There are bunch of teachers on strike. They want more money or something. I don’t blame them, we all want more money, and sometimes removing your services is the only way to get that. I don’t know if they deserve any more money or if they are just taking a chance. Sometimes in the Third World, that’s what you have to do: take your chances. So good luck to them, that’s not what I want to complain about.
I want to know why they never went on strike while I was at school?
Not once in my entire 12 years of schooling did they ever go on strike. Not once in all of the 48 filthy terms that I had to sit behind a desk did they ever walk off the job, do a mass stay-away or any other type of civil disobedience. Not once! The only strike we ever saw was from the cane (“Lift your tails, boy”… where did they get that line, Dickens?). The only sit-in we ever saw in my 2 304 days of education was after-school detention. And yes, it was without trial. Don’t think I’ve forgotten, Mr Pengelly. You accused me of making that hole in my desk, the big oblong one that said, “HELP DIG PENGELLY’S GRAVE”, and you never gave me a chance to defend myself. And as much as I’d like to have claimed that hole, I didn’t do it. It was Judd from third-form. But I took the fall nonetheless, three stripes from that old prick, Maddams, and a few weeks detention.
And even with all these indiscretions, even with all these slights against our little souls, even with all the dark-age rituals of making us remember the first team’s name, calling the older boys “Sir”, and making us wear thick blazers in the heat of the Durban summer, not once, did they cut us some slack and go strike. I, we, would have loved it. The call from a distressed school Inspector. … “Don’t come to school today, the teachers are rioting and have burnt down the library and most of the old block. The only thing left standing is the refectory.” … Imagine that, Chelsea buns lightly warmed by the charred remains of the 13th edition of Algebra and Trigonometry: Structure and Method explained.
But alas, we never tasted that. The Chelsea buns were stale, the teachers dry and the hours clear cut. We did our time and that was that.
jis bru, true dat. We were never lucky enough to have teachers strike. Sounds like bliss!
And they have the gall to complain about it?
Damn – my landlady is a retired schoolteacher who confessed to me than in 43 years of teaching she never missed a single day! no wonder people like you and me tremble at the thought of teachers.
I would like to complain myself about them but my bum and finger tips still hurt this day when I think about my teachers. I would have definitely liked to have them go on strike, especially on the days I knew I was going to be canned in front of the whole school during assembly.
Is this a thinly veiled “things where much better then in the Ou Transvaal” post???
If it is, the answer to the question why you never experienced strikes as a white child, in a white school governed by a separate white education administration, with well-paid white teachers who earned much more than their pigmented counterparts for the same job, in a whites-only area, in a country run by a minority of white people…. Well, the answer is quite obvious. I would hope.
Reminds me Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”, the bit when and teachers reversed attitudes!
Why didn’t your teachers ever go on strike while you were at school?
Hmmmm… in South Africa, during the period you grew up, the Afrikaner Nationalist Party had a slightly different understanding of workers rights and trade union freedom. White teachers could have as much workers right as they wanted and tended to enjoy (by the standards of the time) decent wages and working conditions. Black teachers on the other hand …well let us just say they weren’t so lucky. Black workers weren’t even considered “employees” under Afrikaner-Nationalist-inspired-labour-law. As for black trade unionism …forget about it. Now some black teachers may have wanted to strike and protest against their treatment by the Afrikaner Nationalist Government but after a visit by the local police …and a few broken bones …they changed their minds.
By the way, if you have any further questions don’t hesitate to ask…
was this during the apartheid era when mass gathering were illegal maybe?
Thanks for that
Now I know that most my learners are happy that I am on strike. I know they hate the subject I teach. They hate mathematics more that any thing they have ever came across. I am happy that they are happy for the first time on what I have done.
well wriiten . all true.
A “Long walk to Freedom [ and democracy] followed by
A short slide to COSATU anarchy [ and Mob-Rule]
Teachers?? What teachers? These people are incompetent, thugs, criminals and intimidators. Whatever happend to negotiations? How do you negotiate with people who have a gun to your head? Ever since 1994 violence and intimidation have been the order of the day, and its getting worse.
Negotiation cannot work on “We Demand”. It has to work on the basis of “We would like”.
These “Teachers” or most if them at least should go to jail as should the nurses as they are criminals and now we have criminals running the country and teaching our children.
This country is fast becoming a state where anarchy reigns supreme.
As in Zimbabwe where voters are taught how to vote with a panga, we have adopted the same methods here. It can only get worse and every year, it does.
Who is responsible – no one. Who will be arrested and convicted – no one. Who will pay the price? Our children, the taxpeayers and the country will all have to pay for this insanity. Where are the police? – no where. Its disgusting and very scary. Its time to smash the trade unions as they are taking over the country with their violent methods.
