Teachers, Educators – We’re All Campaigners Now
With recent events threatening to normalise division and prejudice, writes Dr Jon Berry, it's more vital than ever that we teach children the virtues of compassion and respect for human dignity
- by Jon Berry
Forgive me if this month’s column is devoid of jokes. We‘ve all got a serious job to do now. If the events of the past week have taught us anything, it’s this – decent people can no longer allow politics to become a spectator sport. Clicking a ‘Like’ on a Facebook page doesn’t make you a campaigner; it makes you even more of a passive consumer. As teachers and educators, the challenge has never been greater for us.
Devastating cuts
You may never have thought of yourself as a campaigner, so here are two straightforward suggestions for things you can do to start with. First, get involved in local campaigns to stop the devastating cuts to school spending that have slipped under the radar while the gaze of the world has, understandably, been somewhat diverted. You can find out what’s going on here, at the NUT website.
If you’re a teacher, hold meetings with your colleagues. Ask to speak to your governors and send communications to parents, inviting them to attend meetings and discussions about what funding cuts will mean for your school. If you want to see just how bad things are and what the impact will be, click here to find out what’s happening in your area. If we sit back and do nothing, these cuts will happen. Silence implies consent.
Compassion and respect
Second, get your classes involved with one of the plethora of organisations that currently work to help refugees, and specifically refugee children. There is no shortage of such bodies as any quick internet search will reveal.
There are numerous examples of work being done in schools to highlight this issue. We need to teach children that compassion and respect for human dignity are the norm, and not some soft-minded liberalism to be sneered at by the pompous and arrogant. These two ideas are not, of course, exhaustive. We might choose to support campaigns against racism and discrimination and for equality of all sorts. What is critical is that we do so actively, and as a profession, vocally. We are now at a point where a miserable view of humanity and the quest for equality is threatening to take hold; one that masquerades as a majority view couched in the language of ‘common sense’ and ‘cutting through political correctness’.
We cannot, and must not, allow our children to accept that such opinions represent what the majority of people think.
Active engagement
Above all, we have to teach children that democracy is something that needs to be actively engaged with. They need to know that if we cede the stage to those with money and privilege, they can use that platform to legitimise and normalise division and prejudice.
In practical terms, a little less teaching to tests and some more discussion and exploration of ideas would be a good starting point. But we can only make that change if we act together, as a profession, to challenge the status quo in schools. Back in 1969, in his entertaining book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Neil Postman spoke of the need to ensure that schools develop in young people the skills of social, political and cultural criticism. Otherwise, he warned with eerie prescience, we could usher in a new form of politics, where ‘A major requirement for the holding of political office [will] be prior success as a show-business personality.’
That day is now here, and hand-wringing will not change matters – only collective action will do so.
There are things we teach children that have ramifications beyond our lessons and our classrooms. Standing up and being counted must be one of them.
Dr Jon Berry’s book, Teachers Undefeated available now via Amazon. To order multiple copies, contact the author at j.berry@herts.ac.uk
