The end of what has been a turbulent week. If George W. Bush and Al Gore thought they had it tough, they should have tried being students during a teachers' strike. This morning, I found several of my friends walking around in circles, looking dazed and bewildered. When questioned, they couldn't tell me what day of the week it was, never mind the proof of the Cos rule, which was what I wanted because I had forgotten to do my maths homework.

The notion that the burden on students may somehow have been lessened due to the strike is misleading. In doing the homework set for me, I consumed at least one rainforest worth of paper.

Indirectly, teachers are contributing to global warming, the greenhouse effect and the loss of precious mahogany and teak which could be used to prop up tables and chairs in Dublin 4 - another reason not to give them a raise.

It is difficult to do work set for you when you have no supervision. I was lucky - I had the dog, though when he was busy scratching himself, I did a little thinking. I was greatly amused at the possibilities for slogans.

Or, I should say, lack of them. "Teach" rhymes with very few other words in the English language - "leech" is one of them and that isn't quite what the teachers want to convey.

Alternatively, of course, they could paraphrase the trusty old NOCAD chant:

"What do we want?"

"Students out."

"When do we want it?"

"Now."

The teachers' attitudes towards the industrial action are interesting. The better teachers - the ones I respect - are evidently annoyed by the strike. These people teach for the love of teaching and this strike just gets in the way, like a moose on a Swedish motorway. And you can shoot the moose, or at least kick it up the backside.

The teachers have no such option, though several must have felt like shooting themselves after yesterday when they were forced to sit in empty classrooms for the majority of the day. The cleverer, more Machiavellian pedagogues set tests - the correcting of which meant they had something to do, whereas the rest stared at the ceiling, drank coffee, performed various bodily functions and took a roll call every five minutes - just in case a student turned up out of the blue.

Generally, they seem optimistic about their chances of getting a raise, but in real, not nominal terms. This would basically involve a clever manipulation of the tax laws, which no one - except three revenue commissioners - in this country understands.

A widening of the tax band would give teachers more disposable income, instead of just giving them 30 per cent extra every week. But, if the band is stretched too far, it could well snap and hit someone in the eye.

This person would quite probably be an economist. I don't need to explain the economic arguments against a pay raise, which is just as well, because I can't anyway, as they have been under the public spotlight for the last few weeks. Besides, people with pieces of paper with "degree" written on them in fancy letters are able to explain it. I'm only a student. And I'm not very good at economics.

The overwhelming consensus among students in my school is that teachers deserve their raise. The vast majority are good, hard-working individuals who obviously care about their students' welfare. The problem is the teachers we respect are the ones who don't want to strike. It's the lazy, pot-bellied, middle-aged wasters who come in 10 to 20 minutes late, plonk themselves on a chair for the remainder of the class and set meaningless exercises, who are the most militant. I hasten to add these are only a minority of the teaching workforce.

We believe teachers deserve their money - we realise we can be difficult enough to look at, let alone teach.

The problem is we aren't going to see an immediate increase in quality. I have a wonderful imagination but I just can't picture teachers looking at their pay cheques, turning to the next person in the queue for the ATM machine and saying: "Gee whiz, I've just got an extra 30 per cent this week. I'll work 30 per cent harder next week."

Primarily because the next person in the line will mug them and steal the extra 30 per cent.

I just can't imagine it. Partly because I'm 17 and pictures of Christy Turlington appear before my eyes on such a regular basis that I find it difficult to think about anything else but Christy Turlington.

But mainly because the teachers who would work 30 per cent harder are already working as hard as is physically possible. The rest? The lazy minority? Well, they just won't bother anyway.

On the other hand, they're always the ones who think up the best picketing slogans.

Paul Daly is a pupil at secondary school in Cork