Moan all you like about Gen Z, but some of today’s youngsters put adults to shame. Take the pupils at Connaught School for Girls in Leytonstone, east London. Tired of their teachers going out on strike yet again, this time during exam season, children and parents have begun mounting their own counter-demonstrations. After years of disruption to their education, they are urging the grown-ups to ‘teach or quit’.
Teachers who don a Palestinian scarf and turn their backs on their pupils reveal that education is the least of their concerns
A clip of Friday’s protest has been widely shared on social media. Angry pupils confront teachers who have chosen to spend the day on the picket line, rather than in the classroom. They are cross about being taught in groups of up to 60 by the headteacher in the school’s assembly hall, while their teachers – subject specialists and heads of department – parade outside.
The pupils hold cardboard signs reading: ‘Teach or Leave’ and ‘Don’t Strike Out Our Future’. One girl has a megaphone. She points out that some teachers have already spent extended periods away from the classroom taking strike action. ‘We should instead be focusing on the education of girls in this school,’ she reminds them. A Year 10 pupil then has her say: ‘The fact that you are doing this during people’s GCSE and mock [exam] times makes us think you have no sympathy or consideration toward your students.’ Ouch. Imagine needing a teenager to remind you of your responsibilities.
Needless to say, the filmed teachers are not best pleased at having their picket line antics exposed in this way. Another girl calls out ‘Mr Phillips,’ and says: ‘She’s talking to you and your people, and you’re not even listening. It takes guts to talk in front of you guys!’ In response, some teachers turn their backs on the pupils and refuse to engage; another starts a sarcastic slow clap. A pupil reprimands them: ‘You’re talking over us.’ Again, imagine needing a teenager to tell you how to behave. These teachers are shameless.
However, not all those on the school-gate picket line are even teachers at the school. Some are, apparently, National Education Union (NEU) activists flown in from other parts of the country. Others are allegedly local Green Party members or random left-wing campaigners. One parent tells the Daily Telegraph the protesters are ‘quite old, middle-aged men, strange people’ before adding, ‘that’s also intimidating for the girls’.
This ragtag bunch means it is unclear exactly why the Connaught School teachers are on strike. Some carry ‘stand up to racism’ signs. One is draped in a Palestinian flag. At one point, the strikers seemed to have been opposing Reform UK. The aforementioned Mr Phillips pairs his shorts and t-shirt with a keffiyeh. Of course.
Pupils say past walkouts have been triggered after teachers were asked to produce seating plans or over complaints of bullying. A spokesman for the NEU says the latest strike has been prompted by the ‘threat of compulsory redundancies and unmanageable workloads.’ But working out quite what threatened redundancies have to do with the situation in Gaza requires an A-level of its own.
Mr Phillips appears to be the school’s militant ring-leader. To the girls, he is better known as their personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) teacher. In the past, PSHE teachers, keen to encourage ‘active citizenship’, were all for children engaging in strike action. Remember when Greta Thunberg cared more about climate change than demonising Israel? Back then, teachers like Mr Phillips encouraged children to get out of the classroom, bunk off school every Friday, and join global ‘climate strikes’. The hypocrisy of turning their backs on pupils who are now protesting for an education stinks.
But it is exactly this – children asking to be educated – that has so irked the Connaught School staff. These bright young pupils have done far more than simply demonstrate that they care more about learning than some of their teachers. They have also revealed the idiocy of today’s left-wing activists. The East London school is the very definition of ‘diverse’, but refusing to teach black and brown pupils is a very strange way of challenging racism.
Connaught School is hardly a bastion of privilege. But refusing to teach deprived children is a strange way of showing solidarity with the working class, or helping to ensure kids from poor families are employable in the future.
None of this is to oppose all strikes. Decent wages attract good teachers. And education suffers if too many teachers are made redundant. There may be times when school staff need to go on strike. But teachers who don a Palestinian scarf and turn their backs on their pupils reveal that education is the least of their concerns.
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