Editorial: Changing language, changing the rules

I’ve been thinking a lot about language lately, about how habits of thought and expression, a few words, can undermine our own efforts at change. Conventional words and thinking produce conventional results. It is not enough when better is needed. For that, new ways of expressing ourselves and new frames are required.

This will be topical in the debate about marriage equality in the lead-up to the non-binding optional postal vote that is our current poor apology for government. More on that later. But it is an issue of wider significance.

An Ipswich reflection

In August, we had the annual combined meeting and seminar for the six south-east corner Area Councils of the QTU. Nearly 100 Union Reps gathered in Ipswich for the event. We talked about QTU members’ current issues and the strategies we need to address them.

One issue is workload. Union Reps talked about the pressure felt by teachers to comply with extra demands, to the detriment of their workload and wellbeing.

It is a curious connection, but it linked in my mind to a couple of quotes that I have been thinking about in the on-going conservative attempt to usurp and appropriate what it means to be Australian. One is: “When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible.” Would that be less true in Australia than we have seen since at Charlottesville in the United States?

The other is attributed to Samuel Johnson: “The last resort of the scoundrel is an appeal to patriotism.” Patriotism is used by scoundrels for base ends as justification to convince the crowd.

There is to my mind a corollary in teaching that directly applies to the problem of workload: “An appeal to professionalism is the last resort of the scoundrel”.

When all else fails (and because all else should fail), teachers are told that they would be unprofessional if they did not take on some time-intensive new initiative. It is an observation from my earliest days of teaching, and regrettably is still evident.

In this frame, professionalism equals saying “yes”. Yet I can see nothing professional in taking on a workload that undermines the physical and mental health of all but the strongest. One speaker I heard earlier this year described it as voluntary slavery.

Instead, I think that the exercise of professionalism is more likely in saying “no”, whether that be in relation to excessive workload, the rejection of a method that doesn’t meet the needs of our students, or the refusal to do work that diverts time and energy from teaching and its preparation. I saw an absolute cracker from the UK, where schools are going to teach “real Shanghai mathematics” using a series of 36 translated textbooks – a strategy that distinguished Chines academic Yong Zhao thinks is a horrible idea.

If this professionalism is difficult to exercise individually, then it must be exercised collectively, whether through the consultation mechanisms of award and agreement, or through meetings of Union members and the issuing of directives.

The virtue of obedience?

But what of obedience and following orders?

I had the privilege in 2002 of meeting Howard Zinn, author of “A People’s History of the United States”, a very different way of looking at American history. There are many great quotes in his work. One is: “Civil disobedience is not our problem, our problem is civil obedience… Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty, and starvation, and stupidity and war, and cruelty.”

There is an argument, I think, that the difference between professionalism and compliance lies in the time to reflect, to discuss and to judge – the time that is denied to teachers by excessive workload.

The QTU is running a Workload and Wellbeing Awareness Month in November. I hope you have time to think about the links between professionalism and wellbeing between now and then.

Marriage equality

QTU policy supports marriage equality. The policy is decided by the QTU Conference – over 200 rank-and-file teachers and principals from around the state – and it was re-adopted in June this year. It is also my strong personal view. The QTU will be campaigning for a YES vote and I will be part of that campaign.

It is past time to recognise the love and commitment of same sex couples as we do other couples. It is past time to change the law.

The process adopted is appalling, a failure of government. The vote brings with it the real prospect of abuse and vilification of LGBTIQ teachers and students. As a union, as a membership, and as a profession we have a responsibility to offer protection, support and comfort to teachers and students affected.

And we have the opportunity to help change the future, by standing up.

Graham Moloney                                                                                                                 General Secretary

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 122 No 6, 25 August 2017, p5