You can't blame the system all of the time

First, I’ll just give you the story, as reported in today’s online Times:

“A teacher who was assaulted by a pupil and forced to leave her post at a special needs school has been awarded more than a quarter of a million pounds in compensation. Sharon Lewis, 31, was attacked by a 13-year-old boy who leapt on to her back, forcing her to fall and hit her head on a window. She spent four days in hospital with neck and back injuries and still suffers post traumatic stress disorder after the incident in 2004.

Miss Lewis, who has been unable to return to teaching, has been awarded £280,000 by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority after the attack at Woodlands school in Nottingham. It is one of the highest known payouts made to teachers. She said: “I’m not angry at the pupil who did it. I’m angry at a system where encountering violence is now an expectation of the job.”

The pupil involved has a record of violent behaviour and had previously attacked another member of staff. All pupils at the school have severe and complex behavioural problems or learning difficulties.”

Now, I don’t mind at all that this teacher has been rewarded this kind of money. God knows people don’t go into teaching for the money - unlike, for instance, most bankers & insurers and that crowd gets paid millions of pounds, when they fuck things up.

So, no, I don’t mind it per se that a teacher gets paid a fraction of what those financial overlords get, after she gets seriously injured, while trying to do a very necessary and often undervalued job.

Having said that, I’m not sure I agree with the principle of it. It’s all well and good to say that you are angry at a system “where encountering violence is now an expectation of the job” but this teacher chose to work at a school that caters to pupils who have severe behavioural problems. What’s more, this particular pupil was known for his violent behaviour and had already attacked someone else. All this was known and yet this teacher chose to work at the school; to work ‘within the system’, as it were.

I’m not trying to belittle the experience of this teacher. It is never nice to be attacked, end up in hospital and then find yourself too traumatised to return to work. However horrible that experience may be though, these and similar things happen all too frequently to quite a number of people who have physically and emotionally demanding jobs, in which they are ‘exposed’ to a public that’s not always on its best behaviour.

So, nurses, doctors, ambulance personnel, prison workers, police officers and (more and more) teachers: All who work in these and similar jobs run the risk to undergo the same kind of ordeal as this teacher had to go through.

Again, I’m not trying to say that these people should simply grin and bear it - and I’m all for giving generous compensations to those who do suffer in these lines of duty - but I don’t think it’s quite fair to blame the ’system’ when you have chosen to work in these types of jobs.

Human nature and the way we run our societies guarantee that there will always be certain jobs that will be risky in this particular way. It is quite shameful that the people who work in these jobs are almost always underpaid, socially underrated and frequently overworked and overexposed. I wish society would value and pay our nurses and teachers, our policemen and ambulance workers more than it does junior bankers and radio presenters but that will never happen.

Ah well, I don’t know. Again, I don’t begrudge this teacher her financial compensation. As I already said, she didn’t become a teacher in order to get rich - and yet, I can’t help but feel that her anger at the ’system’ is misplaced. It’s not the school’s fault that there are children who have these behavioural problems. It’s a sad fact that we need places that can deal with these kids and we all have to be grateful that there are teachers like Miss Lewis who are willing to work there.

It’s very gracious of Miss Lewis not to blame the child for the attack but I just don’t see why the school should take the blame for it either.