91����

In the Noughties, when reality television was still an exciting novelty, one phrase echoed through living rooms more than any other: “If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.”

In the fabricated world of orchestrated “realness”, a cultural fascination with being “genuine” was inevitable and victory in a reality TV competition depended on a contestant’s ability to prove they were not part of the “fake” machine that was propelling them to stardom. The sentiment extended to normal life: we were all suddenly on a search for truth. 

But just as Big Brother has now been banished into pixelated archive footage, so, too, it seems has that obsession with being “real”. We are now quite comfortable with fakeness: we all edit our lives to some degree to make them more appealing to those looking in.

The impact of Covid on ‘truth’

Even “keeping it real” is heavily calculated: moments to “say it to my face” are carefully chosen and are designed more for individual brand building than a desire to be “genuine”. 

That has consequences and they’ve been very apparent during the pandemic. In general, it has led to a distortion of fact and a belief in conspiracy. We’re all told by different people that our own version of reality is the false one and, thus, we can all find ourselves questioning where the truth really sits. This can happen even with things where the evidence is most compelling.

In such circumstances, society heads in only one direction. Nowhere is this negative impact clearer, I think, than in the debate about education and the pandemic.

Should children be in school? If so, at what point on our infection trajectory? And for what reasons?

Picking through the propaganda

Finding “true” answers to these questions is likely always going to be complex because there is no firm agreement about what school is for in our society. There probably never will be.

But what has been depressing is that on both sides of the argument - the “open at all costs” side and the “close until infections are practically zero” side - the weapons of battle have been so disruptive to proper debate. No one seems to care about being genuine. 

People find official-looking-but-fake statistics, or distort actual official statistics, to make their argument. They make up statistics or science. They take a position that is not their actual position to make a more emotive case: their reasoning for schools being open may, for example, be economic or political, but they can see advantage in making the case for, say, safeguarding instead.

Safeguarding itself would be a good argument for schools being open, but in their hands it becomes a diluted and cynical case, robbing it of its power to persuade. And the mirage expands further. 

When it’s called out, it’s called out using the same tactics. So it just makes things worse. 

The balancing act

What we end up with is a lot of noise. And trapped amid all that noise, unable to hear themselves think, are school staff. Blasted from all sides with conflicting “science”, accused by all of “hating children”, and systematically ignored by everyone, it would be unsurprising if they were incapacitated. But instead, they have, for nearly two years, performed a phenomenal balancing act.

With the “truth” shrouded, they have picked out a path that has managed to keep the vast majority happy. They have taken the token safety gestures when they have arrived from government, but largely made things as good as they can be off their own back and reassured parents every day that everything will be OK.

They have risen above the accusations of irresponsibility from those who believe schools should be closed at all costs. Not only that, they have ensured that the untruths do not scare parents into not sending children in when they believe it is safe for them to be.  

Basically, they have, in so many ways and so often, stepped up and taken responsibility at an individual school level to ensure that the right decisions are made academically, pastorally and in terms of health for those children and adults in their care. 

This week, as both sides of the schools war ramped up the rhetoric once more, I was reminded of just how remarkable this achievement has been and continues to be. And the key to that success, I am sure, is that in a world of fakery and masking of true intent, teachers have excelled because they have managed to stay genuine and foreground the reason they got into this sector in the first place: the kids come first.