Teachers today

[Chantho]

Well, I don't actually.

Oxford is a different world really.

It's full of posh young (white) students holding teddy bears, serious looking (christian) profs and dons, smoking pipes and writing fantasy classics, and lots of nice middle-class (christian and white) folk from the 1950s.

Yeah, and real-ale swilling police inspectors

[threaded]

Yeah, and real-ale swilling police inspectors

Remember the common recreational activities: at Oxford it's the drugs and Cambridge it's the boys.

[SueEllen]

Yeah, and real-ale swilling police inspectors

You mean Inspector Morse isn't real.

[threaded]

You mean Inspector Morse isn't real.

He's a bit hopeless, if he'd just listen to the tune at the begining it'd tell him who did it, wouldn't waste nearly all that time, and could get on with changing film in speed trap cameras.

[bogeyman]

Yeah, and real-ale swilling police inspectors

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[bogeyman]

You mean Inspector Morse isn't real

You'd no doubt be amazed by the vast numbers of middle-aged American tourists wandering around the Sheldonian and the Bodleian looking for him and asking which pub he drinks in (all of them apparently*).

*Insider secret: the Turf Tavern mostly.

[scooby]

If you don't meet people who are different religionsthen you can't find out from them first hand whether they practise or not, and how observant they are.

dont need to meet them face to face here... you can hear the calling to pray on a friday night from all over the town and the fact they keep building more and more mosques

[rootsnall]

nothing is worth the lack of support she got from her employers

A long standing PE teacher mate of mine had a run in with the school nutter/spoilt brat including a bit of argy bargy but just managed to keep his cool. Some sort of formal meeting was called including the nutter parents and the school head. He wasn't hugely fussed about the meeting and sat down opposite the kid and his parents, head walks in, walks past my mate and joins the parents on the other side of the table, my mate stands up and walks out never to return. He has never taught again and reckons it's the best thing he ever did.

[TheFaQQer]

This is what the union is for.

FWIW, she probably shouldn't have started her teaching in an inner city school.

Parents are the worst - they never back up the school's decisions and expect the school to teach them everything they should have been taught at home.

Why not? Better to get it done when you might be keen rather than after a number of years in a cushier role.

My sister started her job in Middlesbrough, and now teaches in Oldham. My brother-in-law started his job in Oldham and now works just down the road from where the Oldham riots were.

My sister-in-law started her job in Ascot, then Crazies Hill, and now Windsor. My brother started his teaching job in Henley on Thames, and now works in Winkfield St. Marys.

I would suggest that my sister and brother-in-law could teach anywhere, whereas my brother and sister-in-law could never teach in an inner city environment because they just wouldn't be able to handle it. The pressures of having to deal with the parents about the after school Latin club don't really compare to the pressures of having one of the parents stabbed to death in the car park at school.

[bogeyman]

my mate stands up and walks out never to return. He has never taught again and reckons it's the best thing he ever did.

Oh for God's sake! That is a truly terrible, terrible story!

If the head of the school doesn't have the bottle (and the sense of duty) to stand by his staff then what are teachers supposed to do? Where's their support and backup?

It seems as though feckless (read F E C K LESS!) and irresponsible idiots (the ever burgeoning majority in the UK) can do what they please and be supported on all sides whereas the decent folk get trampled on at every turn.

Your mate made a good decision. An even better one would be moving abroad.