Originally posted by anton pulisov
View Post
As a quick preamble, I’ll leave out of my general point below the two following things, a) the fact that people have to get on with each other at work and in life to function and b) the fact that many people are lucky enough to be only marginally affected, or not at all, by what’s described below so they might never have really encountered such situations. What's below isn't of course the definitive treatise on social divisions in England, I’m sure you can pick holes in it, it’s only my take on things, and I must admit I’m lucky enough to be no longer affected by it personally although my wife is to a degree (works in retail for a multinational, so you get the picture: lots of fucking bullies & cheats who try to contaminate conscientious healthcare professionals, especially since the recession, staff shortages, shoestring budgets despite huge increase of work as prescriptions have doubled since 2010 and trebled since 2000, especially antidepressants, x3 since 2003, etc.) but this is not a personal moan, we are both in our 50s so undoubtedly privileged compared to the younger generation with regard to the points below.
Every Western country I’m sure is pretty divided at the minute but the Tories have made sure that the UK would be the leader in the field, at least in Europe, possibly even more so than the US since 2016 as Brexit has added a massive extra dimension to the polarisation(s). The more you scratch the surface the more you see lots of little groups at loggerheads with each other.
Divisionism (let’s call it that, but not that divisionism) is a dark art that I would liken to a social iceberg with a 50-50 split: there are plenty of tell-tale signs so it’s easy to see what sticks out, but also a big ominous chunk below the surface which ensures that divisions take on lots of insidious, “quietly oppressive” forms. How the UK workplace has become segregated for instance is very interesting in this respect, not just through the obvious ways (aggressive management, culture of target and fear, performance-related pay, generalised cheating and massaging of figures to meet objectives etc.) but also spatially.
Take teaching for instance since the Tories took over but also encompassing a good portion of the Blair era, fragmentation has been achieved in such a comprehensive multi-layered way that it becomes hard to “fight the system” as you just don’t know who to trust and who to turn to (deregulation of structures and of the profession – academisation + marginalisation of Local Education Authorities + atomisation of the School Teachers Pay and Conditions & Burgundy Book, the two main sources of conditions of service for teachers, + intense competition between teachers and individualism due to performance-related pay + budget cuts etc. – means that teaching unions are weak and people scared of using them).
The classic, unsubtle tenets of the Divide and Rule strategy are encapsulated in there, in the above paragraphs (eg how school staff evaluate each other through performance-related pay made far worse by massive budget cuts creating tension and injustice, or the policy of actively pitting young teaching staff agst older expendable ones – who are more expensive than their young colleagues and who often end up fucking off/retiring etc. leaving a very young and malleable workforce – eg, 13% of primary school teachers are under 30 in France vs about 33% in England & Wales) mixed with the “subtler” ways, such as how lots of schools these days have become spatially divided and compartmentalised, think of pens in a cattle mart for instance(especially big schools and the new ones).
Schools without a staffroom for instance or with one but staff discouraged from using it, by making the area a no-man’s land or, more probably, by ensuring that staff are too busy to have more than a passing chat with colleagues. It’s not uncommon to visit schools and find that staff who have been there for years barely know who works in other departments just a few doors away, they know their names and faces (but not even sometimes) and email addresses maybe but they’ve never talked to them. You are constantly told as a teacher that sharing, teamwork and cross-departmental collaboration is vital (looks good for Ofsted to have that in the neat list of the school’s “core values”) yet plenty is done to discourage communication and exchange.
Anish Mann, a physics teacher, recently left a school, part of a multi-academy trust, that had no staffroom. As a result, he says, he only got to know his department team, not the whole staff. He says: “I would see adults walking in the school and would challenge them on their ID. We all thought it was a divide and conquer situation. If you don’t let people talk to each other, they don’t share their grievances.”
[…]
The move away from staffrooms can perhaps be traced to 2012, when amendments were made in England to the Education (School Premises) Regulations, taking away the need for teachers to be given a work and social space. The amendments do not apply in Wales. Five years later, many schools in England are choosing not to have a staffroom.
[…]
The move away from staffrooms can perhaps be traced to 2012, when amendments were made in England to the Education (School Premises) Regulations, taking away the need for teachers to be given a work and social space. The amendments do not apply in Wales. Five years later, many schools in England are choosing not to have a staffroom.
Comment