Teachers and the real world

He said teachers are disconnected from the real world. The real world is the one in which real people pay real mortgages and real rates and real GST.
In Economics we talk about the real economy. It’s the economy in which real things are produced such as butter, wooden tables and education.
They call it this because teaching about apostrophes, tying kids’ shoelaces, teaching kids to not hit each other, coaching sports, turning society’s little children into educated, well-mannered adults... is real.
In the not-real economy they do not-real things like buying and selling foreign currencies.
In Economics we also use the word real to describe things that have been adjusted for inflation. If prices increase by four per cent and incomes increase by 1.5 per cent then real income has fallen.
Even though you have more dollars, really you can buy less bread and butter. If teachers accept anything less than the rate of inflation, they are accepting a real pay cut.
He said teachers should look to what nurses and police are paid. I say back to him that if teachers were paid more then nurses would have less smokers and fat people to treat, and the police would have less ratbags and boy-racers to round up.
The government could spend less on prisons and there’d be more people working, producing, paying taxes and being nice to each other.
Finland has the best education system. They have the best teachers. They pay teachers properly. They respect teachers and the teaching profession not just with money but with words and actions.
Finns compete for teaching jobs and only the best graduates become teachers. These people create excellent students who are smart, confident, respectful and fairly law-abiding.
Here in the real world, the one with which I’ve been acquainted for some time, the one with real kids and real parents and real stress, people don’t go visiting the Queen at Balmoral.
Nor do they fly in the big wide comfy expensive seats at the front of the plane, with the missus and the expense account and bunch of helpers. And if they do they don’t get the taxpayer to pay.
And after Balmoral, those of us in the real world don’t go visiting the French President for cafe au lait and chocolat chippies either. In the real world we remember that the French aren’t really the people we want to be snuggling up to.
I remember The Rainbow Warrior and the volunteer who was murdered by the agents who were sent here by the French government.
And I remember when the Frenchies beat the All Blacks.
In the real world people value education and make cuts to unnecessary government spending in order to protect education.