ago and edged the retirement age of public sector employees (and their contributions) up a bit at a time to make Britain a fairer place.
Unfortunately they did nothing - even ignored the tsunami of baby boomers coming through the system that would be dependant on support.

So now it's all or nothing - forget your contracts, they are going to re-written, it will be a fairer society and public employees will no longer feel guilty drawing a gold plated pension while private sector workers continue to work till they drop. 'We are all in this together'!

[emmie]

No i wouldn't either, but blame successive governments for messing around with education in general. If teachers were allowed to teach, have discipline where its needed, without fear of being hauled off to court for the slightest thing, respect might come back into the classroom. At school we all stood up when the teacher came into the room, and didn't think we knew more than the teachers, some were old battle axes, but no one was ever expelled, suspended in all the time i was there. Nor would we ever think to abuse a teacher, totally unheard of.

[Manwithnoname]

Yes Postdog. & Mr Churchill rarely never had a few to many, sometimes too much.

[andy-hughes]

AOG - might I suggest that you never actually been a teacher? Just a thought ...