Schools are notorious -like any other place of work I suppose -for overworking and underpaying. Or so every other teacher in the profession will tell you! Recently a member of staff "resigned" leaving a number of lessons untaught. What did the school do? Well, initially they made do with cover teachers but last monday -quite out of the blue -I was told (very politely of course) that I had acquired another lesson, in place of one of my PLAN/PREP's (Free periods, as they are elsewhere known). There was no explanation provided except for the fact that the class needed a specialist teacher and there were no specialist ICT teachers turning up for cover! My first reaction was to bawl (inside). There's nothing, nothing, nothing worse than giving up a free period (coffee and biscuits in the staff room -and the occasional chance to catch up on some marking) for more work. What made it worse, was that no one had the courtesy to actually ASK me about my opinion on the matter. I was just told and that was that. Now, technically, it is within my RIGHTS to protest this, in fact, to point blank refuse. But that's when I went home and was confronted by Mother Teresa. A friend of mine had sent me a copy of a book about Mother Teresa's innermost thoughts and her 'secret' life. (including letters, diaries, and letters about her). Part of her responsibility during those early years was caring for and teaching the students in a poor Indian boarding school. The part I happened to read was a letter from a young girl -a student of Mother Teresa's. It read:
"During WWII, there was no teacher from class 4 to class 10. Mother took ALL the classes and she kept us busy to make us forget and overcome our fear"
And there were still more stories. Once she (Mother Teresa) stayed all night and all day, for several days, with some pupils that had been left alone. How on another occasion she braved the blood bathed streets of the city to find food for her starving girls....
Didn't the Loreto sisters have rights? What about health and safety? What about the complete and utter unfairness of having to cover ALL classes from 4 to 10, let alone one or two.
I should clarify that sometimes standing up for one's rights, may indeed be the right thing to do. But other times, shouldn't we always -without hesitation -lay aside our rights, to do what is right? Perhaps our situation here in the UK differs slightly from the one in Calcutta, in that our school can most certainly afford "cover" teachers without squeezing every penny's worth out of existing teachers. But still, how foolish our stupid rights seem in light of what is really important. And how interesting to think Mother Teresa started off her early career as a teacher!
