Teachers on strike to save education system

JRant

Ficheall wrote: »

So.. What's the protest about? I'm not I'm Ireland at the moment and the news hasn't gone international..

Well it's not about the removal of SNA's from children who really need them and it's definitely not about younger teachers being shafted with greatly reduced terms.

The general jist of the more reasoned arguments put forward is that the new junior cycle, which was to be on a continually assessment basis is being rushed through with not enough time for training and preperation being given.

Personally I don't see it as an issue worthy of striking over. It's a mickey mouse exam that means the square root of feck all.

Cantremember

JRant wrote: »

Well it's not about the removal of SNA's from children who really need them and it's definitely not about younger teachers being shafted with greatly reduced terms.

The general jist of the more reasoned arguments put forward is that the new junior cycle, which was to be on a continually assessment basis is being rushed through with not enough time for training and preperation being given.

Personally I don't see it as an issue worthy of striking over. It's a mickey mouse exam that means the square root of feck all.

D-. You haven't revised the topic. Fcuk off to detention.

JRant

Cantremember wrote: »

D-. You haven't revised the topic. Fcuk off to detention.

I wasn't aware it was a test.

Or am I being continually assessed?

eyescreamcone

How much has todays strike helped the teacher's cause?

The government are about to cave in I'd say.

Let them out there until they beg to be left back in

Cantremember

JRant wrote: »

I wasn't aware it was a test.

Or am I being continually assessed?

It was. You are. In fact to save even more effort, assess yourself.

JRant

Cantremember wrote: »

It was. You are. In fact to save even more effort, assess yourself.

It's funny you should mention that but there are a number of studies outling the benefits of self-assessment.

With that in mind I'd have to give myself a C+. Don't want to be failing my Junior Boards exams.

end of the road

eyescreamcone wrote: »

How much has todays strike helped the teacher's cause?

hopefully the continuation of a system that is working well.

eyescreamcone wrote: »

The government are about to cave in I'd say.

good. then we can get back to business.

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Let them out there until they beg to be left back in

they will be out indefinitely so, meaning they're will be no education. they won't be begging thats for sure.

Cantremember

JRant wrote: »

It's funny you should mention that but there are a number of studies outling the benefits of self-assessment.

With that in mind I'd have to give myself a C+. Don't want to be failing my Junior Boards exams.

Appeal against your decision. In fact appeal to yourself against yourself. You deserve a B. Admit it.

Ficheall

"eyescreamcone wrote: »

Let them out there until they beg to be left back in

Was your family beaten to death with a textbook by a teacher, and then doled out in the school canteen?

jank

Teachers unions have gotten even more militant then before if that can be believed. Teachers had a great time during the boom, wages practically doubled yet reform was promised (lol, ya right) but never delivered. Personally I would be more concerned about poor teachers in full time gigs and no one can do anything about it. Those with means can circumvent it via grinds, those without are stuck with bad teachers.

Teacher Unions do not give a $hit about the students welfare. At least be honest about it. If it were the case then there would be hundreds extra teachers working in schools if only the unions agreed to jobbridge and before someone mentions Finland, do you realise that they are on half the wages as Irish Teachers?

suicide_circus

Teacher's unions are great.....as long as your on a legacy contract.

desertcircus

For some people, there's literally nothing a public sector worker can legitimately strike over.

The teachers are right on this. The Junior and Leaving Cert examination system in this country is one of the few incorruptible systems we have, and the government are trying to fix that. Comparisons with college work are irrelevant for multiple reasons: pushy parents are a huge concern in second level and have effectively zero impact at third level, colleges already anonymise exams where possible, and the pressure on secondary teachers on temporary contracts to hand out good results barely exists at an undergraduate level for temporary staff looking to become tenured.

mickstupp

I'm glad none of my teachers had a hand in correcting my JC. Or Leaving for that matter. Didn't get along with any of them. You can't trust people to try and be unbiased.

Ah, Mick's exam. That little b***ard gave me guff last week. Let's see how many mistakes I can find.

Littlekittylou

desertcircus wrote: »

=
The teachers are right on this. The Junior and Leaving Cert examination system in this country is one of the few incorruptible systems we have, and the government are trying to fix that.

Agreed.

Phoebas

JRant wrote: »

Well it's not about the removal of SNA's from children who really need them and it's definitely not about younger teachers being shafted with greatly reduced terms.

The general jist of the more reasoned arguments put forward is that the new junior cycle, which was to be on a continually assessment basis is being rushed through with not enough time for training and preperation being given.

