Why can't school holidays be shorter

Lord TSC

micropig wrote: »

I don't think people lay the blame of poor resources at the feet of teachers. The reason teachers get blamed for this is because of the proportion of the education budget being spent on wages and the unbalance in providing resources.

A lot of teachers get very defensive if lack of resources etc is mentioned and use it as a reason to justify their pay and holidays, without offering solutions themselves as to how the real issues could be addressed.

Teachers get defensive because lack of resources due to wages is constantly used as a weapon to attack them. Goes back to what I was saying earlier; if people weren't always launching attacks, teachers wouldn't have to be so defensive. I'd go so far as to say if there was less attacks based on stuff like "Your holidays are too long! Your pay is too high!", if topics were made to actually discuss and debate rather than attack and troll, things would go a lot smoother. Problem is these sorts of topics always degenerate into teacher-bashing quickly, which means instead of actually having debates, teachers have to go on the defensive.

As far as offering solutions to real issues, I think you'll find teachers tend to do that in the classroom; that most teachers don't have the patience to come onto AH and debate how someone should be teaching, they just go into the classroom and try their hardest to deal with problems and provide the best education they can

Yes we need the best and brightest as teachers, but we also need to ensure that that people are not just being attracted to the profession for the money and the holidays and have a real interest in educating children.

Anyone who goes into teaching for those reasons will soon be weeded out following the completition of their PDE and the years of unemployment which subsequentially follow....again I say, teaching is not a cushy job people fall into for the wrong reasons anymore; anyone starting out will soon find the only holidays they'll be taking for the first few years are long-term ones involving welfare payments...

Teachers teaching is not the most important thing in education, students learning is

Agreed. But good luck trying to have good student learning without having good teachers teaching first. One may be the most imporant, but the other is the vital prerequisite of education. Without teachers teaching, there's no students learning.

micropig

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

"Your holidays are too long! Your pay is too high!", if topics were made to actually discuss and debate rather than attack and troll, things would go a lot smoother.

Well this thread is about "why school holidays can't be shorter" many points were made by myself and other people as to why it is beneficial to shorten holidays for the students. There was not many/no points made, backed up with links, or even reasonably sensible, as to why holidays shouldn't be shortened.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

As far as offering solutions to real issues, I think you'll find teachers tend to do that in the classroom; that most teachers don't have the patience to come onto AH and debate how someone should be teaching, they just go into the classroom and try their hardest to deal with problems and provide the best education they can

Not suggesting they come to AH, but if would be great if those that where here gave a reasonable argument. I'd be more suggesting they make more noise about these issues at their union meetings. The only time we hear strike/threat of strike is in relation to adjusting the personal salaries of teachers, never about the resources etc.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Anyone who goes into teaching for those reasons will soon be weeded out following the completition of their PDE and the years of unemployment which subsequentially follow....again I say, teaching is not a cushy job people fall into for the wrong reasons anymore; anyone starting out will soon find the only holidays they'll be taking for the first few years are long-term ones involving welfare payments...

This will effect the NQT's, but not effect those already in the permanent full time positions in the profession

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Agreed. But good luck trying to have good student learning without having good teachers teaching first. One may be the most imporant, but the other is the vital prerequisite of education. Without teachers teaching, there's no students learning.

Students can learn from other sources, not only teachers teaching. In fact, teachers should only be facilitators of the lesson and provide the children with the opportunities to learn. Children should be thought to investigate ad explore and come to a conclusion for themselves. Teacher needs only to provide them with the facilities and guide the lesson. Students will retain more knowledge actively participating in their leaning rather than passively letting the teacher, teach them the material. They will also learn investigative and research skills, how to ensure information they have is valid and reliable etc.

Some teachers will say this is what they do/ not possible etc.....but with the lack of resources in Irish schools..it is impossible to believe that this is being done effectively in any classroom across the state. Again, I'm sure most teachers are doing the best with what they have, but the fact remains if more resources where in schools, they could be doing a lot better

This is not attacking teachers...it's attacking the lack of resources...why is there a lack of resources...and round it goes

Lord TSC

Well this thread is about "why school holidays can't be shorter" many points were made by myself and other people as to why it is beneficial to shorten holidays for the students. There was not many/no points made, backed up with links, or even reasonably sensible, as to why holidays shouldn't be shortened.

