BS: UK teachers emigrating

Subject: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Kampervan
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 03:26 AM

Growing numbers if teachers are leaving the UK to teach abroad. Teachers are saying that many of the go to get away from the culture which exists in our education system - too much emphasis on results and performance assessments of both teachers and children. A view which many parents would endorse.

Rather than looking to address these concerns, the Chief Inspector of Schools proposes that newly qualified teachers should be forced to spend a minimum period teaching in the UK before being allowed to emigrate.

Great morale booster!

This government really has no idea.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 03:33 AM

Not unlike what's happening among the medical profession
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Stu
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 04:22 AM

This government is consistent at least; it hates anyone with any degree of education or the slightest intellectual nous or ability to articulate an opinion they don't share or a state a fact that doesn't fit their narrow worldview. As Jim says it's not just teachers, but our doctors and scientists who are under attack by a group of people whose sole ideology is the market finds the solutions to everything and must be introduced anywhere. It's abandoned the basic ethics and morality established (often painfully) over the last 150 years to the faceless, unaccountable devils of countless boardrooms and the shareholders they purport to serve.

The tories and the other right-wing parties have created an atmosphere of intolerance towards teachers, doctors, academics and students that has spread into our schools. Sound familiar? In a society where the government wants to control the opposition these are the people they target, as they know people with a mind of their own will question, challenge and oppose their shallow, market-led ideologies.

This climate of fear, fermented by the degenerate grey shades of Whitehall and the political establishment is manifested in the appalling, relentless and cynical commercialisation of our higher education system and the NHS. They deny science, seek to demonise anyone who can think for themselves and who questions the politics of self.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 04:22 AM

The Blair government tried to make UK qualified hospital consultants not take on any private work for a period of five years after qualifying. Two things happened there..

1. They backed down before the promised judicial review should they have tried to introduce it. Human Rights legislation precludes fettering the right to work, especially in your own country!

2. Their plans at the time for bringing down the awfully long post Major /Th*tcher waiting lists included paying private hospitals to help with the backlog. Some legislation at the time (Care Standards Act 2000) made it far easier in bureaucracy terms for private hospitals to only use consultants who also work in The NHS. In other words, they wouldn't have enough doctors to help clear the logjam.

Mrs Musket has never bothered with private work and up till Hunt's meddling with junior doctors, being a precursor to when he starts to negotiate the consultant contract... She and her colleagues are talking all the more about it. Hunt has already got one part of consultant pay in his sights, which in her case, (and the majority under the age of 50) would mean losing over £14k a year at a stroke. Of course, in return I doubt she or others would then be willing to carry on working 70 hours a week and being told they are paid for 48. (11 session, as it's called.) Not all consultants work that much over their paid time but the majority certainly do.

Teachers have been voting with their feet for ages. I like Jim see many comparisons with health. You start with demonising the profession and take it from there.....

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 04:45 AM

Wilshaw's interview was very odd. He seemed to imply that the teachers had a moral duty to remain in the UK, as they had been trained there, irrespective of what the government did to the profession in terms of pay, workload, and the constant denigration from the likes of Gove and now Morgan. Stu is right, anyone educated into a profession is going to think about leaving, and I for one applaud them for doing so. The government need a dose of reality, they are owed nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 06:50 AM

Something deep inside tells me that it is not right that a doctor, trained at taxpayers' expense, very expensively at that, should then be able to use their qualification to do private work that most of those taxpayers can't afford and, worse, which will make NHS queues longer. In teaching, the equivalent situation would be a teacher trained at public expense going into private education. To add insult to that, private schools are accorded charitable status, which is a long-standing outrage. If these doctors and teachers were confronted with the morally correct choice, namely of paying all their training costs in exchange for being able to go private, they might think twice. I think anyone should be free to go overseas, however, my reasoning being that well-educated people should not be more entrapped than other people. In return, we do get many well-educated people coming here to contribute their skills. In fact, without them there'd probably be no NHS.

Teachers lost the fight in the 1980s, picking the wrong enemy in Thatcher it could well be argued. The teaching unions have never been able to mobilise their memberships in sufficient numbers and with sufficient enthusiasm to exercise the clout they undoubtedly have. They are a disunited bunch as well. Too many unions. The narrative was always that teaching was relatively badly paid but that the pension was good, quite an accurate take in my opinion. That link has now been severed, with public sector pay almost frozen for years and pensions totally clobbered. But teachers can't do anything about it after thirty years of systematic emasculation of trade unions. And Stu is right: deliberate demonisation of the teaching profession has wrecked public sympathy. But the worm is turning. It's getting difficult to recruit teachers in many areas. Getting good people to apply for headships is next to impossible. The reasons? You will have Ofsted breathing down your neck at frequent intervals, Ofsted is 100% judgemental and 0% supportive.

Ironically, many of the people taken on by Ofsted are people who couldn't stand the heat in teaching. As a head you will have to exert intolerable pressure on your staff to get you through the next inspection. Your "results" will be posted in league tables that take no account of the quality of intake or the nature of the school catchment. By the way, unless you get your staff to collude in a lot of coaching and quiet cheating in the assessments, your results will be shite anyway, and everybody else is probably at it, so why not? Who'd want to to be a head under those circumstances? Who'd want to teach under that regime? It'll take a crisis before anything happens to improve the lot of schools. Teachers leaving in droves or going overseas could be the start of that. In the meantime, for all the years of Ofsted shitting on schools and all the hammering of teachers, "standards" don't seem to budge much...everyone's got an opinion on teachers, easiest thing in the world to turn into a political football, and 'twas ever thus.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 06:55 AM

My paragraphs went haywire there. Must remember to wear my reading glasses when typing and editing in that tiny Mudcat box!

---

Mended. ---Mudelf

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Kampervan
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 07:41 AM

No Steve, you've got it wrong (I say - ironically)

The Ofsted man said that all that teachers had to do was to ignore Ofsted inspections and just do their jobs!

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 07:46 AM

My daughter is taking up a Head of English position overseas in March, having just completed a year teaching in Thailand. What is absolutely clear to me is that she, and the teaching profession in Thailand more generally, is treated with respect and I see little evidence of that here. They are trusted to teach as they think fit, with very light oversight and substantial freedom to cover the syllabus on a consolidated way rather than lists of detailed topics to be ticked off to satisfy inspectors. Comparing her experience with that of her cousin (a UK teacher) is eye opening.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 08:38 AM

See "Wai kru" in a Google search or Wikipedia

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 08:57 AM

"Something deep inside tells me that it is not right that a doctor, trained at taxpayers' expense, very expensively at that, should then be able to use their qualification to do private work that most of those taxpayers can't afford"
Can't find a lot to disagree with there - I've always been a strong believer in the message of Sam Larner's rhyme:

"If life was a thing that money could buy.
The rich would live and the poor would die."