Personally I don't see it as an issue worthy of striking over. It's a mickey mouse exam that means the square root of feck all.

That's not the reason being put forward by the teacher's unions for the strike.

eyescreamcone

Teachers should be allowed to have an opinion/input on education policy. However, they should not be allowed to dictate it.

It is not their education system - they are just employees (on good wages and pensions)

JRant

Phoebas wrote: »

That's not the reason being put forward by the teacher's unions for the strike.

And that's why I said it was one of the more reasoned arguements against the new junior cycle.

I don't care what the offical union's reasoning is.

wp_rathead

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Teaching jobs are the only jobs where the employer is allowed to discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation or marital status. If teachers really wanted some high moral ground why don't they strike to change that law?
Why? There's no money in it for them.

You posted an awful amount of muck in this thread but I fully agree with this. Baffles me how any union could allow such discrimination to continue..

Breffnigolfer

Funny how not one of those teachers have any issue with the fact that their own third level exams were all marked by their own lecturers?

As for the strike? It was cowardly. It had zero impact on their employers, the people they are supposed to have a grievance with and only affected, badly, the students and those colleagues of theirs who are not Union members.

bjork

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Teachers should be allowed to have an opinion/input on education policy. However, they should not be allowed to dictate it.

It is not their education system - they are just employees (on good wages and pensions)

Mostly employees who have never actually worked in any industry or any other job they are training the children to for.



Continuous assessment has worked in Oz for over 40 years are samples of corrected work are cross checked with outside bodies to ensure fairness. Here's a good article
independent.ie/life/family/learning/we-cant-change-the-classroom-until-our-outdated-exam-system-is-revised-30272486.html


I thought the mantra over the last few years was that exams were bad, didn't show pupils full potential, yadda, yadda. Now, when they do something it's 'well, I just had 3 months off, but I didn't get time to do any training'' and "the exams are the best thing ever"


LOL, get out of the garden !!

bjork

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Teachers should be allowed to have an opinion/input on education policy. However, they should not be allowed to dictate it.

It is not their education system - they are just employees (on good wages and pensions)

Mostly employees who have never actually worked in any industry or any other job they are training the children for.



Continuous assessment has worked in Oz for over 40 years are samples of corrected work are cross checked with outside bodies to ensure fairness. Here's a good article
independent.ie/life/family/learning/we-cant-change-the-classroom-until-our-outdated-exam-system-is-revised-30272486.html


I thought the mantra over the last few years was that exams were bad, didn't show pupils full potential, yadda, yadda. Now, when they do something it's 'well, I just had 3 months off, but I didn't get time to do any training'' and "the exams are the best thing ever"


LOL, get out of the garden !!

bjork

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Teachers should be allowed to have an opinion/input on education policy. However, they should not be allowed to dictate it.

It is not their education system - they are just employees (on good wages and pensions)

Mostly employees who have never actually worked in any industry or any other job they are training the children for.



Continuous assessment has worked in Oz for over 40 years. Samples of corrected work are cross checked with outside bodies to ensure fairness. Here's a good article
independent.ie/life/family/learning/we-cant-change-the-classroom-until-our-outdated-exam-system-is-revised-30272486.html


I thought the mantra over the last few years was that exams were bad, didn't show pupils full potential, yadda, yadda. Now, when they do something it's 'well, I just had 3 months off, but I didn't get time to do any training'' and "the exams are the best thing ever"


LOL, get out of the garden !!

Tabnabs

So there's much support for the teachers and the unions stance of striking to object to the implementation of Junior Cycle reform proposals. Lots of people are against the changes, I get it.

But my problem is that these proposals only form part of the education reforms currently outlined by the Dept of Education http://www.education.ie/en/The-Department/Public-Service-Reform/Irelands-Education-and-Training-Sector-Overview-of-service-delivery-and-reform.pdf

The issue that ranks as one of the most important is the quality of teaching that is delivered to children and as part of that, the performance of individual teachers not being monitored or rated currently is TBH, an outrage.

It seems the teachers unions are so militant and uncompromising that very reasonable proposals for a form of assessment of principals and students has been taken off the table by Department officials.

The Department of Education says it has no intention of conducting regular performance reviews of teachers and principals, despite admitting in internal documents that such a move would boost the quality of teaching.

In a briefing document prepared for Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan last July, department officials listed creating a system of teacher and principal appraisal under “priorities and main activities” for the period of 2014-2016 .

It noted: “Outside of the probationary period and cases where teachers experience professional difficulties, there is no procedure in the Irish school system whereby the competence and/or the standard of an individual teacher’s work are regularly and systematically evaluated within the school.”

