On the fifth of November, after a particular fractious day at school, I sat down and wrote a post about how I wished to ‘ban’ the use of the word ‘banter’ as an excuse for bullying.
It was either The Right Thing To Do or The Most Ridiculous Professional Decision I Could Ever Have Made. I keep switching between the two. I was sick of seeing kids yell names at each other in the corridor, thump one another and steal each other’s classroom supplies. As a teacher responsible for classroom management, I’d thought I’d have a go at trying something new that I hadn’t done before. Being the kind of bloke who likes to record his experiences, I figured I’d write about my plan and come back to it later for a follow-up.
I never expected the response I got. I was stoked when TES decided to republish my blog. I’m a big fan of the site and the way it connects teachers, not only in Britain, but across the world. It was Saturday morning when I awoke to find that the Independent had written about me. Also, the Mirror. The Daily Mail too.It wasn’t long before I started to get calls from radio stations, asking for a soundbite.All the local press, such as the Mercury and the Eastern Daily Press had a story. Social media went bananas, with personalities from across the education sector and beyond adding their two cents.
The abusive e-mails began to come in that night. I binned them. I had some strange phone calls to my mobile phone number, but they stopped quickly. I found this odd, because I’d only just got the number a few days prior.
While all this unfolded around me, I wandered about in a state of disbelief. It all seemed so surreal, that my twenty-minute blog post was everywhere.
Much against everybody’s advice, I waded into the comments sections of the newspaper articles about my move. I was astonished at the strength of emotion in the comments of those that opposed my decision – I was humourless, a Leftist, a proponent of the Nanny State, a psychopath, I should not be allowed in a classroom with children.
I laughed it off. I had to.
Seeing the fuss that had erupted across Britain, I was a little apprehensive about turning up to school the next day.
I soldiered on anyway and was surprised to find that the staffroom, full of people that would have otherwise greeted me, was eerily quiet. It was like I wasn’t there at all. I made a crack about how I’d made the papers while someone else who proposed dropping English as a subject hadn’t had any response. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I could have brought down Ofsted on the school (they’d been there the previous week) and that the kids might think I thought they were poorly behaved – that might be why I was getting the reception I was getting.
The kids, bless ‘em, were a lot louder. Everywhere I went I was greeted with shouts of ‘BANTER!’. I decided to laugh with them, turning around in mock horror when somebody shouted it. The tone changed from a cautious hostility to something a lot warmer. A couple of kids came up to me and asked why I’d made my comments. I told them that I wasn’t opposed to banter – just using it as an excuse for giving others a hard time. Once we had the conversation, the kids were fine and the majority agreed with me. I repeated the conversation with each of my classes and got much the same response. We had some good dialogue and it helped my classroom practice as a result.
Things got better over the course of the week.
I almost thought I’d weathered the storm. After a phone call from my teaching agency and a discussion at school on Monday morning, it was mutually agreed that I’d probably benefit from a new beginning somewhere else.
Upsetting? Yes. Unexpected? I’m not so sure.
Looking back, I believe I’ve gathered a few nuggets of wisdom from this whole ballyhoo:
1. It’s far, far, far more difficult to challenge adults about a cultural practice than it is with kids. Adults are far, far more resistant to change.
2. Kids will back you in your decisions as teacher, if you take the time to sit down and take them step by step through your thinking. Do it right and they’ll share their own thoughts with you, reinforcing what you have to say.
3. As professionals (and in particular, as teachers) too often we live in a climate of fear, afraid of speaking up and making noise, afraid of what the community might think. If we’re really in it for the kids, we have to step out on a ledge and shout out our concerns to the world. We won’t if there’s an axe dangling above us. I now feel a lot more reluctant to share my opinions.
4. Even in schools that we consider to be ‘good’ (not the Ofsted term) there exists a problem with bullying. It might just not be as visible. I’ve had many kids come up to me and speak about their experiences, unsure of what they’re going through constitutes bullying, even though it consistently makes them miserable.
I now find myself in the position where I am looking for a new job, a month before Christmas, in a new land.
I find myself wondering sometimes whether that job should even be in the classroom.
I still can’t work out whether what I said was the right thing to say.
What I do know is that speaking up as a teacher can have a pretty hefty cost, It is up to each of us separately to decide whether it’s worth it.
Mike Stuchbery