This has been announced this morning - would be interested in comments
GOLDEN HANDCUFFS SCHEME
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 10:05 AM

she, and the teaching profession in Thailand more generally, is treated with respect and I see little evidence of that here.

If you think the UK is bad, you should see how teachers are treated like less than shit here in the U.S.- and the situation is getting worse by the day.

Bill Gates, the Waltons et.al. are well on the way to privatizing the education system & destroying public education.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 10:45 AM

Very pleased to see and read here that the cause for all our ills has been pinpointed - Major/Thatcher - Now any explanation as to why all was not put immediately right in the the 13 years they had in office by "Education, Edjukayshun, Edge-oo-kay-shun" Blair, Gordon of Cartoon & Labour??

Both England and Scotland had education systems that worked perfectly well until Anthony ""If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland" Crosland hit his stride. Then all of a sudden it was no longer education that took priority but social engineering - Scottish schools which were the example of how a comprehensive system can work are now a complete and utter mess and with meddling by the SNP our universities are rapidly going the same way.

My wife (former teacher) and I took a good look at the State system in operation where we lived and took the conscious decision to educate our children privately thereby following the example shown by the "Champagne Socialist's" and Labour Elite - Good for the Goose - Good for the Gander. Now that involved a bit of sacrifice on our part, but I've never, ever regretted it.

Quite agree that newly qualified teachers should NOT be compelled to work inside a broken and totally demoralised system for any length of time before being free to work wherever they choose.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 11:51 AM

"Now any explanation as to why all was not put immediately right in the the 13 years they had in office by "Education, Edjukayshun, Edge-oo-kay-shun" Blair, Gordon of Cartoon & Labour??"
Basically because the rot had set in much earlier - why Blair's name should crop us is beyond me - of all politicians, he embraced the Tory philosophy like a true-blue.
It's not a party-political problem - rather one of a system more interested in turning out factory and Tessco fodder rather than providing a usable and well-rounded education for all.
Comprehensive education was a a great leap forward when I was younger - I saw the difference between the one two - nine years younger twin sisters got and mine - no comparison.
Now we seem to be heading back to the divisive Grammar School system
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 11:59 AM

Cross - posted
Wouldn't you just know that a right wing 'patriot' who thinks our home grown products were "crap" and who tells those out of work that they should get on their bikes opposes comprehensive education in favour of the class-divisive, privilege-generating system it replaced?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Feb 16 - 12:02 PM

Well that's something, Teribus. First off, you will never find me defending anything noo Labour did to education, which was as much a political football with them as it was with Maggie's tawdry and ignorant bunch. They did bugger all about Ofsted and they oversaw the exponential increase in energy-sapping bureaucratic pressure on teachers. The true measure of Thatcher's vengeful imposition of "directed hours", the theft of five days' holiday for purposes that have been routinely circumvented by heads and teachers alike (one day I may just write an entertaining account of the laughable activities I had to endure on "Baker Days") and a National Curriculum (think National Assistance, National Service and National Dried Milk) is that they never applied to her treasured public schools and latterly, in the hands of her successors, to those ideologically-driven, disastrous free schools. Says it all. As your missus was a teacher, why not ask her.

As for social engineering, what's more "social engineering" than separating children at eleven into a rigid two-tier system, often involving separation by sex and/or religion too? How bloody artificial is that? Calling the dismantling of that system "social engineering" is just laughable.

(Steve - state secondary school teacher all through The Heath-Wilson-Callaghan-Thatcher-Major-Blair years, educated in a Roman Catholic grammar school for boys, Mrs Steve a primary teacher, then Special Needs in both primary and secondary, own kids went to the local comp. Been there, seen it, got the bloody t-shirt)

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 07:00 AM

I suppose that when you pay £9K per year for your university education, then post graduate costs (I don't know about teachers, but from an F1 (first year doctor) to consultant, it's about £150K you have personally paid out in Royal College fees, post grad exams, GMC etc, whilst giving years of service to The NHS as a house officer, senior house officer and registrar..)

Not sure it's anybody's business where you put your skills. (Most UK private work is NHS work anyway, as the NHS is the largest single customer of private hospitals by far, and where they aren't they are keeping waiting times down and sorting out the worried well, stopping them from clogging up the system. Like most people involved in The NHS, I see the value of private healthcare alongside The NHS. Don't confuse that with seeking replacement though..)

That said, doctors and teachers have something in common as a sense of altruism, given the many who soldier on in the face of diminishing job satisfaction where politicians tinker with your professional skills and results.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 07:21 AM

Jim - Re your yesterday's 0857am comment about "Sam Larner's rhyme" —

hardly his. Where does it occur in his repertoire? Did he learn it from listening to Joan Baez's "All My Trials", maybe?

Regards

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 09:12 AM

"hardly his. Where does it occur in his repertoire? Did he learn it from listening to Joan Baez's "All My Trials", maybe?"
Doubt it Mike - he recited it to Ewan and Peggy when they were making 'Singing the Fishing' along with a load of other "old rhymes" including, "Immingham, Trimmingham..."
I think they included it on 'Now is the Time For Fishing' - maybe wrong, but we have a recording of it somewhere among the actuality I got from E and P.
Don't know where Joanie got it from, but I can't think Sam had any of her albums.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 09:41 AM

"Not sure it's anybody's business where you put your skills."

