Dignity and Teacher Status.

When I thought about the topic for Blogsync this month, I couldn’t really come up with anything to add to the comments I have written in my previous post on the reasons for a new professional teacher body – http://debrakidd.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/a-royal-college-of-teaching-a-view-from-the-grass/ – but recent events have added to this thinking.

I’m not going to go into events yesterday except to say that I did not leave the exchange without reason to look at myself for blame. Others have recently commented on their feelings of sadness as twitter users – tweachers – have begun to turn on one another in attacks on differences of opinion. Sue Cowley wrote of her increasing sense of isolation from the gangs and cliques emerging. Ian Gilbert noted a nastiness in the air. And I, have on more than one occasion, contributed to that nastiness. It is one of the curses of academia to challenge others when it…