Voices: I’m a mother and a teacher – I’m conflicted about strikes

Like thousands of teachers up and down the country today, I’m on strike.

In just under a decade of teaching, I’ve seen conditions plummet year on year. I’ve seen my wages and that of my colleagues dwindle in light of the cost of living crisis. I’ve seen funding cuts decimate education from the inside, destroying the life chances of the most vulnerable young people who rely on school as a lifeline.

I dreamed of being a teacher as a child. I saw my English teachers as lights in the darkness. They gave me solace in a childhood spent feeling like I didn’t belong. I imagined myself doing the same, like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, transforming students’ lives through the beauty of verse. But the reality is starkly different. In fact, it’s so different, it would be funny – if it didn’t have such tragic consequences for both teachers and the young people we educate.

Being a teacher in a state school in 2023 feels like putting out fires constantly, equipped with nothing but good intentions and a thimble of water. It feels like doing 10 jobs in one – none of which you’re trained for. A social worker and a child psychologist and a police officer, rolled into a food bank service and a motivational speaker, all at once.

Under the pressures of the state education sector, drained of resources, teachers are floundering. We have more work than ever: bigger class sizes and fewer colleagues to spread the load. Simultaneously, we are facing more pressure to perform consistently, to secure even better results for young people who are facing a multitude of battles outside of school.

Imagine your salary being tied to being able to secure an A* for a student who is sofa-surfing, fighting hostile immigration policies or a young carer for their five younger siblings. The pressure is unsustainable. It is unhealthy. Pretty much every teacher I know is experiencing the symptoms of chronic stress and anxiety.

So, I suppose it sounds like a no-brainer that I would support the strikes. After all, more than 90 per cent of my fellow NEU members voted in favour of industrial action. When I received my postal ballot, I filled it in instinctively. Of course I was in favour of strike action if it meant holding power to account for the undermining of our state education system. Right?

But this is also the first time I’m going on strike as a mother, and I can’t help but acknowledge that this complicates my feelings slightly.

Like clockwork, in the run-up to the teacher strikes, I’ve heard the usual arguments: “They get 13 weeks paid holiday. They got to work from home all through the pandemic. They finish work at 3 o’clock.” A week – no, a day – spent working in a school is enough to bury those wild accusations. So they don’t bother me. But I can’t pretend that widespread school closures sit well for me as a teacher or as a mother.

Schools are lifelines for disadvantaged children. They are often quite literally sanctuaries of safety away from abusive or neglectful households, or warm places to fend off the hunger and cold of home. So when I see accusations of teachers putting their pay before vulnerable children, I have to admit I felt a pang of guilt.

It’s not just about the children. As a parent, the closure of a school or childcare setting can have a huge impact on you, too. And this disproportionately impacts women who still bear the brunt of childcare. If you don’t have a job that is flexible enough to work from home, then a day of lost earnings because your child’s teachers are on strike can be devastating. It could be the difference between heating and eating for some households. As my colleagues made their placards ready for this morning’s picket line, the irony was not lost on me that teachers who were parents were having to stay at home to look after their own children because of school closures.

Here’s the thing about the strikes: teachers don’t want to go on strike. Nurses and paramedics and train drivers don’t want to, either. Nobody trains for years for a vocation that is fundamentally about providing a vital public service to then shirk that responsibility at the first opportunity. But teacher pay and conditions are inextricably linked to the life chances of young people – of all our children.

If your child is being taught by happy, healthy, experienced professionals who are paid enough to invest fully in the job, then their outcomes will be better than if they are taught by frazzled and overworked teachers who are stressing about making ends meet while explaining algebra. If the education sector is funded properly and invested in, that is transformational for families up and down the country – not just for teachers. As a teacher, I may want fair pay and better resources, but as a mother I want the best for my child. These two things are one and the same.

It’s an unfortunate and unavoidable truth that by nature, strikes disturb. They disrupt. They have to. They are intended to cause uncomfortable and often frustrating repercussions because how else is the sheer value of the labour being withheld supposed to be appreciated? How else can we truly understand how vital teachers are unless we experience a world without them?

Given the burgeoning teaching recruitment crisis with thousands of job vacancies left unfilled as teachers leave the classroom in droves, a world without them doesn’t seem so far-fetched. And as both a teacher and a mother, that prospect is far more frightening to me, overall, than a couple of days of industrial action.