Well I think it depends. I'd never argue against freedom of movement. I think that doctors, teachers and anyone else have the right to use their skills anywhere in the world they want to go. In return, we welcome skilled people from overseas with open arms. That is a very healthy thing in principle. Now I know that recently-qualified doctors have paid a lot more than older members of their profession, though they have certainly not paid for anywhere near the full cost of their training. They contribute more than other groups of students partly because their training is bloody expensive, partly because their training is longer and partly because the rewards at the end are much higher. Older members of the profession paid much less, possibly very little. My son is an engineering graduate now in his mid-30s. His student debt was fifteen grand, which seemed massive at the time, but by today's measure it's minuscule (and paid off). There are plenty of doctors in their thirties, forties and fifties who are extremely well rewarded by their private work who did not amass those debts, yet who were trained at public expense. They elect to do much of their work in a sector which most of the working-class people whose taxes paid for their training can't get access to. As for the private sector doing NHS work, well I don't think that should ever have come about. I dare say that it isn't cheap. Wealthy people often use private medicine for elective treatment (I note you mentioned the worried well. Well, the working-class worried well just have to stay worried, while wealthier people can be exploited by greedy buggers who could be doing more useful things. There's a whole massive industry devoted to making healthy people worried and the main beneficiaries are companies that mass-produce useless supplements and doctors in private practice). The waiting list argument is a question of simple maths, number of doctors versus time available. Private patients do not shorten waiting lists. They are part of the waiting lists, only they've gone straight to the front. It's actually worse than that when you consider those doctors who connive in time-wasting but very profitable private consultations with people who have more money then sense.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 10:00 AM

Thanks, Jim. I found that very interesting. It is I suppose one of those proverbial 'commonplace' floating lines. Joan would have learned it with the song as a whole, I imagine. You'll find it in DT under title "All my trials, Lord"; giving Joan Baez's as the source. I also found it on a 'gospel songs' site:-

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/gospel-songs-chords/all_my_trials.htm

Interesting, tho, that it appears to have persisted in Suffolk tradition, as well as in USA.

≈M≈

I suppose this will count as 'drift' in terms of the actual thread topic; but this is, after all, primarily a folk music site; so no apologies due, eh, imo!

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 10:07 AM

Sorry -- Norfolk, not Suffolk, was Sam's county of course. I shall get something right in a minute, perhaps....!

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 10:47 AM

The problem is Steve, I could pick holes in your logic and reasoning, but based on my knowledge of healthcare. My knowledge of teaching? I would bow to your experience. (Although I do appear to be a full time teacher in one sense..l)

I'm a 56 year old consultant physician, presently in academia (public health) and as there is no patient contact etc my weekends are my own. I have an 11 pa contract which means I work 48 hours officially although obviously the rough with the smooth.

My university education was free to me, so let's write this off. As a doctor, I like any other of my age worked very hard for many years in The NHS and am satisfied that the service delivery side means that once I entered the specialist register and became a consultant, The NHS had already had eighteen years of service from me. If I decided at that point to do private work, The NHS was already a winner. Other than paying for your work on wards, clinics and theatres, The NHS does not pay any other of your professional fees and for junior doctors that includes thousands on exams, which many fail along the route.

The private patients? You say poor people can be worried well. Correct. Most private healthcare in The UK is performed on NHS patients, who do not pay for it. I fail to see your thought train that you have to be rich to get private care. As I said, The NHS is the largest customer of private care, trying to bring down waiting times. People who elect to go private as in paying aren't going to the front of the queue, they are getting off the queue, shortening it for others.

The analogy with teaching doesn't equate. I could have a full time job in an NHS hospital then spend most Saturdays doing tit jobs in a private hospital, (OK, not me as surgery is something I am no longer registered for,) whilst a teacher cannot physically be employed by a state school and a public school as classes are at the same time.

Of course, if we bring GPs into it, the word private is put into relief. GPs elected in 1948 not to join The NHS and although in recent years, The NHS has had to provide GP services where practices go bust or cannot recruit, GPs are private providers who happen to be paid for by NHS funds. No different to Boots being paid for optometry and pharmacy, or Oasis Dentistry or a private hospital doing orthopaedics for NHS....

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 02:16 PM

My husband is a school cleaner in a local 'academy' high school. He gets there at 3-30pm,and has several classrooms to clean, plus toilets and corridors. You'd hardly believe the number of times he's found a teacher sitting crying at their desk. He cleans the 'Art Suite' and the female teacher there has been actually sobbing more than once, mainly about the rudeness and cheekiness of the pupils. Saying 'fuck off' is an everyday occurrence. The classrooms are strewn with all sorts, gum, food, sweet wrappings. And the toilets are unspeakable. He reckons the 'pupils' are just bloody animals.
I took early retirement from Primary teaching due to the totally ridiculous amount of paperwork, admin and 'accountability' stuff. We were drowning in A4 sheets. We had an Ofsted inspection, during which a very young inspector chap tried to suggest ways I should be teaching reading. I had already served 30 years, and I reckon there wasn't much I didn't know about that! My pupils usually gained 2 years of a reading age in the one year I had them.
I never had discipline problems, but nowadays things are worse. There are pressures from all directions; the parents, the Head, Ofsted, and the young brats that pass for children these days.
Both my nieces have just finished their degrees and started in banking, with really excellent salaries, far more than new teachers will receive.

If I were a young teacher starting today, I'd be off like a shot abroad.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 02:34 PM

If I were a young teacher starting today, I'd be off like a shot abroad.

Just don't head for for U.S., if ya know what's good fer ya, unless you want more of thse same, in spades.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 04:22 PM

Steve, I too endured the most ridiculous 'exercises' on Baker Days. One involved jumping across the assembly hall using large tyres, 'helping' ones team to move forward. A colleague and I were branded Refuseniks. We stated categorically that our contracts did NOT include circus stunts, and we would be going to our rooms to get on with marking and lesson preparation. We were asked the next day to 'tell a colleague a secret about our lives, and trust them not to repeat it', then 'give our car and house keys to another colleague for the day'. We flatly refused again. Luckily the Head didn't challenge us. (He wouldn't have got very far if he had.) I thought I'd ended up in some sort of educational lunatic asylum.

Greg, I'm very surprised and sad that even the US has these problems too. Whatever is the world coming to?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 08:28 PM

"The problem is Steve, I could pick holes in your logic and reasoning..."

Be my guest! What a relief to you and me, but to the undoubted chagrin of Mudcat's conspiracy theorists, that you and I can disagree!

"My university education was free to me, so let's write this off. As a doctor, I like any other of my age worked very hard for many years in The NHS and am satisfied that the service delivery side means that once I entered the specialist register and became a consultant, The NHS had already had eighteen years of service from me. If I decided at that point to do private work, The NHS was already a winner."

