Furious

The teacher emerged bleary-eyed from her study. She'd spent most of her Sunday planning (except for a trip to the cinema to see Gone Girl - work/life balance) and thought she would catch up with the news. 

First, she checked what her friends had been up to on Facebook, which consisted of taking pictures of their pets, watching TV and getting angry at politicians.

Then she checked Twitter to see if the people with more exciting lives that she stalked had experienced a more interesting day. Apparently not. Even more people had watched television and the whole world seemed cross with a politician.

The teacher felt guilty. Guilt is something teachers are good at. She thought that she must be a very bad person because why else would she need to swear an oath to do a job (a part time job at that!) Swearing an oath made her think of criminals in the dock with their hand on the bible swearing to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth when everyone knows that they will be lying through their teeth to avoid punishment.

After guilt came confusion. She knew the Politician was a Historian but maybe she had it wrong and he was actually a character from history. She knows about the Hippocratic Oath. It was devised by Hippocrates around 400BC and is not still taken by doctors. Doctors do follow a code of ethics, as do all professionals (including teachers) but they do not swear the oath because they would have to promise to first do no harm and not perform abortions. 

Then she became amused. She thought of modern doctors swearing the Hippocratic oath, which starts with, "I make a solemn promise of solidarity with teachers and other physicians." They also had to promise to never gossip. She chuckled to herself.  She amused herself for a while by reading some blogs suggesting what a teachers oath would read like.

And finally she got angry. Teachers were suggesting an oath that promised to work too much, be underpaid, give up their pension rights, not to have a drink all day or go to the toilet. "NO!" she shouted, "I'm not signing up for that! If I'm doing it already then I'm a fool!" She wondered how an oath was going to help anyone do a better job. She was becoming furious. "That Tristram is one sick Hunt," she thought.

The fury starts to fade and she thinks an oath that promises to support and stick up for teachers, an oath that promises to do the best for children (rather than for targets), an oath that grants teachers the professional respect they deserve might not be such a bad idea after all but she thinks that Politicians might need to take it, rather than the teachers.