Strike warning

[Porth]

Cjb I am not one of Outcast's creations and totally unrelated.

Surely we can  disagree with each other have a meaningful discussion but at the end agree with the concept that we have differing ideas and without having to resort to personal and direct attacks.

Obviously there is a comfort factor of sitting in front of a screen and letting loose.

Here may I turn to education and indeed HE.  I have three degrees one earlier in life two later in life and at the grand old age of 50+.  No great deal anyone could and has done what I have done and indeed obtained better degrees.

Facts later degrees were a 2.1 (Hons) in Law then Masters in Law then read for the Bar.

However what had happened was that earlier I had spent some twenty five years in banking and reached the position of Regional Director.  My tutors Profs and the like kept on lecturing me on the law, I responded to the effect that whilst the law was the law reality in commerce was altogether different.  We could not agree and still do not agree.  They were only concerned with what the books said and not what reality taught.

Whilst we had heated debates we still remain friends and from time to time I am called in to give lectures on reality in the commercial and banking sector. 

That is what I call balance.

Education and HE is not to be viewed as a rarified atmosphere and divorced from reality. Those who work within it are not to be considered as the only bastions what is good in our society.  Indeed there is a discourse here in the UK which goes along the route of why should our teachers and dare I say it the Police have protection pension wise when our colleagues in industry suffer the fate of capitalism and the god of shareholder value.  On that I am prepared to have an argument with you!

Last point I am the son of a deceased Welsh miner.  Do you think I have views about Baroness Thatcher and the Miners Strike of 84/85.  Indeed it was the subject of my thesis.  Naturally I do and will argue my case until my last breath.  However what I do not do is to attack on a personal basis those who do not agree with my positioning.

And here and just in case you think I came down in favour of the Miners....I did not it was two protagonists fighting for what they thought was right and having no consideration for their actions.

Sorry I have gone offtrack but hope there is someone out there who will forgive me.

 

[Cjb]

Anyone that's new to this forum may well be unaware that Outcast goes out of his way to slag off teachers at every opportunity, regardless of the subject of the thread. Dick Smith has had exactly the same treatment. When somebody basically tells me that I'm lazy and overpaid I take offence to that. He even had a post removed (whilst posting under a different name) by the moderators for suggesting that as I work with children I must be a paedophile.

I'm pretty confident that those that have been posting on the site for a while will know what a wind-up artist Outcast is. As I see it, my only crime is to be foolish enough to respond to his persistently inane postings.

[Izz.]

Dear CJD, this is a forum, open to views on the posted topic. The current topic is "Strike Warning"! Even if you are proposing a "preventative strike" on Outcast, this forum is not the place to express it!

Surely, as a primary teacher, you have the skills to deal with awkward situations (i.e. an irrational aversion to a specific pupil), don't you?

I can only suggest that you concentrate and don't allow yourself to get distracted from the subject.

Respect, tolerance and a sense of humour, go a long way in the classroom (as in life too).

[Cjb]

There's nothing irrational about this particular aversion.

[JohnM]

Izz and Porth,

One of the troubles with Outcast is that he disagrees with teachers just for the sake of it. I actually find it quite sad, he obviously had a bad time at school and he has been unable to get over it.  Before anybody remembers the "debate" I had with Dick about teachers and accuses me of hypocrisy, Dick and I will not agree about teachers, but we can and do, agree about others things. Outcast will not agree with the teachers on principal, he no longer has to do what they say, so he doesn't.

I don't read Outcasts posts because I find them hard to read and I have found that when I do sort out what he is trying to say, he is often ill informed. So I now can't be bothered to even try to read them.

 

[Russethouse]

Izz, I think the situation you have walked into is a little like picking up a book and starting in the middle ! You may well read what is in this thread and take it at face value, however those members who have followed the LF board over a longer period will be only too familiar with Outcasts aversions to teachers, among other things.

Frankly, it is becoming more than a little irksome - however I have to say that I dislike postings which are of a personal nature, like Porth I feel it is perfectly possible to discuss a topic without getting into personal matters.

Please be aware that the moderators DO read the posts and will take suitable action if and when appropriate.

[Battypuss]

As I expected, the daughter in 6ième came home with a great big smile on her face and a slip of paper from College yesterday. 'Classes may or may not be disrupted on thursday due a proposed action'. Mmm. Clear as mud.

She has her own key and can find her own way home, thank heavens.