Such a system was recommended by the OECD which has produced evidence suggesting “that appraisal systems for teachers and principals, strongly focussed on improvement and professional development, can play a beneficial role in strengthening teaching and learning in schools”.

However, in a statement this week the department said it had “no plans at present to introduce an appraisal system for teachers and principals”.

The proposal is understood to have been taken off the table until industrial relations improve between teachers and the department over the junior cycle reforms.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/department-shelves-plan-for-teacher-performance-reviews-1.2010479

I had a couple of the laziest and most inept people to "teach" a class of children and I see it with my own kids that things haven't changed. So, until teachers and their unions are willing to be reasonable and mature and put the needs of the children ahead of their own concerns, I won't be supporting any industrial action they partake in.

Iwasfrozen

I don't see any problem with teachers correcting CAs from their own students. (as long as they don't get paid for it obviously) I think people are overestimating two things.

1. One the importance of the JC which is really only a joke exam left over from the time a significant amount of students left school before the leaving.

2. A teachers inability to be impartial. Teachers are professionals. I expect them to be able to put their personal feelings aside when correcting a paper. If they can't do that they shouldn't be teachers.

We need to end the culture of giving public servants in general a separate monetary incentive to do a part of their job.

There are several things we can do to make our education system more efficient but that won't be politically possible while unions are legal.

listermint

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I don't see any problem with teachers correcting CAs from their own students. (as long as they don't get paid for it obviously) I think people are overestimating two things.

1. One the importance of the JC which is really only a joke exam left over from the time a significant amount of students left school before the leaving.

2. A teachers inability to be impartial. Teachers are professionals. I expect them to be able to put their personal feelings aside when correcting a paper. If they can't do that they shouldn't be teachers.

We need to end the culture of giving public servants in general a separate monetary incentive to do a part of their job.

There are several things we can do to make our education system more efficient but that won't be politically possible while unions are legal.

This exactly!,


Every job whether you like it or not has continuous assessment. Performance reviews yearly. Managers and supervisors are expected to be impartial. If teachers are really lining up these guys to be setup for the real world then the same standards should apply.

Iused2likebusts

Tabnabs wrote: »

So there's much support for the teachers and the unions stance of striking to object to the implementation of Junior Cycle reform proposals. Lots of people are against the changes, I get it.

But my problem is that these proposals only form part of the education reforms currently outlined by the Dept of Education http://www.education.ie/en/The-Department/Public-Service-Reform/Irelands-Education-and-Training-Sector-Overview-of-service-delivery-and-reform.pdf

The issue that ranks as one of the most important is the quality of teaching that is delivered to children and as part of that, the performance of individual teachers not being monitored or rated currently is TBH, an outrage.

It seems the teachers unions are so militant and uncompromising that very reasonable proposals for a form of assessment of principals and students has been taken off the table by Department officials.


http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/department-shelves-plan-for-teacher-performance-reviews-1.2010479

I had a couple of the laziest and most inept people to "teach" a class of children and I see it with my own kids that things haven't changed. So, until teachers and their unions are willing to be reasonable and mature and put the needs of the children ahead of their own concerns, I won't be supporting any industrial action they partake in.

So all teachers get tarred with being lazy and inept due to your experiences with a few teachers. Also Im assuming if the 10 or so teachers you come across had impressed you that you would now be saying that that's a reflection on all teachers. All teachers are now great and super motivated would have to be your opinion based on your experience. Its a bit ridiculous to form an opinion on 27,000 workers due to your exposure to 0.0004% of the workforce

steddyeddy

jank wrote: »

Teachers unions have gotten even more militant then before if that can be believed. Teachers had a great time during the boom, wages practically doubled yet reform was promised (lol, ya right) but never delivered. Personally I would be more concerned about poor teachers in full time gigs and no one can do anything about it. Those with means can circumvent it via grinds, those without are stuck with bad teachers.

Teacher Unions do not give a $hit about the students welfare. At least be honest about it. If it were the case then there would be hundreds extra teachers working in schools if only the unions agreed to jobbridge and before someone mentions Finland, do you realise that they are on half the wages as Irish Teachers?

This nearly cost me my education. Half of my teachers encouraged people to go for ordinary level. I entered third level and I'm shocked to learnt that a lot of the incompetent teachers still teach at my old school despite many complaints made by me and other former pupils.

Dan_Solo

eyescreamcone wrote: »

They already correct students exams in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th years + mocks.

This is a truly moronic comment.
Do unis or employers ask you for teacher graded mock results or anonymously marked Leaving Cert results?

