Wednesday 5 October 2011

Teachers on strike

Demanding a drawback on the attitude of the government in Castilla-La Mancha, which is reducing the number of teachers in the state schools, a majority of the teachers in the high-schools in this region are on strike. Much has been said about the reasons why we do it: we don't want to work 20 hours a week, we want to be better-paid, when everybody in the country is suffering from the effects of the crisis, we are not responsible and serious... Those who are close to teachers know there is no truth in those words.
Apart from the hours the teachers are present in the schools, most teachers spend many hours in the afternoons preparing the lessons for the next day, correcting exercises, trying to find interesting things that attract the attention of their students (many are on the Internet, and not everybody manages well with it; therefore, they have to learn themselves, to be able to use the new technologies). For many teachers, two more lessons imply more groups; that is, more work at home.
Our salaries have been reduced as well, and of course we are not happy. It is difficult for us, the same as for everybody, to understand that those politicians who get very high salaries (sometimes, they get two or three different salaries) tell us to be happy with the idea that we have to earn less, and at the same time their own salaries keep increasing. We don't like it; nobody can.
And we are responsible and serious: we care about the education system in our country. We work hard every day to do our job the best we can, and nobody has the right to call us lazy and say we don't deserve the same respect as every professional. And we are worried because we see that this system, which has taken so long to create, is being shamelessly destroyed little by little.
I believe in a free state school, in which everybody who has an interest in learning has the right to be included and where you get the attention you need. It has taken so much effort to build our welfare society; we shouldn't allow anybody to take it from us.

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