Should teachers be banned from wearing pro-Palestine badges to school?
Some teachers have taken to wearing lapel badges with the Palestine flag and a watermelon motif - a known pro-Palestine symbol, and the keffiyeh, the black and white ‘net’ scarf.
Sir David Bell, the former head of Ofsted, will call on teachers this week “to consider the appropriateness of political expressions and identifiers” (referring to badges and clothing). His report - commissioned by the UK government - has 27 recommendations to combat antisemitism in schools.
It is expected that many schools will respond to the report by banning verbal expressions of support for Palestine and the wearing of ‘identifiers’.
If so, are they right to do so?
As a young teacher, I was not immune from grandstanding my own deeply held political beliefs to my gullible, captive audience ten-year-old children in Hackney. I pontificated on the evils of apartheid South Africa and during the bitter and divisive Miners’ Strike of 1984-85, I took to wearing a pin-badge with the words: “The Enemy Within” – an ironic reference to Margaret Thatcher’s characterisation of the miners’ union leadership.
Did I have the right to do so? I think I did.
But should I have done so?
Teachers, like any citizens in a democratic society that values free speech, have a right to express their opinions. We do not live in Turkey, where teachers are routinely arrested and sacked for expressing political views; much less Iran, where dissenting teachers have been publicly executed. So yes, we should value our free speech in Britain, where it does not ‘abuse, threaten, or incite violence’.
One might even argue that, by making such expressions, teachers are encouraging children’s awareness and engagement in political issues and the democratic process. Surely a good thing.
However, the Teachers’ Standards, the profession’s ethical code, requires that a teacher’s “personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability” and that “teachers must treat all pupils with dignity… rooted in mutual respect.”
Are pro-Palestine pin badges and keffiyehs of the same order?
Would it matter, whether or not, there were Jewish children in the school?
Since October 7th 2023, attacks on Jews have been running at ten times that of the next religious group, Muslims, in spite of the Jewish community being fifteen times smaller. Every Jewish school in the UK has to implement protective measures that no other school needs – security guards, reinforced steel fencing, regular ‘terror-attack’ drills. Sixty-per cent of Jewish children, some as young as five years old, have reported being targeted by fellow pupils with some reporting that even their teachers have done little or nothing to protect them.
What do you think is going on?
Alan Newland leads practical sessions with trainee-teachers on professional ethics and values and how to teach fundamental British values.
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