I'd be on the side of favouring anonymity on the marking. Bias is bad enough in everyday school for some pupils, or pupils who got off on the wrong foot, whatever, without it having an effect on something that can affect the course of their lives to such a significant degree.
Is there any kind of compromise like peer review from teachers in other schools or something

Donkey Oaty

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Its a bit ridiculous to form an opinion on 27,000 workers due to your exposure to 0.0004% of the workforce

Statistically that's not even one teacher.

jamesbere

Girl I know and a few of her teacher friends had a strike party on Monday, shows how seriously they were taking it.

Shenshen

bluewolf wrote: »

I'd be on the side of favouring anonymity on the marking. Bias is bad enough in everyday school for some pupils, or pupils who got off on the wrong foot, whatever, without it having an effect on something that can affect the course of their lives to such a significant degree.
Is there any kind of compromise like peer review from teachers in other schools or something

I feel a bit of an outsider to this discussion as I never went to school in Ireland and was frankly baffled when this first hit the news and I found out that Irish teachers don't grade their students.

It seems a very redundant process in an effort to ensure impartiality - but how impartial can it be, really, when at the end of the day you still have human beings doing that grading. The standards will be different from one to another, that's absolutely inevitable.

The way they try and make some grades impartial where I'm from is by having the teacher who taught that subject that year grade the exams first, and then get a second grading from another teacher who teaches the same subject. It then gets compared and discussed until both teachers agree on the grade.

Now, this is only done for the final exams, and those grades only make up about 25% of your actual final grade, the rest comes from project works and tests throughout the year itself.
If the student is unhappy, a 3rd teacher in that subject grades it again, and consensus will have to be reached with the first 2 teachers.

Iused2likebusts

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Statistically that's not even one teacher.

Should have said 0.04%

Shenshen

Shenshen wrote: »

The way they try and make some grades impartial where I'm from is by having the teacher who taught that subject that year grade the exams first, and then get a second grading from another teacher who teaches the same subject. It then gets compared and discussed until both teachers agree on the grade.

Now, this is only done for the final exams, and those grades only make up about 25% of your actual final grade, the rest comes from project works and tests throughout the year itself.
If the student is unhappy, a 3rd teacher in that subject grades it again, and consensus will have to be reached with the first 2 teachers.

That's what I meant for a compromise all right. Preferably the second teacher would be from another school but sure

Dan_Solo

Shenshen wrote: »

I feel a bit of an outsider to this discussion as I never went to school in Ireland and was frankly baffled when this first hit the news and I found out that Irish teachers don't grade their students.

It seems a very redundant process in an effort to ensure impartiality - but how impartial can it be, really, when at the end of the day you still have human beings doing that grading. The standards will be different from one to another, that's absolutely inevitable.

The way they try and make some grades impartial where I'm from is by having the teacher who taught that subject that year grade the exams first, and then get a second grading from another teacher who teaches the same subject. It then gets compared and discussed until both teachers agree on the grade.

Now, this is only done for the final exams, and those grades only make up about 25% of your actual final grade, the rest comes from project works and tests throughout the year itself.
If the student is unhappy, a 3rd teacher in that subject grades it again, and consensus will have to be reached with the first 2 teachers.

Are these exam results that are only for internal school use or are they important to employers and university enrolment? I don't think anyone has a problem with continual assessment as such, just that it isn't anonymous for final exams.

Dan_Solo

bluewolf wrote: »

That's what I meant for a compromise all right. Preferably the second teacher would be from another school but sure

But isn't the current system basically teachers from other schools randomly marking scripts anyway? Even better as none of the assessment is done by the host school.

eyescreamcone

Dan_Solo wrote: »

This is a truly moronic comment.
Do unis or employers ask you for teacher graded mock results or anonymously marked Leaving Cert results?

Haha
Do unis or employers ask you for anonymously marked junior cert results? No

Shenshen

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Are these exam results that are only for internal school use or are they important to employers and university enrolment? I don't think anyone has a problem with continual assessment as such, just that it isn't anonymous for final exams.

The process I was describing only applies to the final exams, the Abitur.
75% of that grade will come from your wokr throughout the preparation year, 25% will be from the final exam.

All other grades are always based on contiual assessment throughout the year, with announced fixed exams in the "main" subjects (maths, physics, chemistry and languages mostly) and unannounces written or oral tests in all subjects including the main ones.

Why would it have to be anonymous, anyway?
If you go on to university, your professors will grade you, there won't be any anonymity there either.

