Education's Cinderella syndrome

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

I have to go to a barbecue this week. This, in itself, isn't exactly newsworthy - even though it may very well be one of the last barbecues of the summer, which is always a poignant little mini-event worth noting, before autumn sets in to drive us all indoors again. No, this particular barbecue is intriguing, to me at least, because it has an odd little caveat attached to it.

The barbecue in question is at my daughter's new school - the college she's just started as a Year 9. It's a barbecue to welcome new parents to the school, to give them the chance to meet the staff in a relaxed, social setting. I think this is a fine idea and one that should be promoted and encouraged.

But the odd thing about this barbecue is that it is scheduled to run from 4pm to 6pm but at 5pm all the teachers have to leave. At 4.59pm the teachers are there, manning the barbie; but the second the clock ticks over to 5pm, tongs down, gone. This strange state of affairs is all down to the Post Primary Teachers' Association's ongoing work ban on teaching duties after 5pm.

Look, I have no problem with the right to take industrial action, when things get to that stage - it is the most basic right workers everywhere should have. And I definitely favour anything that improves the public education system in this country. And as far as paying teachers goes, I've been on enough school trips to know that whatever level of teacher they are - pre-primary, primary or post-primary - just for dealing with the noise levels alone, they are not paid anywhere near enough. (Early-primary school teachers, especially, should get a special whopping great allowance for every time they have to listen to The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, in my humble opinion.)

But it still strikes me as a tad odd that because of a union decree, if you're a teacher you have to leave the party early. I mean what if you're a teacher having a good time when 5pm ticks over? What if you're in the middle of a great conversation with some parents you're really bonding with and suddenly you get the shoulder tap to get the heck out of there? That hardly seems fair. And what if you're a single teacher and you've just met a solo parent and there is some definite chemistry going down, and then 5pm ticks over and, like Cinderella, one party has to run away? I know romance generally has very little to do with industrial action, but it still seems kinda harsh.

And what, exactly, will happen at precisely 5pm, is something I am also wondering about. Will a bell ring and suddenly all the teachers stop talking, down tongs and walk away? That seems a tad rude. And what if the sausages are only half-cooked? If one of the parents picks up the tongs to finish the job, will that be considered like crossing some kind of picket line? Before we know it there will be pushing and shoving and the parents will have to back away from the barbecue, leaving perfectly good sausages (not to mention the associated bread and tomato sauce - and onions if it's a fancy barbecue) to go to waste.

Or will the teachers all go to one corner of the barbecue to talk among themselves, holding an impromptu union meeting, leaving the parents to mill around, unsure what to do next? That'd be really weird and unsettling. And what if, during this strange stand-off, the barbecue goes unattended and the sausages burn, then the barbecue itself bursts into flame and the LPG bottle explodes, injuring people on both sides of the teacher/parent divide? It could happen. I'm not saying it will, but it could.

And what if, at 4.59pm, a teacher with clout in the PPTA is talking to a parent who happens to have clout in the Ministry of Education and they are on the cusp of finding a solution to the industrial impasse? And what if this solution is so visionary, so far-reaching, that it not only ticks all the budgetary boxes for the Government, it also ensures a future public education system that is of such quality that it makes Auckland Grammar's decision to go to Cambridge look like a school trip back to the Stone Age of teaching?

And then, at 5pm, with one last, teensy, box to be ticked, the bell rings and the moment is lost and all bets are off as the parties retreat to their respective sides of the barbecue. Again, I'm not saying that'll happen, but if it did it'd be a shame, just for the sake of a school-night curfew, wouldn't it?