I Am Literally a Bullied ELT Teacher

Prior to Donald Trump’s visit to the UK Ash Sarkar of Novara Media appeared on ‘Good Morning Britain’ and was bullied by host Piers Morgan. He criticized her for not demonstrating against Obama, presuming, incorrectly, that Sarkar had been a supporter. After being repeatedly talked over she lost her temper and pointed out that she was a communist. After Morgan continued to press his point Sarkar again clarified, with an exasperated ‘I am literally a communist’, adding ‘you idiot’ for good measure. After the clip went viral several UK newspapers weighed in on the murderous nature of communism, prompting the Guardian’s Owen Jones to respond that ‘capitalism has its own terrible record’.

The damage done by free market economics and neoliberal policies has become increasingly evident to me as a teacher, not only as a citizen. This damage manifests itself in a variety of ways, from the (now routinely called freelance) zero-hours contracts to ways in which ‘the basic assumptions, frameworks and processes of neoliberalism’ have seeped into education and become the norm.

I started work at 18 but was 32 when I started teaching. I did not witness bullying until I entered the education profession. I don’t think this is a co-incidence. I have seen first-hand how the effects of neoliberalism play out.

ELT bullies

I once witnessed a Head of Department give a public dressing down to a Chilean teacher of English for his mispronunciation of a single word during an observed lesson. This established, entirely profit-driven institute (masquerading as cultural) pays very low wages to the majority of its freelance teachers, while providing workshops on ‘How to Recruit and Retain the Best Teachers’. I left after being pressured to resign from the union.

In a depressingly symmetrical way it was both horrifying and hilarious to see a Head of Department bully from an expensive private school running a workshop at the low-paying cultural institute on ‘Dealing with Difficult People’. It is not too difficult to join the dots here. Comments from teachers labelled as ‘difficult’ litter below the line comments on articles and blogs. ‘We all have our war stories’ reads one.

A blended learning company I once worked for won awards for being a Great Place to Work. In fact, the owner was keen to extend his ideas into politics and even become president (he failed). After 3 weeks there the Head of Content said to me:

Nobody likes you. We don’t like you. I don’t like you. Your team doesn’t like you. You don’t fit in. You should leave.

It was a relief not to see my wife and children on the list. I believe it was a speech from page 36 of Bullying for Dummies. ‘Deliberately undermining’ and ‘ridiculing’ are certainly on page 5 of the Unison guide for Tackling Bullying at Work.

The very expensive school I worked for had a mindfulness program it bullied its teachers into carrying out. It had a no bullying approach for students while systematically stamping out any form of dissent among staff and hire’em, fire ‘em recruitment policy. While working there I once asked a question in a workshop, based on an article I had read where Ofsted suggested different ways of reducing the volume of grading. The following day I received a vaguely threatening email from the Academic Head wondering if I fully understood ‘school policy’. I was grading essays on Animal Farm at the time.

The CPD method imposed by the school on its teachers mirrored its punitive management style, imposing control of students. Attendance to Teach Like a Champion workshops (referred to by teachers as Teach Like a Chimp) was compulsory. This method appears to be ‘disturbingly similar to one that was established almost a century ago for the express purpose of maintaining racial hierarchy’.

We live in a time when Trump’s trail runs for fascism are being discussed. I wonder how soft Teach Like a Champion will look in ten years’ time, and if an even stronger version will have replaced it.

Throughout the workshops the Academic Head, perched on a table looking down on teachers, interrupted presenters to say that she would be checking that the method was being implemented in classrooms. This systematic deskilling of teachers, combined with the threat of performance accountability, is a key factor in the neoliberal approach.

When I was fired (no reason given) and complained of being bullied the school ignored its own internal investigation policy and paid me off. 

Explaining bullying

There are multiple reasons why bullying takes place. Many assume the bully to be reacting to a perceived threat, or over-compensating for a lack of confidence. However, it appears increasingly likely that the root of this is internalised shame. It is notable that Ash Sarkar’s response to be being bullied by Piers Morgan was to suggest ‘straw-manning (your guest) in order to make up for your own incompetence as a journalist’.

This shame, combined with a lack of empathy, creates a bully. A colleague was fired the day he returned from compassionate leave (that he’d had to fight for). The reason for the compassionate leave? He had been off work to bury his father. This is his war story and of course I have my own.

While researching for his book on the true causes of depression, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions, Johann Hari concluded that ‘there’s overwhelming evidence that depression and anxiety are, to a significant degree, responses to deep social forces’. He pinpointed our psychological needs as humans as ‘to feel we belong, to feel we are secure, to feel we are valued, to feel we have a secure future we can understand’ – almost exactly what is not provided by a hire ’em, fire ‘em  private school obsessed with standardised test scores.

Today, rather wonderfully, I can read about Teaching Empathy in Classrooms, gender inequality and teacher’s mental health. And yet, while the airing of such topics offer us some hope I cannot help but feel that such progress faces an uphill battle against the agents of conservatism.

When I read about the 1% in society it reminds me of those running institutes, schools and education companies. While the management rarely changes, clocking up decades of employment, hundreds of teachers come and go in a swirling mess of temporary and short-term work, bullied, belittled and disposed of. Middle management, intent on protecting what they have, is fearful of falling into the chaos below, routinely forcing the pressure downwards onto classroom teachers. A classic example would be linking student test results to teacher efficiency.

I was recently asked why my private  students are learning English. I had to conclude that it was fear – fear of not being able to compete in the sale of their English-less labour now that the English language itself is a bully and is taking over the planet. I cannot help but feel that some job applicants have a right to say ‘Oh for fucks sake!’ now English has been added to the already extensive list of discriminatory hurdles to gainful employment.

 A freelance future?

So, I am literally a bullied ELT teacher. I am freelance and wondering how I will get through the salary-less summer months in Chile, having decided against the security of a contract that offers me holiday pay in one hand and a whole host of problems in the other. Also, ‘it is important to recognise that current trends have yet to run their full course. ‘Conditions for teachers are likely to deteriorate further before they improve’ say Philip Kerr and Andrew Wickham.

I wonder how much of a blessing my Master’s in TESOL is. It got me the school job which led to panic attacks and the e-learning job where a smattering of competence caused such consternation. I see so much of the profit-driven, neoliberal, competitive greed for status and power in the ELT ‘industry’ that it is impossible not to draw parallels with, and look for causes in the wider world. I believe Kerr and Wickham come the closest to suggesting the best course of action: ‘More than ever before, teachers who want to have any kind of influence on the way that marketization and industrialization are shaping their working lives will need to do so collectively.’ 

I hope teachers can band together in workplaces to avoid the types of bullying I have encountered.

Kevin Towl