Well you're doing sums whereas I'm trying to do principle. I'm sure there's overlap. But there is the private that we don't see, brought about by government policy, as you describe (and, as I said, it can't be cheap for us taxpayers), and there's that other private, BUPA private that is signed into by workplaces with mostly very well-paid employees, and then there's that private that ties up doctors trained at public expense doing tit implants, undoing tit implants, doing face lifts, bum lifts, liposuction and you know what and doing very nicely thank you with stuff that is not only out of the reach of most of the people who paid for their training but which wouldn't do them any good anyway. Bloody waste of talent, no, but so lucrative?

"I fail to see your thought train that you have to be rich to get private care."

I acknowledge the different facets of private health care. You've explained how private medicine is used by the NHS. That's life, I don't like it, but there you are. But there are other facets of private health care, as I characterised above, that are not so beyond reproach. And those doctors could be doing much more worthwhile things. In fact, there is a degree of complicity in the murky world of worried-well creation that is so lucrative. Wanna deny that?

"As I said, The NHS is the largest customer of private care, trying to bring downy waiting times. People who elect to go private as in paying aren't going to the front of the queue, they are getting off the queue, shortening it for others. "

Your sums simply don't add up. If those doctors indulging in lucrative private practice were all to deploy all their energies in the NHS front line, there would be more doctors keeping the waiting lists shorter. I know there's more to waiting lists than that, but the maths are not complicated. And if you are doing your private work in your spare time (an odd concept, considering the hours doctors put in) ,where are you doing it and what pressure is it putting on the energy you should be putting into your NHS work?   

"The analogy with teaching doesn't equate. I could have a full time job in an NHS hospital then spend most Saturdays doing tit jobs in a private hospital, (OK, not me as surgery is something I am no longer registered for,) whilst a teacher cannot physically be employed by a state school and a public school as classes are at the same time."

Many teachers do private tuition. I heartily disapprove of that and I always have done. It's very lucrative, most of it is done at the behest of over-pushy parents, it's mostly about coaching for exams and not a lot to do with education, and most of it destroys the kids' zest for life. Go on, gimme an argument that six weary hours in classrooms isn't more than enough for any kid...

And it's a shame that GP practices have to be run as businesses. But I can see my doc tomorrow morning if I get in sharp enough, it costs me nothing and my scripts are free. That'll do me. Better than nearly everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 16 - 08:39 PM

Don't get me started, Eliza. The number of times I had to engage in "role play," "group dynamics" or doing "brainstorming." Aargh! Just bloody sit me in a room, tell me stuff and I'll soak it up like a sponge. I did spend half of one Baker Day riding my bike round the coast roads of this bit of North Cornwall, something to do with empathising with the need for kids to be more active or something, I forget exactly. When we did our inevitable feedback forms and were asked what we thought we'd gained from the day, I said improved calf muscles. I can't tell you what a bollocking I got from the head!

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: DMcG
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 02:32 AM

Ah, the wonders of role play. I have somehow managed to escape most of it myself, but when my wife worked in the NHS as an office administrator she got sent on quite a few such things. There was one session she had which was aimed at receptionists in the world at large and the only concession to the fact it was the NHS was a change of logo on each page. In one section about "first meeting" they were solemnly advised not to talk about the real purpose of the meeting but concentrate on developing a bond by asking them about recent holidays, current sporting events and so on. This may be good advice if you are trying to sell cars, but really, for the NHS? Anyway, one person decided to act all puzzled and ask if the lecturer would show them how to do it if she acted as the customer (yes, they had to call patients customers in the training). As expected, the trainer was bright and smiling and made some suitable warm and friendly bantering statement. At which the 'customer' burst in a frenzy of expletive laden panic about how her son had swallowed some bleach, she needed an bloody doctor now and what the hell are you wasting precious moments for wanting to chat about my F-ing holiday?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 04:38 AM

I see that 'team building', 'role play' and 'staff development' are pretty universal, and equally useless for the job in hand.
On another Baker Day, a chap arrived (probably costing large sums for his services) in an executive suit with a smart briefcase, and proceeded to get us to play a game called Win As Much As You Can. Apparently, it was to encourage staff to sacrifice themselves for each other in order to increase team points. We just stared at him in utter contempt. We were mostly older teachers with decades of hard graft between us. I and the other Refusenik pulled our usual rabbit out of the hat and strolled back to our rooms to get on with marking. We Lost As Much As We Could, but we didn't care. Our Head knew where he was well off with us, as we were the ones keeping the school running along smoothly, so he kept his head down, "lyin' low an' sayin' nuffin!"

I find this artificial bonhomie in professional situations totally inappropriate, and alien to our culture. I call it the 'Have A Nice Day Syndrome'. I do not want an M&S assistant to ask me at the till what plans I have for the rest of the day. I'm tempted to reply that I have an orgy arranged, with six well-oiled and muscular body-builders.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 04:53 AM

I would think that "I am going to mind my own business" might be an appropriate response, Eliza.

I remember all that bloody daft role-play Baker-days pigggibum from my very long-ago teaching days back in the 70s-80s [I realise with a start that I have now been retired, having taken advantage of some of the early retirement offers going around, for as long as I taught: I drifted into teaching as a temporary between-jobs recourse & retired 30 years later with Senior Teacher status as Head of Upper School! - still regarding it as 'temporary']. There was a trendy fool called Pearce who was called an 'advisor' by Cambs (tho anyone from whom I should be more reluctant to take any 'advice' I find it hard to think of) who was always buggering about with them. Prime example of the old "... and those that can't teach, teach teachers" syndrome, he was.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 05:20 AM

Those who can't teach often become Ofsted inspectors, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 05:20 AM

,,, a former colleague I met once, from his exiguous actual-teaching career, said that his classroom discipline was a standing joke among his colleagues...

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 06:52 AM

I suspect there are three main reasons why younger teachers are contemplating emigrating. One is the quite poor pay scale for a graduate here in UK. One could earn more in a trade or small business.
I imagine graduate teachers abroad do far better with remuneration.

Secondly, the appalling behaviour and manners of youngsters who are unable to concentrate for more than five minutes must drive their teachers crazy. I would be itching to lob a large text book at their blasted heads. I've watched programmes on TV where the secondary pupils are all of a twitch like the inmates of some sinister mental hospital, shouting, posturing, swearing, fighting, running about the room. No-one can teach anything at all under those conditions. I've seen classes abroad (in Spain, France, Ghana, Senegal and Ivory Coast) where the pupils sat calmly, all eyes on the teacher, respectfully responding to questions or writing neatly without talking to eachother. Bliss.

