kenneal - lagger wrote:Shows just how many people are living in cloud cuckoo land in Greece. We have a few equivalents: the people who turn down a job because they are better off on benefits: public servants who think their pensions are affordable by the rest of us: teachers who think they are doing a great job when there are job vacancies in the country which can't be filled because our school leavers don't have the right qualifications or attitude. I could go on.
The latter is a self-perpetuating problem. You can't just blame it on the existing teachers.
The school syllabus is also so undemanding now that it is difficult to be a good teacher now even if you want to be one. I have a teacher friend who bemoans the fact that he's supposed to instill in his pupils not discipline, but "self-respect" - in other words, to discourage pupils from accepting his own authority.
Teachers are also told they they should be "learning from their pupils" rather than teaching them. You couldn't make it up; it's like something from Lewis Carroll or Jonathan Swift.
As for pensions: it's only natural that public sector workers want to protect their benefits. I think most of us would do the same and protest if told our employment benefits were to be cut. (Not sure I would, but I know how dire the situation is. With my friends in the public sector, when I talk about Peak Oil, it goes in one ear and out the other.)
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."