I guess your white teachers had little to strike about.
Oh yes indeed — another sign of the general decline in “civil” behaviour.
I’d love to know what the minimum wage is for teachers and for those here to know of good schools in Canada where the increase for this year is 2%!!
And, as for the other “civil servants” (both words inaccurate of course LOL) I think it’s an absolute shocker that we, as taxpayers, pay their wages in the first place and taxpayers are being asked to go and do their jobs?!?!?
Enjoyed the article.
@Grinch & John:
Actually, Afrikaner Nationalism was a strong force in peoples’ minds, teachers would be ashamed and shunned by society for even thinking about striking. Teachers have always been paid badly
Give teachers an incentive to join the profession and improve their skills and thereby that of the children they teach. Why DO politicians and any other profession such as Doctors and Accountants and executive directors earn and receive all the perks? They had money to advance themselves and the education and skills and contacts to do so. Nurses and teachers do the hardest labour but DSoctors and politicians and yes labour Union bosses earn the fat salaries. While the teachers are on strike they should be paid from Union coffers not tax payers because it is their choice to strike. That is the problem here. The Union bosses unrealistic expectations and the politicians with whom they are in bed have the same attitude except now they are at the coalface and can see that not all skills are equal and money is not necessarily available to give everybody high wages. Politicians especially should be forced to make use of state schools and state transport and state hospitals like the people they claim to represent. Union leaders should be educated in Economics 101 and not be allowed to be leaders until they have sat in the HOT seat deciding who gets the money paid by the taxpayers – themselves incidentally whether rsiding in a shack or a mansion everyone pays some form of tax in the form of VAT.
Ah, “If we acannot laugh at ourselves, who can we alugh at?”
Jislaaik people, this was a good tonge-in-cheek post – and you go and take it so damn seriously! I guess some people just never see satire and take themselves more seriously than Sting.
Laugh a bit, it will help with your disposition. In all the doom and gloom and important things we face daily, a laugh every now and then do us the world of good. Try it sometime.
To Peter Joffe. The negotiation lasted for nine months before the term canged from “we would like like to suggest” to “We demand”. The press is only giving the public the tail end of the real story. One of the reason for the State’s delaying tactics was to miss the inception date of April 1for increases the start of the new financial year) as a cost-saving exercise at the expense of teachers. Also remember that these thugs had to endure policy overload and curriculum innovations and had to pay their way tthrough self improvement course without much assistance from the state which implemented those changes (Varsities and private providers made a killine from short courses to assist teachers to cope. I paid more than R30 000 for a two year Masters degree to improve my theory base and got a once-off R5 680 00 bonus as an acknowledgemet of my effort from the Dept.Teachers face the same expenses for their daily upkeep and we have a Minister that boast that after 30 years with a degree you still earn less than R350 000. If protesting about all of the above makes me a criminal and a thug, so be it. Aluta continua.
@ “The Grinch” and similar posts
The post referred to opens with “Is this a thinly veiled “things where much better then in the Ou Transvaal” post???”
A simple answer is “Maybe”.However such a knee-jerk answer does nothing to further our understanding of the issues involved.
I am a teacher myself; or more correctly a “Deputy Chief Education Specialist ” [Subject/Curriculum Advisor]with years of experience and on salary level 12, much more than an entry level educator. I am not sure what the strike is about exactly.
Is the strike about salaries or is it about conditions of service? No doubt the conditions of service are less than ideal in many schools [I know this from experience].As we know this strike is ostensibly about salaries , period
No doubt in the “Ou Transvaal”Black teachers had a lot to strike about as far as apartheid salaries are concerned. This is not the case any more
If you ask me, I think the whole strike is “political” but not in the “Ou Transvaal sense”.
You see, many not so competent teachers have seen even less competent (former?) comrades being promoted to management level or ( lord be praised)becoming highly paid (sometimes corrupt ) politicians.
Now everyone wants a slice of the cake and there is’nt enough cake to go round.
My prediction is that public education is going to collapse in the next 5 years.No doubt you can blame it all on Verwoerd and the “Ou Transvaal”
I’m sorry to have to point this out – but it is articles like this that result in the great masses not giving a damn about a media tribunal. I am not saying the masses are wise.