Thirdly of course, it's the utterly ridiculous amount of monitoring of every move the teacher makes, or even proposes to make. Every minute of the timetable is prescribed by the Mr Gradgrinds of the DoE. I remember after 30 odd years in the profession having to write very detailed lesson plans for each week, then reports of how the week actually went. This included equipment (a pencil, a book...?) It was like teaching by numbers, and killed any vocational creativity. And it took hours and hours of my time.

During our Ofsted inspection, one of their team actually stood in the playground every break and lunchtime, "to observe how the duty staff interacted with the pupils." Clutching a rapidly cooling cup of coffee and dying for a wee, were we supposed to bloody play with the children as well? Absolutely totally ridiculous.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 09:31 AM

Have a listen to A Point Of View on iPlayer radio, on at 8.45 this morning on Radio 4. Adam Gopnik rails, among other things, against the practice of shutting teenagers in classrooms all day then expecting them to do hours of homework every night. Not how teenagers should be living their lives. It's hardly surprising that they rebel en masse at school, able only to be subdued by classroom little Hitlers. That and your third point are undoubtedly the reasons why teachers are quitting in droves. The bad classroom behaviour is only the symptom. The underlying cause is the dreary, assessment-led regime we subject the children to, teachers too cowed by the draconian system to stray even slightly from it. We won't get good, motivated teachers working at their peak until we decide to set them free and call off the baleful and repressive Ofsted parasites. Teachers need support, not constant judging allied to piles of paperwork that take up far more time than the actual classroom transaction.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 09:54 AM

Totally agree Steve. But on the other hand, we in the fifties were 'shut in classrooms' until the age of eighteen, studying hard during not terribly scintillating lessons, with minimal visual aids and a very stiff, academically challenging curriculum (grammar school) and truly, we behaved well generally speaking. Our manners were excellent (or we were caned!) and many of us loved our schooling. I had about 2-3 hours of homework each evening, and I can't remember any one of my classmates not handing theirs in. It wasn't anything resembling Dotheboys Hall, just par for the course in those days. Either teenagers are educated or they aren't, but they can't expect the process to be all ha ha hee hee. It isn't entertainment, and to learn to work hard is good for youngsters. Their parents seem to find them impossible to discipline, so what hope do their teachers have?

Regarding new teachers 'owing' their country for the training they've received, I had to complete two years' probation (this was the case in Scotland) and was paid a very low salary. After that, I was given £7 per week. Even then, this wasn't all that much. My father, a manager with the GPO, said his Directory Enquiry staff were paid almost twice that in London.
I wish I'd had the courage to emigrate then, maybe to New Zealand or Australia.
This country doesn't seem to encourage people to work and give of their best. My poor husband gets £6-70 per hour for his work. I think that's an insult.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 10:04 AM

By the way Steve, when the National Curriculum came in, my class of delightful eight year-olds, who had previously been thrilled with learning about Knights and Castles, and designing coats-of-arms etc, were suddenly condemned to studying The Abdication and The Depression.
Bloody Depression just about describes it!

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 11:19 AM

I took early retirement from teaching in the mid-80s. I reckon I timed it about right. Since then, it seems to me, teaching has turned into a sort of one-way ticket to an early grave.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 12:50 PM

It certainly is, M. I was able to retire early due to the death of my father. I claimed my inheritance and fled the profession, about the same time as you. I'd already developed high blood pressure and mild heart problems, which soon got better once out of the stress. My Refusenik colleague died in harness, and one or two others as well out of a staff of 20. (Large Middle School)
I sometimes wonder what and where I'd be now if I'd gone off to the Antipodes at the age of twenty two! I know I would have bitterly missed the UK. Do you think you'd leave if you had your time over?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 03:25 PM

Different world today. We didn't have laptops in the bedroom, the internet, social media, video games, flat-screen tellies with dozens of channels, Sky Movies, punk, etc. etc. There was bonking and heavy petting in the park, of course, but that was mostly just in summer. Teenagers are pulled in many more directions these days, and, shock horror, it isn't all bad. No wonder they rebel against antediluvian, repressive classroom/homework regimes. They have the imagination that we're lacking.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 03:49 PM

Bloody hell. I did a long post and it didn't take. I didn't notice at the time

Ah well. It was something about Steve's principles on hospitals versus his comfort with GPs when both are private.

Both teaching and NHS suffer from public sector suckery. Management consultants like to cone up with bullshit and they take it on board because politicians like the idea that you are changing, improving, modernising, trail blazing, piloting, focussing...

Meanwhile, we let them get on with it whilst we go for a shit. DMcG will be pleased to note that his experience is not common despite attempts by idiots to be otherwise. Patients are called patients. The customer shit is mainly urban myth but I too had done twat saying we should see them as such during mandatory training. Most of us laughed and walked out. The company lost their contract.

Presumably teachers suffer similarly. Our local comp' where I come from seems to be an academy now.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 04:00 PM

That's an interesting viewpoint Steve. I think you are saying that if today's conditions for teenagers are so different, we should probably re-jig the education system and the curriculum, and of course, ways that learning is achieved, in order to move with the times. I agree with you that youngsters nowadays have a massive amount of interaction going on with all the technology they're subject to, and social pressures.
I think if I were involved with this renaissance, I'd 'begin at the end' and look at employment and employers' requirements, then adjust the system to deliver an education which helped pupils to become confident and able in the modern workplace.
There is another side to education, equally important but rather more nebulous. I see it as instilling life skills, a love of knowledge and a broadening of experience, a rounding of a person's character and a development of innate ability. I think this side of it is down to all of us, parents, families, communities and organisations. Our young people are our joint responsibility. They should be prepared for participation in useful work and to contribute to society, but also prepared for a fulfilling and interesting life too.
Does what I have just written chime with your views at all?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: DMcG
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 04:20 PM

I strongly suspect, Musket, that the reason my wife and her colleagues had to refer to patients as customers was entirely because the training material was prepared for companies that actually had customers, so 'customer' was what it said on almost every page. Had they done a "global replace" of customer by patient in the material it would be obviously stupid, and to actually go through and adapt the material so it really was relevant would have cost more than anyone was prepared to spend.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 05:22 PM

I don't see schools as being in any way at all places that should be preparing children for the workplace. Workplaces these days are overwhelmingly places that exploit in the interest of making a profit. The job of schools is to educate. Educating has nothing to do with stuffing with knowledge or training. It's about giving children the skills and enthusiasm to learn. It's about showing children where they can find information and about how they can separate the truth from the lies. About questioning everything they're told and always asking for evidence. No-one learns anything useful by having knowledge poured over them. You learn by knowing how to go out there and grab information for yourself. Preparation for the workplace can come later in the process, but, up to at least sixteen, it has no place.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 05:29 PM

"Ah well. It was something about Steve's principles on hospitals versus his comfort with GPs when both are private."

