IF I think back to the 1950s and ’60s, I can’t quite imagine Miss Coad, Miss Cabot or Miss Fitter shutting up shop at St Clement’s School and lining up behind the banners of the Nottinghamshire NASWT, or Wigan and North-West Teachers, to march in protest against local pay and negotiating conditions.

Nonetheless, you have to admit the April demonstration, with teachers in the vanguard of public sector employees, was a pretty civilised parade, held on a Saturday, when most schools were closed and with more than a touch of scholarly preparation.
‘No ifs, no buts, no public sector cuts’ was at least more elegant than the ‘Wot do we want –we want it now’ brand of street cries.

Two months later, with negotiations stalled and the prospect of schools actually being forced to close, an 11th-hour accommodation brought relief – at least for the time being – that some form of compromise can be achieved. It is, however, a sad reflection on modern-day abilities to communicate that a workforce charged with instilling maturity and responsibility to our growing generation felt it had no other course than to demonstrate in the streets, while employers of equal maturity remained obdurate until disruption was threatened.

Strikes are generally ugly moments which reflect poorly on both sides. They represent last-ditch measures, taken in most cases with a heavy heart.

Interestingly, when the question of whether the teachers should be resorting to industrial action was lobbed at the candidates at the recent hustings, those who advocated conciliation, rather than offering secondary support to withdrawing labour, appear to have done rather better in the polls.

It’s not difficult to dismiss the ritual criticism of the profession, which goes something like: ‘Teachers get a cushy life, long holidays, home at 4 pm, insulated against the cut-and-thrust of real adult life’. It never was the case.

My dad was a teacher – albeit in the days when those who could do, actually did – teach that is. I can certainly attest to the hours of dedicated ‘extras’ which were expected after the school doors were actually closed.

So I guess the interim agreement which promises to rid the local force of at least some of their extra-curricular child-minding duties strikes a positive chord.

Even so, teaching these days can seriously damage your health. Across the land, we see teachers struggling to cope with unparented children. The statistics don’t make easy reading: seven thousand occasions of police being called to incidents in UK schools last year alone.

Our own Minister of Education spoke openly last year of ‘fear in the classroom’, with teachers subjected to a shocking catalogue of violent assaults by pupils as young as six. And we have seen the sorry saga of long-term exclusions which embarrass a professional institution dedicated to inform and educate while struggling to reconcile discipline with responsibility.

Teaching has become a front-line service along with the police, nurses and all the other professions currently under pressure from financial constraints. Furthermore, the environment in which it operates has become fraught with obstacles unimaginable by those St Clement matriarchs of my youth – a forest of restrictions, checks, vetting and targets to satisfy before even standing in front of a class, and the underlying fear that any complaint against professional or personal competence will be held against them until proven innocent. Superficially, you might be tempted to ask: ‘So who’s in charge?’

Teachers themselves were indeed posing that question at their Easter conferences this year. Well, they would say that wouldn’t they? But evidence quickly emerged of pupils having the last say over appointments, with career choices being made on the most frivolous of criteria.

The new UK government is now proposing to establish ‘free schools’ – that is, free of local authority control. At worst, this could pander to a mishmash of socially or ideologically inspired groups of individuals, including parents, linking with ‘education providers’ to establish institutions free to choose curriculum and teaching methods.

Excuse me if I worry about the prospect of even more confusion and division spawned by a plethora of special interests – Catholic schools, Muslim schools, Jewish schools, parents who only want kids to learn art subjects or shop at Sainsbury’s – fat chance of pupil diversity across those packs!

Now, of course you could say that’s exactly what happens here already, and which actually works. Parents who wish to opt out of public-funded schooling can send their progeny to a range of private schools, all with creditable academic records, surprisingly similar to the local States schools. It is a matter of choice, motivated by parental aspiration, patronage, snobbery and proximity to the family seat.

It doesn’t come cheap, and local taxes continue to support the state sector regardless of personal opt-out. But for those with the means, it is a matter of choice, and that is sacrosanct.

Parents generally want to have an input in their child’s development, though many don’t necessarily want to be involved in the nitty-gritty. There is little more convenient than delivering their charges at the school door with the confidence that they will be nurtured and returned six hours later, safe, relatively clean and hopefully more informed.

For others, it matters little – only that they aren’t at home. Of course, if there were no parents there wouldn’t be any teachers. But teaching is a vocation; parenting is an obligation.

We’ve heard many comparisons between wages and conditions in the Island and in the UK. There is undoubtedly overall a more relaxed professional environment this side of the water. If wise counsels can influence the ongoing discussions, how appropriate it would be to discover that lessons have literally been learned.