In fairness, there were.

Top of that list is 30% of teachers are not paid over the summer, so the money will have to be found to pay them over the summer months they'd now be working. You can debate about having teachers who are paid over summer in working without increasing their pay, but you can't really ask temp teachers to work for two months for free. That's not including other costs it would cause the school (heating, electricity, insurance, etc). You'd have to extend the syllabus to cover an extra year's worth of material (2 extra months x 6 years). Then there's the arguements over "kids should get time to be kids", lessened productivity, etc. There's plenty of arguements on both sides, but there's a large contingency of teacher-bashers who, it would appear, aren't looking for the arguements from the other side.

At this stage, I'm leaving the other points, since we're going in circles and we're never going to agree on them. Since the topic is about longer summer holidays, and since we're apparently avoiding another teacher bashing topic, I'll leave it there with relation to other points.

micropig

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

In fairness, there were.

Top of that list is 30% of teachers are not paid over the summer, so the money will have to be found to pay them over the summer months they'd now be working. You can debate about having teachers who are paid over summer in working without increasing their pay, but you can't really ask temp teachers to work for two months for free. That's not including other costs it would cause the school (heating, electricity, insurance, etc). You'd have to extend the syllabus to cover an extra year's worth of material (2 extra months x 6 years). Then there's the arguements over "kids should get time to be kids", lessened productivity, etc. There's plenty of arguements on both sides, but there's a large contingency of teacher-bashers who, it would appear, aren't looking for the arguements from the other side.

At this stage, I'm leaving the other points, since we're going in circles and we're never going to agree on them. Since the topic is about longer summer holidays, and since we're apparently avoiding another teacher bashing topic, I'll leave it there with relation to other points.

Because the argument is all about the teachers and not how beneficial /or not it is for the children...

Lord TSC

micropig wrote: »

Because the argument is all about the teachers and not how beneficial /or not it is for the children...

If we're going to talk about keeping schools open for longer, surely cost has to be one of the biggest factors in that discussion. I get the impact on the kids is important, but there's no point discussing things and ignoring the biggest obstacle to the proposal...

micropig

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

If we're going to talk about keeping schools open for longer, surely cost has to be one of the biggest factors in that discussion. I get the impact on the kids is important, but there's no point discussing things and ignoring the biggest obstacle to the proposal...

I think our opinions differ on what the biggest obstacles to the proposal. I for one don't think lack of money is, but the fact that 80% of the education budget goes on salaries/pensions and the unwillingness of the unions to redress this balance


From the examiner MONDAY, APRIL 09, 2012
Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has repeatedly said he has little choice but to impose cuts to services and school programmes when about 80% of his €8.5bn-plus annual budget is expended on staff pay and pensions. More than 90% of the schools’ non-capital budget goes on pay and about 6% on running costs.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/1500-teachers-earn-up-to-115k-a-year-189895.html#ixzz1rwMeTvDf

jonseyblub

micropig wrote: »

I think our opinions differ on what the biggest obstacles to the proposal. I for one don't think lack of money is, but the fact that 80% of the education budget goes on salaries/pensions and the unwillingness of the unions to redress this balance
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True but the reason it's 80% percent is that Ireland spends less on education than most of the rest of the OECD. The same amount of money could be spent on salaries in other countries but because they spend more money in total in education their percentage is less. The % GDP spent on education in Ireland has consistently been low over the last 20 years.

cooranig23

The holidays are fine as they are .. if something is okay don't change it..

what they do need to change is the 'class sizes' that has always been an issue

LilyCricket

teachers have an easy ride i tell ya

sineadsull

It amazes me just how many parents just want to offload their children off on teachers, camps and clubs. God forbid they would engage, play, enjoy, excite and enhance the lives of their own children...Shocking!
Of course the answer to children seeking attention from their uninterested parents is to send them away for more structures learning... we also learn through living and life...enjoy your children.

goat2

i dont know why a person would want their children closeted in a classroom for more than it is at the moment, could you emagine a six year old spending most of its awake time in one room all day, think again,
i took mine to beach during august holidays, no need to fly off someplace,

ash23

sineadsull wrote: »

It amazes me just how many parents just want to offload their children off on teachers, camps and clubs. God forbid they would engage, play, enjoy, excite and enhance the lives of their own children...Shocking!
Of course the answer to children seeking attention from their uninterested parents is to send them away for more structures learning... we also learn through living and life...enjoy your children.

