How do we keep teachers on task? How do we get the pedagogically inclined to
overcome Seasonally Affected Disorder Drop-Outism (SADDO), and continue to drag themselves out from under
the sheets each morning to go in and take the register? How can society keep our schoolmasters from noticing
that the profession they work in is:
(a)failing to teach children anything of worth,
(b)unappreciated by everyone (including the children, who are bored crapless between the hours of 8:40 and 15:00
(c)universally reviled for the fact teachers finish early and get approximately 25% of the year as holiday,
and finally…
(e)all of the above, with the added issue that everyone hates how teachers moan and bitch about the amount of work
they have to do during the 25% of the year they get for holidays. A time when, as everyone knows, not a single
educational professional will lift a biro for anything other than signing a cheque to pay for a long fucking holiday in
Yet, in spite of these notions, our society must still ensure this profession is kept well-stocked with
idealistic young teaching staff and headmasters-in-waiting. It is vitally important teachers are kept in the
classroom, partly because of the role they play as babysitters, but mostly because they provide a
necessary dose of realism. Who else can so effectively crush hope; squeeze out the dreams and
desires of a new generation?
Crush hope? I hear you squeal. Yes, without a doubt that is the most important aspect of a teacher’s role. This may sound cruel, but really it is a kindness, nay a necessity. Who wants their little ones encouraged to dream of an adult life spent performing on television ‘entertainment’ programmes such as Pop Idol and The X Factor, works of Satan where hundreds of fresh-faced post-pubescents queue for hours just to be patronized, insulted and humiliated on national television?
Yet still they line up, like fashionably dressed teenage lemmings at the cliffside. Why does this happen?
Well, Home Defence believes it to be the result of living in a too-positive, overly optimistic society. Nowadays
we are told we can do whatever we want, achieve anything if we just put our minds to it. We are made to
believe we can fly, believe we can touch the sky, end up thinking about it every night and day, then spread
our wings and fly away. But what do you really get on completing an Icarus-style flight into the dark heart of
the talent show sun (apart from hot wax dripping on your nether regions)? Is everyone out there actually
achieving their dreams? No. No, they’re not. These fools are broke, miserable and unloved. Because the vast
majority fail. Fail badly. Dreadfully. Messily. And in front of a braying Saturday night studio audience.
When humans are encouraged to chase their dreams, our planet ends up with a ridiculous number of idiots who have held onto the idea they have the slightest ounce of talent for far too long, all misguidedly trying to keep their self-esteem from packing up and leaving altogether. Then, eventually, they find their spirits crushed and psyches in need of considerable emotional support - a further drain on our already burdened health service.
But if the teaching profession can draw us into a mindset where we don’t expect anything from adult life other than enough money to get drunk, and the possibility of catching an embarrassing venereal disease after a quickie on a Friday night, then everyone’s onto a winner. Society benefits immeasurably from a deputy head forcing his group of seven year olds to write: “I will never amount to anything and I should be grateful I know that now” fifty times on the blackboard after class. If people ask for nothing more than a sausage and egg Mcmuffin on the way to a low paid, low effort, low thought job, then they won’t be disappointed if they have to settle for toast instead. In this scenario, no one goes to auditions, there is no X Factor, and television executives will have to make something not quite so shit to fill up the empty, X-shaped hole in our television schedules. The world would be a better place without
a doubt, and all thanks to teachers!
So the next time you hear a teacher complaining about their professional circumstances, suppress the
urge to give them the address of the local Labour Exchange or shoot them repeatedly in the head, and offer
a supportive arm and consoling ear instead. Your child’s fragile sense of self-worth could be at stake, along
with a future free from delusions of talent that would lead to said offspring being openly mocked by Simon
Cowell on prime-time ITV. Think about it!