Principles be buggered. If I get sick I have no alternative but to see my GP. It was the same when my dentist suddenly went private and the nearest NHS dentist was 60 miles away and fully booked anyway. I suppose I could have stuck to my principles and lost all my teeth, or just curled up and died.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 07:45 PM

"who had previously been thrilled with learning about Knights and Castles, and designing coats-of-arms etc, "
That should be preparing them for real life.
Not sure when you start teaching them about the abdication and depression but hammering them with Medieval Heraldry and (social) class division is preparation for nothing.
One of the problems of modern education is that you are expected to prepare them for jobs that are no longer available - so what do you give them as an alternative?
Little wonder schools are full of bored, disinterested, uninspired and unruly sprogs.
At the risk of crossing threads, it seems to me that closing access to free movement in Europe is slamming the door on a further source of employment.
Two of our neighbour's grand-daughters, who we watched growing up, from a family of traditional musicians, are now working in Paris in skilled jobs and also putting their musical skills to use at paid gigs and at teaching - it would not have happened if they had stayed at home.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: meself
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 09:07 PM

I have a niece who went to England from Canada to take a teaching job last year. It was, apparently, a school of tough kids in a tough neighbourhood - however, I never heard any complaints about the kids; it was all about never-ending bureaucratic harassment and interference. A friend who had come with her quit at Christmas; my niece stuck it out (barely) and quit at the end of the year. However, she went back in September - but will work only as a substitute, so as not to have to deal with all the administrative BS.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 09:08 PM

I agree totally with What Steve Shaw posted at 5:22. I disagree with Jim, schools are not meant to be simply places for job training. As for "real life" , that is another of those nebulous phrases , like "the real world"! What does it mean and who has a version of it that suits all ?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 09:21 PM

Well, the real world is not just about going to work. The real world is about culture, tolerance of others, looking after the environment, etc. Anyone who thinks that preparing children for the real world is about showing them how to weld plates together, or how to peel and fry potatoes, or how to carry a hod, isn't living in the same real world as I am. Being able to do all those things is wonderful. But it is not the job of schools to show children how to do them.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 02:35 AM

Your NHS dentist is private too.

DMcG. Yes, the management consultants provide lazy literature, but many inject private sector terms along with private sector methodology. Another Musket tells of when he got Unipart to help him improve throughput of patients in a large hospital. They know about logistics whilst clinical teams know about patients. At no point did either side refer to patients as replacement headlight bulbs. (His paper he published on their experience was quite interesting. But I'm sure he'll tell you about it if you ask him.)

Back to teaching, I'm sure I'm not the only one shocked at the low standard of written English by younger people these days. I am involved with teaching medical students, whose grades at A Level do tend to be the pick of the crop but whilst I don't confess to excellent use of language myself, (the sciences were my strong point) even I struggle to see merit in some of the written assignments I assess.

When I get dragged (kicking and screaming) onto interview panels for staff members, especially administrative, I might be getting older but I find myself ranting at the quality of the outcome of some schools these days. If the better teachers are emigrating?? (So are many UK younger doctors for that matter.)

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 02:38 AM

How does the British government propose to force teachers to teach there for five years? How would it work physically? Or would they refuse to allow teachers to come back to Britain without paying the price of their State teacher training plus interest?
It seems an odd kind of idea. In Ireland, where we have had haemorrhaging emigration since 2007, the attitude is that if a teacher teaches abroad for a few years s/he will come back with experience gained abroad and a broader worldview.
We have the same problem with greedy doctors; a matter of our attitude to money having been warped and infected by Thatcherism, in my view.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:23 AM

GUEST,JTT I think "greed" has been around for quite some time and was not introduced to the world all of a sudden by a middle-aged woman in the United Kingdom in 1979 - but apparently she was somehow responsible for driving into extinction a breed of ponies between 1979 and 1990 when to all intent and purpose they had been cross-bred out of existence almost 100 years previously.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:37 AM

You can't force anything. In reality, and I can only speak of comparisons in medics, people returning with a different perspective and experience are gold and are in demand.

I don't know about teachers but doctors pay their own way and the hospitals where junior doctors are placed get service delivery during that time so nobody owes anybody anything. In any event, many come here for training from other countries and of course return to their country of origin at the end as per their visa requirement. Next month, a post here in Glasgow is being advertised. A final year registrar from Nigeria who is a front runner to get the post has to return home in a few weeks in order to apply for it. Madness and what's more, The Scottish government are as bad as their mates in Westminster in confusing immigration with requirement.

Out of interest, I usually have a laugh at Terribulus's shorter posts whilst not bothering reading his longer communiques. I thought I was bad drifting this teacher thread into medics but Th*tcher? Pit ponies??   Has he been eating cheese before being put down for the night?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:38 AM

" I disagree with Jim, schools are not meant to be simply places for job training."
Didn't say that I believe that is what they are "meant for" - but in my experience, that is what they were and still are, certainly among those of us who underwent State education.
I was actually told by a teacher that all I needed when I left school was the ability to tot up my pay-packet at the end of the week.
He was reprimanding me for being late for his maths class - I had been kept behind by a music teacher at a previous class who wanted to explain something I was having problems with.
The maths teacher angrily demanded of me; "what do you expect to do when you leave school - sing in the streets?"
Tings improved with my twin sisters a few years later who began were part of the Comprehensive Education System.
Of course it is the responsibility of an Education System to provide an all-round education, but it should not be a case of an either-or, the arts, ecology or the humanities or the practical subjects.
At the present time in Britain, none are being given the attention they merit - unless you are prepared to pay for it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:56 AM

Sure, lets provide more handouts to our own bankers rather than protecting our heritage with schemes like this.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:58 AM

Teribus, greed may have been around for thousands of years, but in the UK it was pushed into the mainstream in 1979.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 04:01 AM

I agree, Steve, but wonder how clear you were with the students. Did you tell them all of this culture and consideration of.the environment is really vital stuff and can improve yourlife no end, but be clear that the chances of it helping to get a job are minimal. You, students, need to be clear that is not its purpose

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 04:48 AM

Jim is right when he talks of schools needing to provide an all-round education. The problem is what goes into it and how it should be delivered, and which bits at what age. All-round means preparing you for the world, not preparing you for the world of work. Nothing to it, is there? What we don't really need is big knobs in the CBI, etc., setting the agenda. I'd also politely suggest that small samples of assignments in a narrow field of endeavour may not be the best guide to overall standards.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 05:21 AM

What were the ponies?

