School's a broken record

Dear teachers, Around this time of year, I usually write to the poor bastards who have either just left school for the last time or are about to go to school for the first time.

- Ben Trovato

Either way, both are about to enter a world of pain and I wish them luck.

But what about you? The men, women and those in between who have the thankless task of educating our next generation of academics, politicians, hustlers, capitalists, housebreakers, sociopaths, alcoholics and unemployed spongers?

Some of you will have studied to become teachers; others will have become teachers because you failed at everything else. Then there are those of you who weighed up the odds.

While a tenderpreneur gets paid a lot more, it's the profession with the most holidays. A magnificent total of at least 84 days a year. People with normal jobs have to make do with 21.

I once seriously considered going into teaching on this benefit alone, but the trade-off wasn't worth it. Don't like kids. Hate homework. Can't do early mornings. Or wear pants every day.

But while the weeks off are fantastic, the downside is that, unlike the matrics, the expelled and the pregnant, you never get to leave school. It's a Groundhog Day nightmare. After every holiday, you're back in the classroom. For the rest of your life. That's not strictly true.

Very few teachers actually die in harness. Most of you will move on to jobs that require less effort, although if you're a teacher at a government school in, say, the Eastern Cape, if you had to put in any less effort, you'd be declared clinically dead and someone in your family would continue to draw your salary.