God yeah, the audacity of parents to have jobs and have to work. The nerve of them wanting to put their kids in summer camps. The outrage of them sending their kids to lessons learning how to swim/play sports/learn a musical instrument.
Bad parents. :rolleyes:

touts

sineadsull wrote: »

It amazes me just how many parents just want to offload their children off on teachers, camps and clubs. God forbid they would engage, play, enjoy, excite and enhance the lives of their own children...Shocking!
Of course the answer to children seeking attention from their uninterested parents is to send them away for more structures learning... we also learn through living and life...enjoy your children.

It is insulting to accuse hard working parents of neglecting their children. In order to meet your standard of being a good parent we would all have to quit our jobs and be waiting at the school gate to skip and play with our child all the way home. But then there would no one left paying the tax that is used to pay your wages.

Out here in the real world people who work don't have 3 months holidays in summer plus ~10 weeks off through the rest of the year to mark the mid point and end point of something called Terms. We need to have someone look after our children during those periods and I suggest it would be far better to have them in a learning environment than sitting at their grandparents or a childminder watching TV. Surely that would be a far more responsible act as a parent than en-mass throwing ourselves on the dole to meet your definition of good parenting.

micropig

ash23 wrote: »

God yeah, the audacity of parents to have jobs and have to work. The nerve of them wanting to put their kids in summer camps. The outrage of them sending their kids to lessons learning how to swim/play sports/learn a musical instrument.
Bad parents. :rolleyes:

As if the children would benefit from that:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:


What amazes me is that some teachers jump to the conclusion if the school year was lengthened, they would be babysitters.....do they not think they have more to offer, educationally to children than what's currently on the curriculum?:(

JohnMarston

micropig wrote: »

As if the children would benefit from that:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:


What amazes me is that some teachers jump to the conclusion if the school year was lengthened, they would be babysitters.....do they not think they have more to offer, educationally to children than what's currently on the curriculum?:(

Such as what?

And yes, children would benefit from having more to learn than just academic subjects. They are the best years to learn a new language or musical instrument

micropig

JohnMarston wrote: »

Such as what?

And yes, children would benefit from having more to learn than just academic subjects. They are the best years to learn a new language or musical instrument

I've already put some ideas out there in this thread...


Still waiting on replies/ideas from other teachers & non teachers

NiallFH

I Heart Internet wrote: »

(perhaps 3rd level degrees could also be condensed?).

My mum is a teacher and this is something she has always commented about, although never complains about school holidays lol.

I have to agree about Degrees though, I am in my third year of one at the minute and the holidays are very long (Not complaining).

My 4 year degree could be done in 3 easily, maybe not 2 but 3 years would be plenty. All about the Fee's I guess though. I am on placement this year and still have to pay them!

OldNotWIse

touts wrote: »

It is insulting to accuse hard working parents of neglecting their children. In order to meet your standard of being a good parent we would all have to quit our jobs and be waiting at the school gate to skip and play with our child all the way home. But then there would no one left paying the tax that is used to pay your wages.

Out here in the real world people who work don't have 3 months holidays in summer plus ~10 weeks off through the rest of the year to mark the mid point and end point of something called Terms. We need to have someone look after our children during those periods and I suggest it would be far better to have them in a learning environment than sitting at their grandparents or a childminder watching TV. Surely that would be a far more responsible act as a parent than en-mass throwing ourselves on the dole to meet your definition of good parenting.

I agree with you to a point, but childless people work and pay tax too (more in fact). Also, I think the point was directed at people who want longer school hours simply so that they would not need to worry about childcare. This is not the intended function of our education system. Nobody is suggesting that everyone who has procreated join the dole and er..skip home with their children

Kitty-kitty

Dear God, no. The school holidays are glorious, I actually get a seat on the bus without having to get up half an hour earlier.

Son Of A Vidic

I Heart Internet wrote: »

What are the downsides to this idea??

A drop in overall teacher numbers and recruitment. This simple formula shall explain it..

(working year - less holidays + increase in hours) = more work.

Therefore; more work = less teachers.