Yes, I do blame Thatcher, and Reagan, for popularising an attitude where money is seen as the most important thing. It's an attitude where people who don't make a lot of money are called losers. People are expected to want large amounts of money for their work, to recognise their 'talent'.

The Thatcher-Reagan-AynRand way of thinking replaced a previously popular idea that money was not central. As de Valera once put it,

The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living…

Frugal comfort would be seen as loserdom post-Thatcher et al.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 05:37 AM

The view of greed changed markedly in the 1980s, until then greed was seen as a vice. Thomas Aquinas described greed as a sin against God. And indeed greed is very close to covetousness, and there is a Commandment against that. But in the 1980s, Ivan Boesky, and of course Gordon Gekko (I know he wasn't real, but he was a caricature of a very real type), and Harry Enfield's loadsamoney (which was again a caricature of a real attitude) made greed respectable. So although it was not Thatcher alone, it was the Anglo-Saxon world of the Reagan-Thatcher years, and the attitudes that this engendered, which made respectable something which had been regarded, correctly in my view, as a serious vice.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 05:43 AM

""Greedy" Doctors in Ireland was due to Thatcher "
Not sure I agree about the doctors (a local doctor, Michael Harty, here in Clare, has just been elected to the Dail on a 'protest at what's happening to the health service' ticket) but the general downturn in living standards is entirely due to our politicians having accepted the "me-me-me" values respectablised by Thatcher and her cronies.
Thankfully, the outcome of this election has been a huge kick in the arse for the right, a swing to the left and the virtual annihilation of a Parliamentary Labour Party which sold its soul by cohabiting with the right wing by entering into coalition with the rightest of rights - serve them ***** right, in every sense.
About time it happened across the pond
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 05:57 AM

Oh, heavens, I'm not characterising all doctors as greedy - my own doc is part of a wonderful practice where the GPs treat private and public patients some days of the week and run a service in a grindingly poor part of the city on others.

As for the election, I wonder will it make a difference. It looks as if Enda Kenny will be standing on the podium as Taoiseach during the 1916 commemorations, surrounded by a whirling cloud of fury as the ghosts of the dead attempt to curse the values of Fine Gael; the master of arrogance Alan Kelly, who scraped in as the mud on the voters' shoes on the multipleth count, is looking to unseat Tánaiste Joan Burton, who also scraped in, to 'remake' the Labour Party…

As for the left – well, the votes voted in large numbers for independents; not all of those were left. Though the pro-life element was certainly rejected across the spectrum.

For those of yeez out foreign, like, next time there's an Irish election try and tune in to the two- to three-day counting of the votes. Because we use Proportional Representation, this can be deeply entertaining; for instance, Chris Andrews appeared to be topping the poll in the first count, then slid down and down as the transfers were redistributed. The count is always a joyous experience of hubris punished and a feast of schadenfreude.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:10 AM

Doctors are people, not an economical outlook. I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find amongst our ranks socialists, communists, fascists, liberals, religious nuts, floating voters and all points in between.

You'll find those struggling with student debt, professional fees, mortgage, childcare and divorce, those doing well personally and those who piss it up the wall.

Come to think of it, teachers too...

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 08:48 AM

I wish we could get rid of the label "junior doctors", which suggests fresh-faced youths, rather than qualified doctors.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 09:21 AM

Bang on. Many junior doctors are more qualified and experienced than staff grade doctors and GPs. I'm quite used to nurses comforting patients and relatives saying they are being operated on by a registrar or senior house officer. Both sound good, both experienced qualified doctors, both junior doctors even though in many hospitals the registrars are often the senior resident doctors at night for many specialities. (Consultants are available by phone or being called in, but not always there at the time and to be fair aren't needed for most work. Consultants are however the named responsible person for a patient's care and have to be comfortable with the scope of devolved responsibilities, including by nurse practitioners, prescribing nurses and pharmacists etc)

Bizarrely, despite BMA noting the problems of the term "junior" the bloody government and HEE came up with new titles for house officers and senior house officers. House officers are called foundation doctors and senior house officers are called core trainees. All qualified doctors, all working within their competence. The teaching is for the next level up, not the level they make patient decisions at. It doesn't instil confidence though in members of the public. I qualified as a doctor aged 24, I was a junior doctor till I was 35. Many in certain specialties, especially surgery, take even longer.

Anyway, sorry to those wanting to discuss teachers. I'd rather do that too. The rest of the world seems to be talking doctors...

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:57 PM

" sorry to those wanting to discuss teachers. I'd rather do that too. The rest of the world seems to be talking doctors..."

I guess it got onto "greedy" doctors because GUEST,JTT didn't have any examples of Irish teachers converted to "greedy teachers" by Thatcher.
After all he did not have the example of Judith and Fergus Wilson, two teachers who between 1986 and 2009 acquired a "buy to let" property empire of somewhere between 700 and 900 houses worth an estimated £180 billion - Are they "greedy" or just astute?

Greed has always been a feature of the human race and at no time at all has it ever been considered as being anything other than a vice.

Coveting on the other hand is the backbone of "socialism" - They've got something let's take it away from them - Not know as the politics of envy for nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:27 PM

"Not know as the politics of envy for nothing."
Only by right wing extremists
Equality of opportunity = "envy"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:39 PM

They've got something that they acquired improperly, by exploiting people to whom they paid low wages, by charging extortionate rents, by speculating in stocks and shares, by cheating in an unscrutinised banking system, by inheriting fortunes that they didn't do one scrap of work for or by hiring armies of accountants to help them avoid paying tax. Let's work out a way of making the distribution of wealth much fairer to the people who have created that wealth via their blood, sweat, tears, job insecurity and low pay. That's the accurate version, Teribus.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:46 PM

"They've got something that they acquired improperly, by exploiting people to whom they paid low wages, by charging extortionate rents, by speculating in stocks and shares, by cheating in an unscrutinised banking system, by inheriting fortunes that they didn't do one scrap of work for or by hiring armies of accountants to help them avoid paying tax."

