SIR,—In spreading his mantle of equality over all teachers in
last week's ' Sidelight,' Sir Compton Mackenzie slipped past the real point of the AMA's threat to strike. This was to protest against just that equality or
parity of esteem' which he bestowed on different teachers in different types of school. For the AMA is the grammar school masters' union, and on the Burnham Committee it is outnumbered by the NUT representatives of primary and secondary schools, who will not or dare not differentiate between grammar school teachers and their own colleagues in ' lower grades of school' (as Mr. Henschel puts it in his letter). A strike is consequently the only way for the AMA to register a separately effective claim. My own feeling is that while professional justice would recog- nise this, social justice must weigh the con- ditions of work as well as the level of skill.
So far, a primary school is the only type -of school in which I have not taught, and I think that my reasons for this may be relevant. I might easily have a class of fifty. This could include an age range of three years or more. In any class, Intelligence Quotients could vary between 70 and 140 (while the variation in a grammar school class is unlikely to be more than fifteen or twenty points). I would probably have to teach in a cold insanitary building, and I would certainly find myself near to despair. In a lesser measure this applies to secondary modern schools. But grammar school teichers. have smaller classes and more interesting work, though they have less free time.
The answer to teachers' needs is first to treat them collectively, which means more money for more teachers for smaller classes for better standards, quickly. (Is this Utopia ?) When a professional standard has
been reached, there will be room for quality and level of work to be recognised, profes- sionally. I think that Sir Compton is right, after all.
He says that the best time to strike would be 1955 at about this time of year. We had better envisage the possibilities. Strike notices will be posted, and those teachers who wear gowns, that is grammar school teachers, will down them.• A lock-out ? Six million children will turn up at school to find the gates locked, playgrounds quiet and bare, teachers on picket duty. A closed shop ? Some teachers and headmasters will be locked out, too. And strike pay ?
One thing is certain. The response from those most directly concerned, the children, will be one of unmasked delight.—Yours faithfully, The Mount, Pluckley, Kent
CLIFFORD COLLINS
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