Sir: Mr Pearce (6 October) flirted with the National Union
of Teachers and the National Association- of Schoolmasters. I. for my sins. joined one after the other and came to the same conclusion as Mr Pearce.
The problem is. where does one proceed from disenchantment? 1 discovered that there was a sur- prisingly simple answer. The reason why it con- tinues to elude people is presumably because it in- volves no empire building.
The great undiscovered source of proper profes- sional initiative is the staffroom. And by the staff- room is meant the fact of teachers meeting day by day in the course of their work. In a good staff- room there is some very searching hard-headed discussion about the real issues in education and in the more formal staff meetings (with the Hcad) there is a simple means of translating opinion into effec- tive decisions.
Of course, if this simple truth was recognised and staffs devised their own direct methods of ad hoc association most of the need for the NUT and the NAs would dissolve.
Another source of significant professional action in the last three years or so has been the creation of the new CSE machinery. The importance of this achievement is no less than historic. This is the only professional machinery, properly so called, that teachers have ever devised. Ia the course of b CSE meetings I met my fellow history teachers in Cambridge for the first time in ten years!
Round staff action and specialist organisation we have an opportunity to reorientate the profes- sion. The process is already fairly well advanced. It will make progress that much more quickly and effectively if teachers will realise the constitutional implications of 'present empirical achievements. Peter Cadogan 5 Acton Way, Cambridge
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