Whatever problems teachers face are as nothing compared to yesteryear, says Sally Gibson, who has just stepped down as president of the Educational Institute of Scotland in North Lanarkshire.
Gibson, the principal guidance teacher at Coltness High in Wishaw, has been trawling the history books and uncovered the demands made on women in the 1920s. Among the restrictions, they were forbidden to marry while under contract and couldn’t go into ice-cream parlours after 8.30 pm. Such a curfew nowadays would put many hot spots of teacher politics out of business. The Cellar Bar in Airdrie, which provides sustenance for some of North Lanarkshire’s finest educational thinkers, springs to mind.
