Teacher Strike in England…and the coming of robot educators
Today marks the beginning of the first countrywide teacher strike in England since 2016. Ironically, many of the issues and conditions that triggered the previous demonstration of intolerance for exploitive practices are the same issues motivating teachers to walkout of their schools in protest today. This protest is not just about low pay. Teachers are burned out from three years of constantly changing safety guidelines, vaccination mandates, remote learning, and social isolation caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Teachers endured primary and secondary trauma as people close to them died and they observed as civil society began to unravel under the stress of anomic uncertainty. Teachers are tired, and they are voicing their distress in search of support from those in positions of affluence who have the power to improve their circumstances. Teachers are among other service workers — railway workers and civil servants — in England who were also disproportionately saddled with the weight of responsibility for the provision of essential services when we needed them most. Coordinating a large-scale halt to the provision of vital public services such as transportation, sanitation, and education may be enough to rattle the cages of the owners of the means of production into loosening their purse strings to share the profits with those responsible for the lion’s share…