But honestly, did you really sit there and think “HMMM….I wonder why my white privileged self did not have to endure teacher strikes in South Africa…hhmm” yes, i get that you are tongue in cheek, but really, this is so bloody insular and typically self-absorbed style of journalist, analysis and writing that grates most South Africans. I wonder if Germans asked silly questions like this after the Nazi era… Imagine in 1960 a young german asking “Hmmm boy oh boy we were so organised, precise, and goal-oriented a decade and a half ago.” This writing just reflects the growing apartheid denialist and trivialising discourse deepening in white society. So im sure you dont see yourself as a denialist, but just read your own insular writing. I’m sure you thought it was terribly clever and ironic. It’s just boring and facile.
@ Skeletal Carp
Are you saying that black teachers didn’t go on strike because of the admiration they had for Afrikaner Nationalism? Wow! Just goes to show that modern pro-Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda is one hell of a strong force.
By the way, my parents were teachers and it certainly wasn’t Afrikaner Nationalism that kept them away from industrial action.
@Peter Joffee
“Ever since 1994 violence and intimidation have been the order of the day, and its getting worse”
You can’t be serious?! Wow! Score another victory for pro-Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda. Let us quickly list apartheid era violence and intimidation: detention-without-trail; torture; routine police brutality; censorship; state-sanctioned-murder-squads; military –occupations-of-the-townships etc. Did you read the things coming out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) everyday? Guess not. That modern pro-Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda: one hell of a strong force
To Fikas Cele, If the useless government means that teachers can turn on their learners, other teachers and allow ‘teachers’ to turn to crime to get their way, it bodes ill for our idiocracy.
You have a problem with the ANC and the goverment (which is the ANC) then run riot through parliament and the Union Buildings. Beating up other teachers, threatening children and trashing schools was not what you learned when you invested R35,000 in your future, or was it??
Hmmm: So in the past teachers beat young bums and later those young bums grew up and took revenge on those foolish teachers and despised them for being bullies and took away their rights to maintain decorum in a classroom through thrashings by enabling a system that eschews violence.
And so the classroom became an unruly hell and the so-called ‘teachers’ woke up to realise that all their former charges were now lying to them and negotiating in bad faith and pretending that agreements made years ago and never implemented are now part of the deal today… Is this because they know that teachers are as my old headmaster once observed “kings in the world of children and children in the worlds of kings”?
Have you considered that for teachers to be doing what they are doing they have to have really become mad [angry/enraged] … Oh i forgot
Since the end of apartheid teachers have been unceremoniously turned into bureaucrats: measuring outcomes and ticking the skills boxes on their assessment packages so in fact there are no teachers anymore and this childhood vision you have indulged us with is a fantasy now unrelated to contemporary classroom reality.
Bureaucrats measure commodities and children are educational commodities : it is only when the wheels come off that they suddenly become precious darlings who are no longer allowed to be abused in the new classroom… only the ‘Learning outcomes mediator classroom managers’ [teacher by many other names] is the one to be abused.
I reckon I know the reason why the teachers are on strike.. through out the year they have done a real crappy job in teaching the pupils so as the pupils are going too fail the strike will be blamed
A funny and frivolous piece, loved it. A breath of fresh air that is difficult to handle (for some) in the politically-charged realm of the thought leader.
Dear Sir
In those years, sir, things were done diffrently.
There were other struggles the likes of YOU were not even aware of (maybe because YOU were living comfortably)
No unionisation (especially for the majority)
Most privilaged schools had sports and extra curricula stipends, which the majority of South Africans schools cannnot afford for their teachers.
No OBE with all funny terminology
Curriculum was not design
Teachers specialised in different subjects (today every primary school teacher is expected to teach Math, Sir)
Well you some of you ask how much a teacher earns.
Well, my wife has been teaching since 1997. Her Gross salary per month is 13 500. She has an Honours degree specialising in junior Primary. BPrimary Ed Postgrad.
Well, it is a good idea to find facts before you label teachers as you did in the first paragraph. Remember you are able to write this article, behind your fancy laptop, because a teacher taught you for all those tems and days and hours you mentioned.
Holier than thou?
Teachers also have opinions about journalists and bloggers who think they are be one and all and perhaps the COUNTRY SHOULD HEAR FROM THEM.
Really. This is one of the most naive blog posts I’ve ever read…verging on insensitive.
Go read up a bit on education policy during apartheid (and just post-apartheid when the spillovers were still clearly apparent) and lets rethink this discussion. Make sure you look at discrepancies in per-student subsidies, facilities, teacher working conditions etc.
And have a chat to some of your non-white friends who went to ‘non-white’ schools to see how much their experience resembles yours…
As Gerry said in an earlier comment, some people need to recognise satire when they see it. Fellow commentators, David Smith wrote this article with his tongue very firmly fixed in his cheek … and I for one enjoyed a good, slightly ironic, laugh when reading his post … he was not writing a Missal from the Pope.