There's never been a worse – or more important – time to be a teacher.
The classroom has become the coronavirus battleground, with Sir and Miss on the front line.
I don’t suppose they call them that any more, though that’s how I remember these figures of respect and authority from my own school days.
With the full return of pupils, they must impose a rigorous safety regime, watch out for signs of Covid-19 – and teach the curriculum.
Tuition is months behind, kids are apprehensive about getting behind their desks, and parents share their misgivings.
Against that backdrop, teachers have to get the education system working again for the sake of the children and the country’s economy.
It’s a big ask, made bigger than necessary by years of government attacks on their profession, their jobs, their unions and their living standards.
Schools have been put through a Maoist revolution of testing, league tables, curriculum changes, forced academisation, redundancies and funding cuts.
The outcome was a demoralised service which now has to play a leading role in combatting the greatest calamity of peacetime UK.
Who’d be Sir or Miss today?
But we rely on them to succeed, and in turn they rely on our respect and support.
If I admitted to my parents I’d had the cane, I risked a thick ear “because you probably deserved it”. These days, parents seem more likely to march down to the school and threaten the teacher.
That has to stop. Teachers must be restored to the public esteem they deserve. Put up your hand if you agree with that.