Specialun

If the teachers were striking on 1 or 2 hours slots what were they doing while not striking? were they teaching?

lukesmom

Paulownia wrote: »

God be with the days when teachers marked the inter and leaving cert papers first in the summer and then headed off to work on the building sites in England to pay their mortgages. We are all expecting to be regarded as indispensable now!

Yeah my dad was a secondary school teacher and used to go to America to work as a barman in the summer to pay the mortgage.

Dan_Solo

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Haha
Do unis or employers ask you for anonymously marked junior cert results? No

What I said exactly was:

Dan_Solo wrote: »

This is a truly moronic comment.
Do unis or employers ask you for teacher graded mock results or anonymously marked Leaving Cert results?

Why did you deliberately change from Leaving Cert to Junior Cert in your "response"? To make an utter non-point against something nobody posted?:rolleyes:

Dan_Solo

Shenshen wrote: »

The process I was describing only applies to the final exams, the Abitur.
75% of that grade will come from your wokr throughout the preparation year, 25% will be from the final exam.

All other grades are always based on contiual assessment throughout the year, with announced fixed exams in the "main" subjects (maths, physics, chemistry and languages mostly) and unannounces written or oral tests in all subjects including the main ones.

Why would it have to be anonymous, anyway?
If you go on to university, your professors will grade you, there won't be any anonymity there either.

It's all about final exams here at Secondary Level, so the non-anonymous continual assessment isn't an issue. That has its own problems (bad day exam) but has fairness definitely on its side.
AFAIK you just put your student number on university exam scripts? In a small class the marker could probably work out who's who, but not in the bigger degree courses.

Dan_Solo

Specialun wrote: »

If the teachers were striking on 1 or 2 hours slots what were they doing while not striking? were they teaching?

I hope they weren't "striking" like the nurses did before... do your work anyway to a union rota and get crappy strike pay from the union... HSE must laugh their holes off!

eyescreamcone

Dan_Solo wrote: »

What I said exactly was:
Why did you deliberately change from Leaving Cert to Junior Cert in your "response"? To make an utter non-point against something nobody posted?:rolleyes:

Why are you talking about The Leaving Cert when teachers are striking about the Junior Cert. The anonymity of correctors is nowhere near as important as it is for the LC.
Ridiculous to be striking over such an irrelevant point

Shenshen

Dan_Solo wrote: »

It's all about final exams here at Secondary Level, so the non-anonymous continual assessment isn't an issue. That has its own problems (bad day exam) but has fairness definitely on its side.
AFAIK you just put your student number on university exam scripts? In a small class the marker could probably work out who's who, but not in the bigger degree courses.

Not sure and it might differ from uni to uni, but we put our names and numbers down on the written exams.

Only part of our final exams were written, though. The other half was oral, with your own prof and 2 others testing us.

Dan_Solo

Shenshen wrote: »

Not sure and it might differ from uni to uni, but we put our names and numbers down on the written exams.

Only part of our final exams were written, though. The other half was oral, with your own prof and 2 others testing us.

There could be favouritism between candidates I guess, but I think when people see "Leaving Cert English - A" they don't think of the school at all, which is good. If you said "I have a degree in English" the first question would be from where...

Dan_Solo

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Why are you talking about The Leaving Cert when teachers are striking about the Junior Cert. The anonymity of correctors is nowhere near as important as it is for the LC.
Ridiculous to be striking over such an irrelevant point

We all know what will come next. School assessment of LC. It is right to make a stand now against this.
I'd prefer if they just scrapped the Junior Cert myself as a separate exam, and make it another internal annual exam.

Shenshen

Dan_Solo wrote: »

There could be favouritism between candidates I guess, but I think when people see "Leaving Cert English - A" they don't think of the school at all, which is good. If you said "I have a degree in English" the first question would be from where...

Really? I've honestly never been asked that.
What difference would it make were you got your degree?

end of the road

jank wrote: »

Teachers unions have gotten even more militant then before if that can be believed. Teachers had a great time during the boom, wages practically doubled yet reform was promised (lol, ya right) but never delivered. Personally I would be more concerned about poor teachers in full time gigs and no one can do anything about it. Those with means can circumvent it via grinds, those without are stuck with bad teachers.

Teacher Unions do not give a $hit about the students welfare. At least be honest about it. If it were the case then there would be hundreds extra teachers working in schools if only the unions agreed to jobbridge and before someone mentions Finland, do you realise that they are on half the wages as Irish Teachers?

teachers deserve more respect then to be put on job bridge.

Iwasfrozen

end of the road wrote: »

teachers deserve more respect then to be put on job bridge.

Shouldn't they be allowed to apple if they want?