When the i newspaper was first launched it was a relief to finally have a thinking person’s affordable daily paper. I joined with others whilst they sneered at Daily Mail articles with their intolerant, billigerent and Clarkson-esque offensive comment on daily life. I congratulated myself on not spending my own hard-earned money on such trashy journalism. So imagine my horror when I discovered just such a piece of journalism nesting in Friday the 13th’s i. There on page 18, I found myself accused of being a disgrace, selfish and guilty of being ‘passé’! All this from a student of journalism, Sara Malm, who quite obviously still has a lot to learn.
As an English and Media teacher, I feel duty-bound to contribute to Ms Malm’s further education by critiquing her article. My first piece of advice would be to improve her research – referring to the general secretary of the NASUWT as a ‘he’ is quite frankly unforgiveable given that she is in fact female! Gender-neutral names like ‘Chris’ can easily trip up ill-informed journalists but can also highlight how even the most forward-thinking young women can be guilty of inadvertent sexism by assuming that the leader of a large union must be male!
I am also concerned by the technique adopted by Ms Malm when putting forward a line of argument. I have always taught my students that a well-argued point is one which will leave even your staunchest opponents thinking ‘I can see where you’re coming from.’ Unfortunately for Sara Malm, she appears to be coming from a far and distant planet upon which teachers are work-shy, family-less shirkers whose ‘selfish’ decision to strike has no effect on themselves personally or professionally.
In her opening paragraph, her suggestion that the unions are ‘criminals’ who hold people to ransom smacks of a desperation to be shocking and controversial without any real substance to her analogy. Hostage-takers threaten the lives of innocent bystanders in order to gain monies they have no right to. The teaching unions are simply stating their willingness to withdraw their labour if their employers continue to be unreasonable. Guilty of hyperbole? I think so.
I don’t think Sara Malm has any real concept of the situation facing teachers. Being in the classroom until I’m 68 is a truly terrifying prospect. To be perfectly honest, being anywhere near a classroom past the age of 60 is a thought that fills me with dread! Ms Malm admits that she doesn’t yet have any children. Any parent would be able to tell her that it’s the toughest job in the world. Then multiply it by 30, for 6 hours a day and you’ll begin to realise that teaching isn’t the jammy little job she seems to be intimating it is.
Her whole argument seems to rest on the idea that by shutting schools and forcing parents to look after their own children for a day, teachers will be responsible for the breakdown of the country. Is that all teachers are nowadays? A glorified nanny service for working parents? In fact, she could be forgiven for being under this impression as it does feel like that is what teachers have become. The reality is that most teachers are committed professionals who have a passion for their knowledge and a desire to share it with the country’s youth. I didn’t go to university for 4 years and land myself with thousands of pounds of debt just so that politicians could play political football with my profession and tell me to simply ‘put up or shut up’.
She ends with the advice to ‘grow a pair’ and I would put it to her that this is exactly what teachers have finally decided to do. For too long we have succumbed to the argument that we ought to stay in the classroom because the service we provide is too important to be withdrawn. Well if that is truly the case, maybe our employers should treat us with a little more dignity and respect.
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