Thinking Time, Ted

I’m in a bit of a philosophizing mood as I realize that I’ve managed to cram a week and a half’s work into five days, I’ll be continuing to work for several hours over the weekend and there’s no let-up likely next week.

Those of you in the teaching profession will know exactly what I mean – end of term, marking piling up, students needing attention, preparations for next term and next year. Those of you in other professions will also know what a busy week means, but won’t have the luxury of knowing that very shortly you’ll be ‘on holidays’ for two weeks.

‘On holidays’ – what a magical phrase. Unless you’re a teacher, know a teacher, live with a teacher or spend your working day in a school, you might be forgiven for thinking that we’re all just about to jet off for two weeks in Fiji. The fact is that for the majority of teachers, the holidays isn’t a holiday, so much as a period of ‘student free’ planning time. Time to think without “Miss, miss!” interrupting the flow of thought. An opportunity to have a deep and important discussion about your work with a colleague without being interrupted to issue a detention, manage a friendship breakup, get a locker opened, comfort a crying teenager, take a call from a parent or find a lost textbook.

If you  have children at home, you’ll know what it’s like. Finding peaceful moments when you can indulge in thought are rare. But how much better are you at doing everything else when you’ve had some ‘brain space’?

The Baillieu Government wants teachers to do compulsory Professional Development in the holidays. They expect us to compete over who gets paid for student success. They are asking us to take a pay cut rather than receive a fair pay raise. They want to turn public education into mini corporations churning out productive widgets instead of educated children (particularly if your widget attends a public school).

If you’re wondering why I’m supporting the challenges to the Victorian Government’s decimation of education, it’s because I value the time to think, to recharge the mental batteries, so that detentions, broken friendships, impenetrable lockers, tear-stained faces, parent calls and missing textbooks don’t completely drain my energies and I can concentrate on my ‘core business’ – my work in the classroom, educating children with fewer resources. When every forty minutes of every working day is controlled by ringing bells, it should be a professional respect that we are accorded to be able to use our ‘holiday breaks’ to choose how and when to structure our PD time, our planning time and our personal time.

We could, of course, assume the conspiracy theory. Those in government know their politics. They are clearly aware that a well-educated public will see through the fabrications of power barons who govern in the best interests of the few, thus the plan to gut the education system. But they should also remember their history – when the public are denied their fair share of the wealth and resources, then revolution may be at hand.

I don’t expect the bad old days of 20th Century revolutionary thinking to re-emerge, we’re not about to behead anyone and take over the palace. But we can use the power of the ballot box, and I suggest that if you think teachers have a case, you let this government know what you think of their plans.