It's all about perspective, I suppose. Teachers in the Uttar Pradesh region of India are reportedly threatening to go on strike for the right to knit during class hours...yes, you read correctly: the right to knit. Parents' groups there had recently mounted a protest against the purling pedagogues, saying teachers should be paying attention to their students, not their rowcounts.

"What's wrong if they sit in the staff room and knit during free periods?" asked R.P. Mishra, a spokesman for the Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Teachers' Association, calling the ban "dictatorial."

[AP]: "They are often more interested in knitting than in teaching," Neera Yadav, the principal secretary of education for Uttar Pradesh, told in the state capital Lucknow on Wednesday. "All the officials — including teachers and clerks — in the primary and secondary sections have been banned from knitting on school premises during teaching hours."

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