[SaligoBay]

Ours was "Some teachers might be on strike on Thursday.  All pupil absences must be accompanied by a suitable excuse".

I think son will have to go to collège, he was complaining this morning that none of his profs EVER go on strike.   

 

[Mistral]

Well, you're both better informed than pupils at my collège. They were told last week that the cantine would not be providing food but that they could bring in packed lunches (cries of outrage) but the only other information they have had is a notice in the window of the vie scolaire teling them to check with individual teachers. Of course, that's all the school can do. They are not allowed to tell people officially who will be on strike and teachers have no obligation to warn their pupils either (although we usually do, especialliy where there are buses)

As for "suitable excuse" that always makes me laugh. I've had pupils come in with "grève" on their carnet when all their teachers were there. (but of course, the parents might not be aware of that) But as long as it's signed by the parents we have to accept eny excuse. Our CPE  decided a long time ago, that she wasn't going to bother putting strike absences in the computer or ringing parents. This means that non striking teachers mark the kids as absent and she puts the absence slips in a drawer. The pupils are told not to bother with a signed parental note. By the time they get to 4eme/3eme they've worked out that this gives them a whole free day with no-one bothering about where they are.

Both kids in primaire have class tomorrow but not today because the teachers are having a "réunion syndical". Littlest one in maternelle, has school today but both her teachers are on strike tomorrow.

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

Cjd,please would you like to post where I said that you OR anyone else who works with kids MUST be child abusers,what I said and will say once again that a french teacher at the school I went had sex with a 13 year old girl and was took to court and found guilty,NOT that all people that work with kids are the same.

My views about teaching is for the most part based on the fact that they have far to many weeks holidays,and it his not just me.

Tomorrow my kids teachers are on strike and that means that the kids will have to spend all day with us,nice too have them but may get less done than we wanted.

[Cjb]

You made this post under one of your previous pseudonyms, and it was subsequently removed by the forum moderators. The biggest risk posed to children actually exists within the family and close friends - 90 per cent of child abuse cases!!

The whole country's on strike. Singling out the teachers seems a little unfair. For my part, I've never been on strike and do not believe in it, even when other colleagues have taken industrial action.

Perhaps you shouldn't tar us all with the same brush.

[Battypuss]

Daughter has clarified matters a little; all teachers except the sporty one are on grève and there will be no lunch. For one hour of sport, I reckon she can skip the day; there's no guarantee about the bus anyway! I did warn her all fallout from this decision (eg extra homework etc) would fall on her, not me, and this has been accepted. So she can stay home, as most of her friends are doing.

Incidentally, I neither agree nor disagree with strikes, but walking about three miles to College, and three miles back seems a bit stupid for an hour of long jump.

[Mistral]

Battypus, I quite agree. A lot of my pupils come by bus and some of them have to come in at nine for one single lesson at eleven and then wait for the 3.30 bus. It seems like a lot of hanging around. Add to that a cold lunch (not too frightening for Brits but horrifying to French people) and it all seems a bit pointless.

I hadn't thought about there being no buses. That should interesting. My pupils come from next to school, the other side of town (a good half an hour on foot) and a neighbouring village 10km away.

 

[Russethouse]

Outcast, I am sure teachers don't actually mind the holidays, but I believe that the way children learn also comes into the equation........they need a break too !

[opas]

Whilst I agree that the Children need to recharge their batteries,but, after 10 days they are bored,mums and dads are skint with either paying out for childcare or activities to amuse them and poor old grannies and grandads are worn out as some feel it is their duty to do some childminding.  Mrs O

[Tourangelle]

So school = free childcare?

[JohnM]

Well, not exactly free, but shared among those of us who don't have kids

I was a Scout leader for many years and it did irk that some parents just thought of Scouts as being somewhere to get rid of the kids for a few hours - some were amazed that we had the cheek to ask them to help fund raise, take their children to events etc.

 

[opas]

I had a reliable childminder, but the point I was making was that If you talk to any mum (or dad) during the long school holidays ,regardless of whether they are working parents or not, 9 times out of 10 they will tell you that after the first couple of weeks their children are bored,if they live in a rural location they miss their playmates and if they live close to them they have fallen out!

Anyway back to the subject in hand, most of our school children have a day at home today, but ,our CE1 class is split between the primaire and the younger school, the ones in the later category have had to go to school today, why is this? Mrs O

[Izz.]

