Picture the scene: a dimly lit meeting room, the low hum of a projector, no air con, shit coffee from a polystyrene cup and the unmistakable stench of boredom lingering in the air. As the PowerPoint/Google slides blink into life, so do the cliché quotes that adorn each one, like shit on the underside of a public toilet seat. The scene is all too familiar in the world of education, where leadership seem to have a fondness for drowning their presentations in a sea of quotes. But are these verbal gems contributing to intellectual enlightenment, or are they merely veils of pseudo-intelligence? Spoiler alert…it’s the latter!
Guilt as a tool
This dilemma involves the insidious use of guilt as a tool to coerce those in education, particularly teachers, into sacrificing their own, unpaid time for the “betterment” of the school. This bullshit practice, often disguised as a display of “good will” and an implied expectation, is yet another threat to the well-being of educators and the quality of education as a whole.
Toxic Resilience
Ever found yourself caught in the relentless whirlwind of stress, always striving for the elusive 100% output? Welcome to the world of “toxic resilience,” a concept coined by Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a distinguished stress expert from Harvard. In this post, I’ll attempt to dissect the pervasive nature of toxic resilience within our education system, highlighting its impact on teachers and the starring role played by leadership.
The Lifestyle Choice
Within education, one of the many, yet often-unspoken crises, is the dilemma that forces teachers into a precarious balancing act between their commitment to shaping young minds and the relentless demands that threaten to consume their personal lives. At the heart of this issue lies a stark reality: the sacrifice of free time by educators striving not just to thrive in their profession but merely to survive the overwhelming workload.
Misogyny
Of all the issues in our education system, this is one of the most concerning – an issue that demands our serious consideration. The problem at hand is the pervasive and unchecked aggression students direct towards female staff, creating an environment where toxic masculinity and misogyny flourish. This is not a subtle concern; it’s an infuriating reality that rightly stirs anger. Are our schools, and institutions entrusted with shaping minds, inadvertently fostering a culture that dismisses the principles of respect and equality? This isn’t a mere inconvenience; it’s an urgent matter that requires our scrutiny and immediate action.
You can’t spell ‘gaslight’ without S-L-T
The title is an unfortunate coincidence but not a day goes by without bumping into a colleague who has been ‘gaslit’ by SLT. This could manifest as a sanction downgraded by a member of gaslighters, who wasn’t a witness to the event. Or upon interviewing a future HM Belmarsh inhabitant about a classroom incident, SLT will suggest that:
“when he told you to go fuck yourself, I think he was actually saying to ‘go look at yourself’, you misheard”?
Some member of SLT
The only thing lacking here is a Jedi-style, wave of the hand.