We’re highlighting some of the most interesting discussion around the site today, with stories on stress in the teaching profession, declining insect numbers and commuting around the world all featured. You’ve also been discussing the death of Motörhead guitarist Eddie Clarke.
To join in you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts. We’ll continue to highlight more comments worth reading as the day goes on.
‘Epidemic of stress’ blamed for 3,750 teachers on longterm sick leave
Many readers who work or have worked in teaching are sharing their experiences in a discussion beneath this story.
‘Loved the teaching, hated the paperwork’
I got out before the inevitable stress consumed me. I could see it coming. I would often work 70+ hour weeks, including weekends and by the time the holidays came, I’d be near shattered. As an English secondary teacher, I was having to teach 4 disciplines plus a termly production. I’d often have to work during holidays. I remember my daughter staying with her father Christmas Day one year and I was happy that I could get a load of lesson plans and marking done!
Loved the teaching, hated the paperwork, the ever-changing curriculum and the pressure to lesson plan so minutely, that you felt wrapped in knots.
plaingoldband
‘For those who do not teach, imagine being in charge of 30+ people’
I’ve felt it. The constant scrutiny on what you are doing at work, every moment of your day, and evening, filled with meaningless data collection and the focus on evidencing everything you do. For those who do not teach, imagine being in charge of 30+ people. You must deliver 5 and a half hours direct training to those people everyday (bar one half of those days).
You also must ensure that the room you work in has lovely up to date displays that are rotated every few weeks. After you have delivered that training, you must then go through each and every one of their books and write in them, this is between 90 and 150 books per day you MUST mark and give details of how that child can go forward. These books will be collected in and judged by your managers every few weeks ... if there are more than one or two days marking missing, you will be given stern warnings and be judged to be a failing teacher.
teachernotts
Insect declines: new alarm over mayfly is ‘tip of iceberg’, warn experts
Readers have been expressing their own concerns after scientists issued a warning about pollution in rivers and a decline in insect populations.
‘I have sorrow for the future generations’
The orb-weaver spiders in my garden have disappeared, as have the butterflies and moths: Painted Ladies, Mourning Cloaks, Monarchs, Swallowtails, Skippers. The lizards have vanished. I have not seen a snake here in decades. Even the ants themselves have vanished, the ants against whom I used to fight seasonally with great cursing. They are now gone here.
I have lived here, in this house, for over 50 years. I am watching the entire ecosystem around it die. I have only sorrow for the future generations. AldousOrwell
The daily commute: travel times to cities around the world – mapped
Many of you have been intrigued by the data as shown in these graphics from the Guardian’s Cities desk.
‘The information these maps reveal is just as fascinating’
These maps are superb looking in their own right, but the information they reveal is just as fascinating.
At first glance, they appear to be similar to population maps, but, of course, they are actually plotting a different course (sorry for the pun). In India, for instance, the map would seem to show an instance of extreme urbanisation, if you took it as a population map, but India’s population is still primarily rural (about two-thirds) even today. what it does have is, of course, a wide spread of population centres.
Whereas China, with a larger population even than India’s (only just, these days, of course) shows how little urbanisation (and in some ways transport infrastructure) there is in its western areas. Many thanks for this beautiful and thought-provoking set of images.
palfreyman
Motörhead guitarist ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke dies
Following the news that the last surviving member of the British rock band has died, readers have been sharing their memories.
‘I couldn’t put my finger on what I was missing then I saw Motörhead on Top of the Pops’
As a youngster in the mid-seventies I was slowly learning about the various styles of music available, through seeing stuff on TV or hearing the stuff on the radio and reading articles in magazines and books and finding which ones I liked and most of the time there just seemed to be something missing.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was after which didn’t help.
But then I saw Motorhead on Top of the Pops performing Overkill and I knew immediately that this was exactly what I had been looking for: an awesome moment.
d33pf1x
Comments have been edited for length. This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.
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