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Today's lesson: why a good teacher is better than any banker

ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER salutes the NUT for standing up for education

Today's lesson: why a good teacher is better than any banker

 

I like teachers a lot. OK, I'm biased - I'm married to one and two of my stepchildren are in the profession as well. But I simply cannot understand the attitude some English - and yes, it really does seem to be exclusively English - people have to the profession.

The sneers about short hours and long holidays which simply demonstrate a total lack of understanding of what the job entails and, worst of all, that aphorism.

You know the one. "Those who can do, those who can't teach." One of the favourite cliches employed by the average Tory-voting, Daily Mail-reading resident of the quaint Worcestershire village of Bell End.

Teachers are precious and their role in society so obviously and absolutely vital that one good teacher is worth all the bankers in the world put together.

And because I like teachers, I don't like Michael Gove. I know you don't have to like teachers to dislike Gove, it's a natural human reaction, but it helps. I was very happy to be invited to address last Wednesday's NUT strike rally in Brighton and had my lesson plan fully prepared.

It went like this:

Oh Michael Gove
please come to Hove
and stick your head
in a gas stove.

On second thoughts
I just don't care:
feel free to do
it anywhere.

A poem which was received very well indeed. Solidarity with the NUT - good to see trade unionists properly standing up for themselves. You don't need me to tell you that it doesn't happen enough these days.

This weekend I'm up north again. Brighton are away at Barnsley and the perennial mission to coincide gigs with the fixture list has worked brilliantly.

Friday night I'm at the Swan in the Rushes pub, a real-ale heaven in Loughborough, and after the match at Oakwell on Saturday I'm heading to Edlington Top Club just outside Doncaster to do a short set at the Edlington NUM National Unity Day marking the 30th anniversary of the start of the miners' strike. Incidentally, I heard that Barnsley fans unveiled a big "Coal Not Dole" banner during their match against Nottingham Forest a couple of weeks ago. Nice touch.

Then on Sunday at 2pm I'm on stage at one of my favourite venues ever, The Adelphi in Hull. It's one of the last remaining independently run alternative music venues left from the 1980s, a hollowed-out terraced house with a WWII bomb site as a car park and toilets which until a recent refurbishment were legendary. Owner Paul Jackson is a veritable unsung hero of rock n roll. Cheers Paul.

To finish, here's another one for the NUT and especially for my primary school teacher stepdaughter Rosie. Gove apparently wants to force teachers to return to the days of rote learning. OK, here we go:

He wants kids to learn poems -
Well, teachers, here's a start
And every five year old
Should know these words by heart.
'Oh, shut up, Michael Gove!
You haven't got a clue!
Where most folk have a brain
You've got amoeba poo!'

 

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