After reading the article “Jailed air-pistol teacher is allowed back into class” (TES, February 8), I felt I had to write - not about Linda Walker’s prison ordeal, but about her attitude towards other women’s positions in life. In the paragraph starting “Because I was a teacher ...” she implies that a “cleaner” or “housewife” is seen as less of a “genuine” person than a teacher.
Prior to my recent commencement of teacher training, I was a nurse for seven years on a ward for people with advanced dementia. I was subjected to daily verbal and physical abuse and worked under a mountain of red tape. I now understand the huge pressures teachers face. But Mrs Walker’s actions appear to have been as a mother acting out of desperation and fear. As a mother myself, I am blessed that I have not had to go through what she has, but her being a teacher is by the by. She could just as well have been a cleaner, a housewife or anyone else.
Alison Moffat, PGCE student, Bury, Lancashire.
