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At the chalkface: Just ask a teacher

Teaching staff
We know these things. The problem has always been the powers that be don’t pay us attention. They “consult”. They construct a face, which doesn’t listen, and generally do zilch

A chorus of keening nitwits, pompous buffoons and dunderheads has always danced an unhappy and ignorant attendance on all things educational. They have what could optimistically be called “opinions”, quite untethered to any actual experience of teaching. They surface on programmes like Question Time and drone on in cartoon clichés, dog whistle rants and plodding excavations of the bleedin’ obvious. I want to eat my gums and break things.

Journalists are better, though the subjects are glumly predictable. You know – poverty causes failure, illiteracy, and innumeracy, exam anxiety, the stifling curriculum, the White working class’s journey to hell, and death by a thousand cuts. All very necessary, but I’m afraid we’ve been hearing this since 1850.

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