Who are the "THEY" you are wittering on about?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:53 PM

Forgot to comment about this from Shaw:

"speculating in stocks and shares"

For quite some time Shaw one of the biggest players on the UK Stock Exchange was the National Union of Miners. Speculating in stocks and shares is how most pensions are funded and insurances are paid.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 08:13 PM

The same "they" as you referred to in your 3.57 post.

Yes,I know how important the stock market is. And how we are all at the mercy of its mindless ups and downs. In the same way that Musket tells me that I can't avoid private medicine, we can't avoid the stock market running our lives in the background. Look where it gets us. Booms, busts, crisis after crisis, cheats, crashes, mad panics. But it's all we've got so no use castigating the poor buggers who have no option but to be a part of the system that's predicated on it. Miners need pensions, in case you haven't noticed.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 02:13 AM

A very good article in today's Guardian about teachers emigrating. Balanced and informative.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 04:10 AM

"Who are the "THEY" you are wittering on about?"
These people:
WORLDWIDE
FASTEST IN BRITAIN
RETURN TO VICTORIAN TIMES
EFFECTS
THE US
This is what you and yours excuse with propaganda slogans like "politics of envy"
Don't think for one minute you will respond to any of it
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 04:45 AM

Ironic that the piece about the UK's yawning gulf between the pay of the richest and the rest was published in the Huffington Post, which famously makes its writers work for free.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Teribus
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 05:05 AM

OMG!!!! THEY are rich, some of that should be mine - WHY?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 05:34 AM

"OMG!!!! THEY are rich, some of that should be mine - WHY?"
A typical Tory response to worldwide poverty, mass suffering and death
Nobody wants it to be "mine" - the mass of the people of this planet create the wealth and produce the means of life - those who actually own ithe wealth and benefit from the work of those who produce it actually produce nothing.
The fact that this doesn't matter to you and your type makes you what you are.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 05:37 AM

Correction
"Nobody wants it to be "mine" - except you, apparently
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 05:38 AM

He isn't listening, Jim. He's repeating this nonsense over two threads now.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 07:23 AM

Course he isn't - greed never does
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 07:35 AM

Neither does platitudinous self-righteous left·wingery, for that matter...
So what else is new...

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 07:44 AM

"They've got something let's take it away from them - Not know as the politics of envy for nothing."

Sounds very much like a summary of the policies of the current Conservative government to me.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 08:43 AM

I can do no better than quote Mark 4:25:

"For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath."

Jesus was a Thatcherite!

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 08:48 AM

Maybe because equal societies - where people earn a relatively equal amount of money for relatively equal work - are better societies to live in - fewer crimes, lower infant and maternal mortality, better health, longer life expectancy, better education, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 09:02 AM

"Neither does platitudinous self-righteous left·wingery, for that matter..."
Name-calling doesn't hack it either Mike
Try responding to the points rather than resorting to the old usial schoolyard taunts
You are one of those who believes striving for equality of opportunity is "envy politics" if my memory served me right.
How about justifying that accusation - it would be a refreshing change from hit-and-run sniping.
What else is new, indeed
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 09:52 AM

No -- 'envy politics' never a usage of mine, Jim; not a phrase you will find me using anywhere above or previously, I don't think. Get your abuses rightly aimed. It is, too, a response to what you choose to call (self-flatteringly imo) your 'points'. Pretty blunt points I'd call them, which won't ever impale my postulates!

So accusations of 'greed' do not constitute name-calling, but 'platitudinous self-righteousness' does? Pray expound...

You're back in your 'higher-confusion' mode, I fear.

Thompson -- re your post 2 back, 0848: name one society that conforms to your unctuous description, with accruement of those benefits you enumerate.

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Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 11:12 AM

"No -- 'envy politics' never a usage of mine"
I'm pretty sure it was Mike - and not too long ago
I might be wrong, if so - I apologies, of course.
Regarding abuse - I find it somewhat ludicrous that you should claim it after having just indulged in it yourself "
platitudinous self-righteous left·wingery"
Still find it strange that you righties should respond to complaints of inequality with "leftie" abuse - maybe I should go and join something.
Now - how about responding to the five links I put up earlier - untrue, unimportant or just uninteresting - or what.
Stop hiding behind waffle and show us your willie.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 11:16 AM

By the way - I never complained of name calling (greed wasn't aimed at you anyway)
I couldn't be arsed one way or the other what people call me as long as they respond honestly to what I say.
It's only objectionable when it comes with nothing else.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 11:16 AM

By the way - I never complained of name calling (greed wasn't aimed at you anyway)
I couldn't be arsed one way or the other what people call me as long as they respond honestly to what I say.
It's only objectionable when it comes with nothing else.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 11:26 AM

"I never complained of name calling" --- Jim 1116

======

"Name-calling doesn't hack it either Mike" --- Jim 0902

======

Are you seeing anybody about this short-term amnesia you appear to be suffering from, Jim?

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Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 12:07 PM

I see no inconsistency in those two quotes, Michael.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 12:37 PM

Don't you, Steve? He denies at 1116 having written what he did at 0902, and you 'see no inconsistency'?

Specsavers?

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 01:06 PM

""Name-calling doesn't hack it either Mike" --- Jim 0902"
Not a complaint Mike, nor amnesia; a statement that you are avoiding the question
"It's only objectionable when it comes with nothing else."as far as I'm concerned - to makes my point for me - can't complain about that.
Still no response to what I put up - I'm afraid you've become as predictable as your little band of brothers
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 01:56 PM

Jesus wasn't a Thatcherite Steve. Sadly, Th*tcher actually existed unfortunately. He is just an excuse for people's actions.

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Mar 16 - 01:38 AM

I have a half-sister, Jim, but no brothers, real or metaphorical. Nor no band neither - haven't been in a band since the much-lamented(!) Easy Riders Skiffle Group broke up in 1956, after precisely one gig: I only sing solo — see my youtube channel. The Cat Who Walked By Himself, that's me!

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Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 16 - 07:40 AM

"The Cat Who Walked By Himself, that's me!"
No wonder you lost your way
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: UK teachers emigrating
From: GUEST,Tucker
Date: 03 Mar 16 - 12:59 AM

The Cat Who Walked By Himself has lost his way? Oh Dear! be careful of the hurtling bus!