There is still a teachers crisis in Denmark and it is not that the teachers are striking, because they’re literally being locked out of their work places because they wouldn’t accept a new reform.
Recently I read a teacher’s testimony on Facebook. The teacher was commenting on remarks she had gotten during the crisis and some of them were hinting towards teachers being lazy and stupid. Now we’ve previously talked about how the fact that teachers are under prioritized obviously affect how they do their job which in turn actually can potentially have tremendous effects on society as a whole. But if we have a look at it, isn’t it how we all view each other? The mechanic is probably illiterate, the plumber is most likely a pervert, the convenient store owner is certainly a terrorist plotting bomb threats and the cat is out to get you – see what I mean?
The fact that we’re belittling and being suspicious towards each other is not going to help us become better workers. It won’t motivate us to do our jobs better. So why do we do it? Does it make us feel better about our own shitty situation?
Consider how many doctors and pilots and teachers and politicians that is out there that somehow, for some reason feels inferior about their jobs or that feels like they’re not being valued in the work that they do, because of the amount they’re paid or because of their general working conditions. How many times haven’t we heard about truck drivers that fall asleep at the wheel because they’re forced to drive for hours without end, just like doctors work two or sometimes three shifts in a row? How many times doesn’t it happen that someone gets injured or even killed because someone somewhere didn’t do their job?
And it we bring it back to teachers – aren’t teachers supposed to be the people who are passionate about teaching? Wouldn’t it be absolutely awesome if all teachers were actually people who love teaching? People who have trained and have been educated and learned the best possible ways to teach? People who can’t wait to go to work every day just to spend time with your child? Now imagine if teachers had optimum conditions and were fully supported by the general society to develop their skills. They would have the latest technology available to make the absolute best out of their lessons. All children would have Ipads or other forms of communication devices so no papers would be needed and all information would be streamlined. The classrooms would perhaps not even be class rooms but would be a new spot every time or there would be small houses decorated cosy with comfortable chairs and tables. Teachers would have plenty time to prepare as well have time between classes and only small groups of children to teach. The greater society would support teachers unconditionally because we would understand the actual investment we would be making in ourselves as a species and in live as a whole – exactly the opposite of what we’re doing now. And imagine how it would be if this was not only teachers but people in all professions. The chef is the best chef he or she can be, the doctors are the people who are passionate about medicine and anatomy. Imagine what difference this would make to a visit at the doctor’s office or the emergency room – or how food would taste differently, be prepared differently.
When teachers are told that they are lazy and stupid or when doctors are forced to work many shifts in a row, when cleaning people are blatantly ignored by the people they provide a service for, it is no wonder that people start slacking in their work, start hating their work, start doing only the bare minimum. Even the people who started out being passionate, like someone who wants to become a police officer because they want to help and protect people, end up being self-interested, small-minded, fearful and sometimes belittling towards people from other professions. So then the doctor feel more important than the pilot and the pilot feels more important than the teacher, the teacher feels more important than the janitor and the janitor feels more important than the cleaning person and the cleaning person feels more important than the child…
There are obviously professions in this world that are less practical than others and there are most certainly professions that are outright abusive and useless. There are even professions where people are earning a lot of money in spite doing little or no work while in other professions, such as people working in fields earning close to nothing.
And yet we accept that the movie stars and the sports athletes and people who were born into money are somehow ‘more’ than everyone else – where no one is looking at the actual practical contribution of what people bring to the world or making collective decisions about where we have to focus on developing certain fields and what fields perhaps require less resources.
It is about time that we start to value each other as well – teachers and janitors and doctors alike. In an Equal Money System we will actually do this – because we will create a political system that will focus on considering the whole instead of certain individual parts. When we consider the whole, the picture of what is valuable or not, changes. And this is exactly what is required in this world, for example for us to consider the importance of teachers for us to create an effective education system.
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