Following the vile, shameful front-page of the Daily Mail recently, in which teachers and their union were used as cannon-fodder in the current ‘blame-shifting’ exercise being carried out by the Johnson Gang and their tame-tabloid propaganda-mouthpieces, I thought this piece, a stark reminder of the divide-and-rule methodology of this dreadful so-called ‘government‘, was well worth a read.

I have no way of verifying its source, it claims to be written by a teacher, and I have no reason to doubt that it was. Even if it wasn’t, it has the ring of truth.

I’m aware that long C&Ps are discouraged here, but this piece is from a FB page, and I’m very loath to link to FB pieces. Hence the C&P.

”A teacher asked us to share this post debunking the lies currently being made about her profession:

"Hi I’m a secondary teacher.
Please can you publish this I need to put a few things straight.
Bear with me.
I’m a teacher.
I’m so upset and angry about the lies spread by the misinformed about me and my profession. They include :
1) We are lazy
2) We don’t want to go back to work
3) We should be ‘heroic’ like nurses and supermarket workers
4) We are ignoring disadvantaged students
5) Teachers’ Unions are divisive , driving a wedge between the government and teachers
My response:

1) We are lazy

Teachers are still working. My school is still OPEN. I am working as many hours as before. I’m just working differently. I am planning, marking, collating work, replanning lessons to be taught remotely, attending Zoom meetings, responding to and sending emails, keeping a constant dialogue with my students, working out new ways of giving feedback and going into school on a rota to work with children of key workers and those who are disadvantaged. Oh, and as a mum too, I’m trying to home school at the same time. We are not lazy.

2) We don’t want to go back to work.

We are professionals. We went into this job to shape young minds and allow all those in our care to thrive and succeed. That’s one of the most rewarding things about this job. Why would we not want to continue? I have exam groups who are missing GCSE content that needs to be taught face to face. I need to see kids in front of me, listening and engaging. Every day that they are not in school means that it is more difficult to catch up. So it will mean even more work, revision sessions etc... when we finally go back. Why would we want to heap that upon ourselves? We want to go back to work.

3)We are NOT heroes.

We know that. But we never thought we were. To compare us to nurses is entirely unfair and it creates a false equivalence. Nurses work with the sick. Apart from seeing to the odd cold, nose bleed or cut in school, we do not perform the same tasks as health care professionals. And we shouldn’t be seen as such. Nurses are brilliant and have full training in all areas (including infection and how to deal with it ) and are (usually) much better equipped with PPE. Furthermore, using emotive, military terms like ‘heroes’ is entirely unfair. It furthers the idea of a ‘battle’ against the disease, and creates connotations of sacrifices to be made, and when lives are lost, we make death an honourable martyrdom, a price worth paying. None of us should be expected to give our lives for our work- nurses, care workers, teachers, supermarket staff and any other vital workers. It is NOT a race to the bottom. We are NOT heroes.

4) We are ignoring disadvantaged students.

This is the latest emotional blackmail being used against us. Unfortunately, disadvantaged students make up a hell of a lot of my cohort. Fortunately, we have outstanding pastoral care that ensures that some of our disadvantaged students are getting regular contact with school. They are being visited, given food parcels (oh, did I mention that teachers contribute towards them too?) , given paper copies of work if they can’t access computers. Moreover, mentors are working closely with social services to give emotional support. Ironically, the amount of disadvantaged students in my own school has increased incredibly over the last ten years. So perhaps the government should be looking at the impact of its own austerity measures in creating these disadvantages. The disparity between the wealthy and the poor has been exacerbated by the ideological violence of austerity. Now we are expected to feel guilt about the widening gap between disadvantaged students and the rest. A gap created by policies designed to marginalise the most vulnerable in our society. Policies like shutting libraries and Sure Start centres, cuts to the social care budget, mental health provision and special needs provision. It’s like the government have set a time bomb ticking and expect us to diffuse it. Without any safety equipment.
And this is no different to what has happened to our valued friends and colleagues in the NHS.
We are not ignoring disadvantaged students.

5) Teachers’ Unions are divisive , driving a wedge between the government and the profession.

Again this is an unhelpful and over-simplistic narrative in the characterisation of the relationship between the union and its members. Unions, the bad guys, deliberately standing in the way of progress and common sense. People forget - we ARE the union. It is OUR voice which reflects our beliefs and wishes. Today, both the unions and the government were accused by the Children’s Commissioner of ‘squabbling’ with one other. This is unhelpful and, quite frankly, patronising, giving the media a nice sound bite that they can use in their campaign to further discredit unions and the work that they are doing to secure our safety.

Teachers are people. Mums, dads , grandmas , grandads, aunties, uncles , cousins and friends. Their lives are precious and worth caring about. My life is precious too.

You place your child’s education in our hands.

We’ll make sure they’re sanitised."