Blah Blah Brexit … same same different day … it’s all a bit much.
In the world of ELT nothing seems to change much either. Pedagogy’s still stuck going round a commercial roundabout. Learner styles are still in people’s minds, and in syllabuses, the pedagogical equivalent of the medicinal leech. Coursebooks are still mostly pap. Working conditions continue to plummet. Teachers moan but won’t do anything to change things.
But once in a while something changes. The tectonic plates of ELT start to grind and people realise they’re being taken for fools, played like violins, and exploited.
So reading about the Grafton College closure I was shocked but not surprised. 23 teachers, several admin staff, and hundreds of students left ‘high and dry’ by the sudden decision to close the school. (Read more in The Irish Times here.)
But what has really shocked me is the silence from the ELT ‘community’; from the big teaching organisations who have thousands of followers on their FB and Twitter pages, who could easily put the word out that ‘these teachers need your help’; from those who write the coursebooks we use year after year.
You remember ‘community’, don’t you? All those nice teachers sharing their lesson plans on the blogs, liking each other’s posts, encouraging each other when things get tough.
Where’s all that goodwill when it’s needed? I don’t know how many well-known ELT bloggers and ‘personalities’ have donated (and it is a personality-led industry rather than a pedagogy-led profession). But I do know that public support from well-known figures and institutions for the Grafton College teachers – left penniless before Christmas, many with families to support – has been miserable and minuscule.
It’s not my problem … fight your own battles … I’m not a martyr you might say. But then what’s the point of having power, or standing in your own community – if you don’t use it when members of that community are in trouble?
So what was really the point of all the sharing and caring talk – if you can’t help people when they need it? And you surely end up asking: What do I get?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfkMDqijvVs
But perhaps we should be asking What can I do? Here’s five things:
1. Go to the Grafton College GoFundMe page and donate, even a small amount will help.
2. If your local TA or a larger teaching association you’re a member of won’t support teachers when they need it, ask why. If they won’t answer, then refuse to give them your cash.
3. Join a union and/ or support those that do.
4. Support grassroots initiatives like The ELT Worker – a new bulletin for teachers organised through the Notes from Below platform.
5. Stop sharing with those who have no intention of sharing back.
Because unless YOU do something to change things, it’ll just be the same old blah blah, from the same old people, on the same worn out themes.
And you’ll still be asking yourself: What do I get? Like a broken record.