Recently we were asked to do something that many of us disagreed with, which is nothing new. But it was something that I felt strongly about, to the extent that I was quite vocal in the staffroom with the words “pile of crap” and “I’m refusing to do it”. I hoped that others would follow my lead and express their dissatisfaction by a downing of tools too. I don’t mean by going on strike, but merely presenting a united front on refusing to carry out something we all believed to be beyond the call of duty.
But despite the mutterings and grumblings, as the bell went and everyone shuffled off to their respective corners of the school, I knew that they would all be off doing exactly what we had just found contentious. How did I know? I heard phrases like, “Well, I’m going to do it by saying something else first…”.
So yep, I ended up doing it too, but felt extremely fed up about the whole thing. Who can I complain to about this? It’s not really a union matter, and when I made my feelings known to my immediate line managers they were sympathetic but with that invisible “what can we do about it” shrug. Exactly. What can we do about it? I’ve become part of the state apparatus that my student self would have rallied vehemently against. Whatever happened to teachers being the freethinkers, the reactionary radicals they seemed to be in my youth? I guess they’ve just all been browbeaten by government policy, and worn out by excessive workloads; too knackered to put up a fight against what we see as wrong. So that’s how they shut us up.
added 28/04/07
© Copyright laws apply to the contents of this website. 2003-2007