To answer your question: That is probably because your children attend a catholic school, and teachers in religious schools usually don't follow any strike action. They have a different pay scale but have to follow the law and should feel concerned by it.

[Russethouse]

Opas, can you imagine the row if something like school upset the French routine of taking August off !!!

[Mistral]

 

Mrs O, I know what you mean, the school holidays are so long that kids have usually used up their quota of visiting friends, going to the swimming pool .... by the end of the first month and are often relieved to go back in September (more in primary than in secondary) Most teachers I know find the hoildays too long too. I mean in terms of learning, the pupils forget a lot and have to relearn their studying techniques.

The long summer hoildays in France are a throw back to the days when the kids would be helping out at harvest and the parents would keep them off school anyway. Nowadays, I think they are considered as sacred. It would be difficult to cut them down as people tend to take the whole of a month off, This is always the argument when a government proposes biting into a bit of July or August.

A few years ago, they decided that children's natural rhythms were 7 weeks of school and 2 weeks of holiday all year round. They didn't even try it for the summer holidays and after a year, the ski resorts and other tourist dependant industries had complained so much (all the zones had hoildays at the same time) that it was stopped.

I'm not too sure I understood what you were saying about the CE1 class, are there two differecnt teachers? Each teacher decides if he or she is going to strike. One of the PS classes in my daughter's school only has lessons this afternoon because the morning teacher is striking.

[opas]

Izz, no not a catholic school, our near neighbours children go to one and they had to attend today.

Mistral,CE1 , must have had a baby boom in our village in 1997 as there are too many children for the class and 16 had to stay in what was the equivalent of the infant school,(they set up a classroom in the library....don`t know what happened to that!) so yes two different teachers.

[Battypuss]

[quote]Well, not exactly free, but shared among those of us who don't have kids I was a Scout leader for many years and it did irk that some parents just thought of Scouts as being somewhere to get rid of...[/quote]

My perception of the Scouts was seriously damaged here in France. Not only did it cost an arm and a leg (with uniform et al), it was held in an unheated shack on the other side of town and there was precious little transport to get there or back. I spent every other saturday throughout the winter standing outside said shack for 4 hours and managed to go down with pneumonia once and bronchitis twice...my help was not acceptable becuase we had no car. The children got sick too. Nobody ever offered to help us: we were regarded as the poor relations and shrugged off and scorned at every chance they got!

Two Scout uniforms (yellow shirts et al) free to someone who still thinks 'be prepared' is a good motto. I am still sneezing and cursing Baden Powell.

Note: we provided cakes and so forth at every turn of the road, all hand carried and made with best wishes. We had no thanks, ever, while those who turned up in 4X4 with a purchased, 1.50 euro 'gateau' were welcomed with kisses.

The last straw was when I scraped together enough money to puchase 2 old fashioned bikes (read not VTT) and spent I don't know how many hours fixing them up for a 'bike ramble'. This caused a certain amount of financial hardship for several weeks, but we did it. I received a phone call...could I please come and get the children, aged 8 and 9 from somewhere 5 miles away as their bikes weren't flash enough and were letting the side down? I did, on foot, and this whole sorry troupe limped home, bike helmets and all, in tears.

Scouts? Don't get me started. An éliteist, jumped-up bande de cons here. May they rot in hell, I wouldn't send our stick insect. Previous to this, I add, I had no problems. We are, in addition, fluent French speakers and Catholics, so that wasn't the problem.

I guess I hate snobs, especially those with no manners.

[JohnM]

Under those circumstances I'd hate Scouts as well!

It was different for me (UK). When I was a lad the Scout Hut was cold and spartan but "our" parents got involved with the jumble sales, taking us to camp etc etc. In the later years (by the time I was a leader) we had a wonderful purpose built Scout HQ, but many of the parents just saw us as a cheap child minding service, they did seem to realise (didn't want to realise) that we needed their help.

I would have welcomed you with open arms (I'm not involved any more).

 

[Teamedup]

I get the impression that about all extra curricular activities are classed as child care by the vast majority of the parents.

The club I help run has only 3 parents out of 40 odd children who will help with anything at all. And even they don't run the club at all that is down to two  of us who run the thing who's kids stopped using the club years ago. And we are certainly are not alone in this, even at maternelle /primaire it is increasing difficult for the teachers to get parents to accompany anything at all.

Can't remember a time when there were not teachers on strike on a regular basis. My eldest started school in 1985.