The Nation’s Scapegoats

 

  I have, and this is confession time, been a fan of the England Football Team since I was a small child* which has meant that I have seen them win absolutely nothing for 50 years.  Recently, been a bit close of course.  But for most of that period the team were rubbish with the odd game where something brilliant happened.

Anyway, we were rubbish.  And after each early tournament exit the media would immediately set out at determining exactly who was to blame for this embarrassment to the nation.  It usually took a few weeks after trying to blame individual players and manager; the clubs; the FA; the coaches and even the wives of the players before everyone settled on exactly to blame for the debacle – schools.

It was the fault of schools.  It always is.  Everyone decided that it was the fault of schools for not teaching the proper skills required to win football tournaments.

And the focus on football is far far from being the only aspect of life that schools and teachers are constantly blamed for.  You mention it, it’s the fault of schools.  Teenage pregnancies.  Drug addictions.  Gary Lineker being Woke.  Potholes.  Lack of strawberry pickers.  Nursing shortages.  Teacher shortages.  Any England sporting team not winning stuff.  Vaping.  Sky High prices for car insurance for teenagers.  Rocketing energy bills.  Desolate high streets.  Meghan Markle breathing. 

Frankly, you name it, it’s the fault of schools.  It’s just so obvious, really. 

As teachers we have to be used to the fact that we are the Nation’s Scapegoats.  It is just the way that it is.

Why is it the way that it is?  Well, that’s a little bit more complicated. 

From an early age in life we teach our students to get along with one another.  Let’s say a Reception class has 30 children (I know, I know, I’m denying a reality for many but stick with me) then their teacher will be teaching them to get along with one another because they have to spend each weekday with one another without conflict.  This is self evident.  And not easy. 

And this continues throughout the life of the student until they reach that glorious day of leaving compulsory education.  We teach them to not create conflict and to not be mean to others because that’s what we want for our community of learners and teachers as we all develop.

This takes time and effort.  And isn’t graded in exams.  And doesn’t appear on League Tables.  And is, to the chagrin of many, unable to be measured.  But we have to, right?  Otherwise our communities would be chaotic and no learning would take place.

This does, unfortunately, put teachers in the crosshairs of those who desire hatred and conflict because they see treating everyone equally as just plain wrong.

Governments are also complicit in this blaming of teachers and schools for anything and everything since this means that they can abdicate their responsibility for not doing their job properly and organising a nation to do right by their citizens and residents.

Many members of the Press and Media like to blame teachers and schools because it’s easy to do so.  They feed on the antipathy of many adults who did not enjoy school or did not do well in school.  They have a receptive audience.

There are many parts of society that will happily allow teachers and schools to take the blame for any perceived crisis or scandal or injustice or inequality because it suits them to do so and allows them to avoid scrutiny.

I think my favourite, after the failings of the England football team, is the decline in moral values.  You know, because teachers teach children how to be immoral.  I mean, we all do it, right?  We’re taught to do that whilst we’re studying for our teaching degrees, obviously.    We, as teachers, know that there is a list of moral values that we must attack each day.  It’s just so obvious.

I’ve had other favourites over the years like an upsurge in violent crime or lack of awareness about how incredibly important St George’s Day is to England** and even the inability for many students to cook food properly.  But I always return to that familiar failing of all schools, the decline of traditional values. 

And what are Traditional Values?  In the 1950’s it was traditional that a man could slap his wife around and not face any punishment because it was a Traditional Value.  It was traditional that people of colour could be discriminated against and called nasty names because it was a Traditional Value.  It used to be, going back further, that women could not divorce a man who regularly beat her up because it was a Traditional Value.  It used to be traditional that men could be hanged for the crime of stealing a coat or that men could be locked up in prison for the crime of being thought to be gay because that was a Traditional Value.  It used to be traditional to say it was okay to invade another country, nick all their stuff, do a bit of wanton cruelty and call it colonialism. 

I remember it being traditional that women were not allowed to play football.  I have no yearning for that to be a value of today.  Nor any that I have mentioned.  There are thousands of other Traditional Values that, basically, have the same premise of being bloody horrible to other people.

So what Traditional Values are there that schools are neglecting to teach, exactly?

My guess is that the politicians and media bigots who complain about such things haven’t got a clue how to handle a class of impressionable children and keep them learning in the one place that is an oasis from the chaos of what we call modern society.  I can also guess that they know to whom they yell this message – the disaffected, the bigoted, the failures in life, the angry and the ignorant who demand an easy answer to the myriad of complicated problems that plague society and that always have done. 

What can we, as teachers, do?  Well the best thing we can do is to do what we do well and that is to teach our kids to be nice to each other and to not be utter swines to others.  Is that a tad optimistic?  Yes, of course it is but the whole point of being a teacher is to be optimistic. 

We will, I suspect, always be blamed for everything.  We’re the easy target.  We always have been.  Ignore the noise.  Enjoy doing what you do and enjoy the fact that you contribute more to society that anyone who claims the opposite.

*Not in the sense that I was racist and chanting “I’d rather be a paki than a Scot” or ignorant by chanting “No Surrender To The IRA” or  booing any player of the wrong colour or the player who was born outside of England.  It’s important to me that you know that.  It’s important to me that you know that those chants and boos were the reason I stopped physically going to games after experiencing them.

**  St George who was Turkish or possibly Armenian and had never stepped foot in England