Good on ya mates. Yes, last week Victorian teachers downed tools and said loud and emphatically NO! to performance pay. It seems that the battle with governments around this issue is widespread and that it rears its ugly head on a regular basis.
The Victorian teachers have taken a stand and I applaud them for this. Why don’t governments get it that if they want better teacher quality and higher achievement for our students do they then put into the system impediments that work against such ideals.
Collegiality is a touch-stone for highly functioning teaching cohorts. Imagine a staff room where one keeps any well planned resources to oneself, merely because in doing so will enhance their position re performance pay. Imagine a staffroom where teachers compete to have higher functioning students in their class because they wish to appear to have made gains with their students.
Why would teachers be different to other groups who compete in a work place? If we want that culture in our schools we can say goodbye to the excellent relationships we have in most schools. The argument that teaching is a ‘calling’ has some merit, but it ignores that fact that teachers are just like any other sector of society and that they exhibit the full range of personality types and qualities. That we are some sort of ‘super group above such selfishness when it comes to sharing and caring, is nothing more than delusion.
Yes, find ways to reward and keep excellent teachers in the classroom and not promote them to ‘beyond the classrooms,’ if that is what they want, but don’t throw into the mix something that will turn our schools into a hotbed of intrigue and selfishness.
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