We know all about the extreme difficulties that have confronted education as a result of Covid-19 but there are some silver linings. One is the idea that the experiences of lockdown will boost the standing of teachers.
The argument goes that, with thousands of families having experienced the frustrations of trying to teach small numbers of children in their own homes, they will have a greater appreciation of the skill and energy required to get the best out of a class of 30-plus pupils.
That very argument was made by Ken Muir, chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland, when I spoke to him after he recently announced his upcoming retirement, for a piece in Tes Scotland next month. “If Covid has shown anything at all, it’s shown a lot of folk who have been cynical about teaching just how difficult and complex [it] is,” he said. There is, Muir underlined, a huge amount of skill, practice and theory that teachers must have under their belts before they set foot in a Scottish classroom as a fully fledged educator.
It’s strange that teaching should even need boosting, as few would deny that the shaping of young lives is one of the most important jobs there is. Yet you are far more likely to encounter sniping about teachers than about those in other professions whose importance is pretty much undisputed, such as medicine.
One factor is that just about everyone went to school, so many people - regardless of their level of understanding - feel comfortable decrying the work of a professional in the classroom in a way that they would never countenance with a professional in an operating theatre.
Another is a growing tendency to view public services from the viewpoint of a consumer, which, for some, fuels a sense of entitlement - that you can stamp your feet and demand something on behalf of your child rather than taking a more collaborative approach with the school. Just last week, a secondary teacher, writing anonymously for Tes Scotland, said that, amid constant criticism from parents, they felt like “a failure”.
All of the above have been amplified in social media echo chambers. A recent Tes piece looked at the rise of WhatsApp parent groups, where teachers were “routinely vilified” in these “breeding grounds for gossip”.
Author Thomas Blaikie, who was a secondary English teacher for 25 years, contrasted that with the reality of a few decades ago, when parents were more likely to unquestioningly take the side of teachers. That, he stressed, was not desirable either - there should be a middle ground, where teachers and parents work in tandem, without recrimination.
The good news is that Scotland may be closer to that place than many other countries. Certainly, it appears well ahead of other parts of the UK in its commitment to parental involvement in education: since 2006, the Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act has required school policies to consider the views and needs of families.
Headlines about Scottish education that stem from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are often unflattering - successive education secretaries have sweated about the findings of its Programme for International Student Assessment study of 15-year-olds. But in August 2019, the news was more welcome. Scottish parents were among the friendliest in the world, the OECD found - and that meant students were “more likely to develop their skills, improve attitudes towards collaboration, and feel happier and safer at school”.
Both teachers and parents, then, are often tarred with negative headlines. Yet in Scotland, the truth is they are working more closely than ever before - and that can only be a good thing.
@Henry_Hepburn
This article originally appeared in the 23 October 2020 issue under the headline “Covid’s silver lining is a greater appreciation of what teachers do”
