Having spent five winter months on strike and almost two years locked in conflict with the Government, it was inevitable the ASTI members would start to see themselves as part of some great oppressed tribe when they gathered in Galway during the week.
However, nobody was prepared for the semi-serious references to ASTI members taking part in Gandhi-like acts of passive resistance. Reporters no doubt had fun conjuring up images of ASTI leaders parading up and down outside Government buildings clad only in shawls and sandals.
But this projection of ASTI as passive resisters gives us an insight into the feelings among rank-and-file members. They seem to see their struggle in epic terms, a crusade, a long march, a righteous struggle where you are either with them or against them. The media, presumably, are regarded as being against them, and so spent most of the week excluded from the union's proceedings.
But a great movement or campaign needs broad-based support and internal coherence, and it is clear from the events in Galway, and at the other teacher conferences this week, that the ASTI campaign has neither.
If the campaign was simply about pay, it wouldn't need them, but as the former president of ASTI, Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan, has said, it is no less than a crusade to save the whole education system. If that is the case, ASTI needs to harness not only public support but also the endorsement of colleagues represented by the INTO and the TUI.
The events in Galway have made the chances of winning over the public and INTO/TUI even more remote. In recent months the other teacher unions, out of an understandable feeling of solidarity with fellow professionals, have been reluctant to criticise the ASTI in public. This changed during the week - the gloves were off.
The prime example of this was a speech at the TUI conference on Thursday by Joe Carolan, the former president of the union in Bundoran, Co Donegal. A widely respected figure in the TUI, Mr Carolan gave the unvarnished truth as he saw it.
He said the ASTI campaign was a "disaster" based on a "failed strategy" and that the TUI was right to ignore those who said it should join forces with the ASTI. "We would have ended up the same cul-de-sac," he said.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, he said the TUI was no longer prepared to "walk on eggshells" about the ASTI's strategy and his comments needed to be said. Similar sentiments were expressed at the INTO conference in Tralee. Members reading reports of intimidation and closed doors from the ASTI gathering were stunned.
Even INTO members, deeply disenchanted with benchmarking and PPF, privately said they were shocked at the almost amateur tactics some ASTI members wanted their union to use to get a 30 per cent rise.
"We would love to support them all the way, and everyone here admires their bravery in taking on the Government and the bigger unions, but the exams really made it impossible for any of us to roll in behind them," one INTO supporter said.
EVEN more worrying from the ASTI's point of view was how little its plight surfaced at the INTO conference. While there was sympathy from some, others said it was time to move on and the INTO now had to look after itself and concentrate on its benchmarking submission.
Most members seemed more anxious to talk about other education issues, such as special needs, unqualified teachers, underfunding of schools and educational disadvantage. Many ASTI members have views on these issues but it is a long time since their union made even a ripple in the national consciousness on any of them.
Aside from this contrast, the divergence between ASTI and its fellow teacher unions was evident even in the choreography of the three conferences. At ASTI a large section of delegates staged a haphazard walkout during the Education Minister's speech, whereas a beaming Senator Joe O'Toole, head of the INTO, warmly shook hands with Dr Woods, who seemed taken aback by this rare show of affection from a teachers' leader.
Some INTO members said they were nervous about getting so intimate with the Minister, but when he announced that a new £40,000-plus salary for unpromoted grades was a "realistic target" under benchmarking for teachers, many INTO members were prepared to move a little closer.
The willingness of so many INTO members to be seduced by Dr Woods's blandishments poses a serious problem for ASTI.
Each time ASTI ratchet up their strike and impose more pain on themselves, Dr Woods, presumably with Government backing, rewards the INTO and TUI for being good boys and girls. His concession that a 15 per cent pay rise (which the £40,000plus salary would involve) is a "realistic target" was the starkest example of this so far.
After months of ASTI members making sacrifices, the Minister arrives into the conferences and promises the other unions, who have not spent a single day on strike, an array of goodies. Not only the £40,000plus offer, but also new money for supervision which he says he hopes is in place for September.
Even Teachers United, a ginger group set up by discontented teachers across the three teacher unions, recognised this irony during the week.
In a sardonic leaflet circulated at the INTO conference which poked fun at Senator O'Toole's description of benchmarking as an ATM, the group said the ASTI strike had given "significant added benefits for INTO card-holders".
While ASTI members may take some solace from the fact that their self-sacrifice has produced rich rewards at least for some teachers (and if the ASTI enters benchmarking, potentially for itself too), it must be deeply frustrating to be doing the hard work while your fellow teachers bask in the glow of media, Government and, crucially, public approval.