Money not all in teaching

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 13

Money not all in teaching

While teachers are in the throes of negotiating new pay rates, CHRIS HUTCHING backgrounds the secondary teacher shortage.

Secondary school unions say that a good wage settlement is essential to stop teachers leaving for better paid jobs in the private sector. But the problem runs deeper than money. In fact many who leave are prepared to take a substantial drop in salary for less stress and more job satisfaction. Denise Ryan, aged 26, who taught economics in a Wellington high school, is now a reporter for a metropolitan daily newspaper. For her, class sizes were a major problem. "Often there were 35 pupils in one class which is just hopeless,” she says. “In effect you’re just babysitting. In an hour, after seating them and setting out the work, each student was lucky to get half a minute of my time and some needed much more help. “I think my biggest appeal to the kids was that I was young and enthusiastic, but I could see my enthusiasm couldn’t last.” She says teaching is a job that needs short bursts of energy to do it well, and teachers should be able to diversify more rather than staying in the same institution doing the same things year after year. “I was afraid that the noise of youngsters jarring chairs in overcrowded classrooms would eventually cause me to lose my sense of humour,” she says. Although she enjoyed the contact with pupils, she did not feel that her career was getting anywhere.

last year to try his hand at merchant banking. Petty discipline is an area which he thinks shows up the attitude of many of the senior school. “Recently I listened to school assembly with all the usual complaints about uniforms and the kids wearing their socks down. There’s this attitude that if the school’s image is up to standard everything else is alright, and that becomes the main concern of the senior staff,” he says. He was annoyed at the lack of direction from senior staff and says there is a general reluctance to discuss problems because they can backfire on teachers later on. “Older colleagues don’t want to admit they have troubles in the classroom because there’s this one-upmanship thing. This means that senior staff take less responsibility in helping staff with day-to-day hassles,” he says. “Classification of teachers and the so-called guidance systems for beginners could be a lot more helpful and less threatening.” Besides the lack of support, Paul Costello cites the often heard complaint about class sizes and the stress they create. “If you could get classes down to about 20 pupils it would be really good. As it is, it’s hopeless,” he says. His relatively short time in the commercial world has re-in-forced his view of how undervalued teachers are by society, and he thinks this partly accounts for the lack of political action on class sizes and teaching conditions. “There’s no mystique about the job because everyone has been to school. At a party, if you say you are a merchant banker people are impressed but in fact

“Automatic promotion after several years simply leads into administration, where you become the chief teller-offer. In many other job? there are related fields of work that you can move into,” she says. Older colleagues were often not supportive. “Many of them were insecure themselves because they were doing battle every day and trying to survive as well,” she remembers. This lack of support was also something that Paul Costello, aged 28, found at the schools where he taught. He left teaching

teaching requires far, far more in the way of specialised skills than most jobs I’ve seen,” he says.

Ironically, Paul Costello enjoyed the time he actually spent in the classroom and still feels it suits his life-style while he is young and single. “I liked the autonomy of being directly responsible for my own work environment. It’s not like

being a cog in a wheel,” he says. In many respects he found the business world too impersonal and is still interested in returning to the classroom at some stage. More frequent leave of absence is something he thinks is essential and would be a big factor in attracting him back. He says teaching is a job that wears people out and thinks this is especially true for married people or those with commitments who feel trapped in highstress occupations. "The main thing I feel is that teaching is not a merit-based career, especially when you see

the number of incompetent people in positions of responsibility,” he says. “I didn’t want to end up like so many other dissatisfied teachers who have never had the chance to try anything else, and I hated the thought of knowing there would be another 30 years of introducing myself to yet another 3rd form social studies class.” Jeff Field, aged 31, who retrained to be a journalist two years ago, had the same fear of being trapped. He did not want to be one of those who left it too late. “The prospect of teaching at 60 and waiting for retirement was terrible, and because it is hard to get out after the age of 30, I thought the crunch time had come,” he says. He says he got on well with the pupils and did not have any major discipline problems, but after only three years he was conscious of the repetitive sameness, with the only promotion prospects being a move into administration. “In my new job as a reporter, I feel like I’m up with what’s happening to real people,” he says. He also finds he can now forget about work on his days off in a way that he never could when he was teaching. “I’m not pressured to the same extent, even though I have deadlines to work by,” he says. “Teaching takes a lot out of you and it’s difficult to get away from it at the end of the day, especially if .you have had a runin with a kid.” His resignation was announced at morning break in the staffroom. “I was amazed at the number of people on the staff who told me on the quiet that they wished they had had the guts and the opportunity to do it too,” he says. Only serious financial hardship would force him back to the classroom now and he knows it would be almost impossible to get out a second time.