If ASTI were a political party two questions would be on the agenda at its annual conference. Who is responsible for this mess? And how can we ensure that the same fate never befalls us again?
There would be a whiff of cordite in the air, and there would be resignations and recriminations. But, as yet, there is no sign of any internal soul-searching or rigorous analysis at this conference.
Instead, it is ASTI against the world. Delegates have been wagging an accusing finger at the Government, the media, the trade union establishment. Fraternal delegates from the National Parents Council (Post Primary) - who are here as guests of ASTI - have been verbally abused and jostled.
It is the natural instinct of ASTI members to rally round, one veteran delegate explained yesterday. "We are still coming to terms with the scale of all that has been happening. When the dust settles there might be recriminations but it is too early for that. We are still collectively feeling a bit bruised and battered."
Yesterday - on the morning after the night before - there was, among many delegates, a sense of satisfaction about the walkout on Michael Woods. But has this gesture really changed anything? It is yet again ASTI which is feeling the heat. The pressure is still on ASTI to frame some kind of coherent alternative strategy if - as seems increasingly likely - teachers reject the Labour Court offer.
Unlike the nurses' strike, there is no great clamour from the public to sort out this dispute. Consistently, the union has failed to muster the support of a majority of the public. The union has long since lost the PR battle.
It has never made any real attempt to build a bridge with its most important potential ally, the parents of Ireland. Instead, it has burnt every bridge as it crossed it.
Yesterday, there was excited talk around the conference about a new campaign, fired with fresh vigour, which will be launched in September. But, privately, few delegates seem buoyed up with confidence.
The harsh truth is that the Government can ride out the storm with ASTI. The union has still not laid a glove on the Government despite the effective loss of 12 schooldays this academic year and the threat to the State exams. Is there any reason to believe a new campaign will change anything?
The strategy, in retrospect, was a shambles. The union, of course, had the democratic right to leave Congress and withdraw from the PPF. But, as any decent civics teacher will tell you, there are rights and responsibilities.
The union had a responsibility to frame a credible policy to pursue its pay claim. And it had a responsibility to the students - especially vulnerable exam students - in its care.
On several levels, it fluffed its lines. Remarkably, ASTI set out on a pay campaign without any support from the other teaching unions and in defiance of the wider trade union movement.
It made one strategic error after another. It underestimated the resolve of Government to face down the dispute. It underestimated the capacity of the Department of Education to run the exams without its support. As Charlie Lennon has now conceded, it underestimated the ferocious public reaction which would flow from the threat to the exams.
The focus now is on the dreaded benchmarking. ASTI, we are constantly assured, will have no truck with the pay-review body. But the reasons for its opposition are as mysterious as ever.
It is now abundantly clear that the other teaching unions will emerge with hefty pay increases from the body. It is clear they will be rewarded for past changes in productivity. It is clear there will be no performance-related pay.
The money is on the table for the ASTI. But it will not accept it.
As one industrial relations expert (Dr Michael Barry of the National College of Ireland) has noted, they are like people who believe they have a right to travel by train from Dublin to Cork but adamantly refuse to use the existing lines. They want the Government to build an entirely new infrastructure, a new rail line for their exclusive use. But such demands are unrealistic.
ASTI is now facing a defining moment. As Charlie Lennon has noted, it faces a stark choice. It can cut its losses and join the INTO and the TUI in benchmarking. Or it can continue its war of attrition.
Others might put the choice before ASTI in less delicate terms. It is in a very large hole. It can clamber out. Or it can keep digging.