Snowed Under

SNOWED UNDER

An unknown official in education is fired for asking teachers to clear away snow

By Stephen Wilson

Snowed under utterly and absolutely. That is how some luckless school teachers

felt when dragooned out to perform Subbotniki activity which entailed clearing

away snow. The official who had either ordered or asked teachers to perform

this task, at school number 95 in Saratov, in conditions of minus twenty, was

promptly sacked by the Mayor. The Mayor Mikhail Isayev claimed : "The teachers

were being asked to accomplish an impossible goal ". The school head and

deputy assistant were also reprimanded. The activity was deemed as not only

inappropriate but quite humiliating and unbecoming for teachers. In most schools,

janitors or caretakers are expected to clear away snow from the schools.

Perhaps some people felt the incident was reminiscent  of past attempts by

revolutionary committees to belittle the intelligentsia by forcing them to either

sweep the streets or clear away snow. Even at present, some teachers who

have been fired have been offered work in schools 'as cleaners'. It is easy to

to see how many people could have misconstrued the request as an attempt

to humiliate teachers. But is n't dismissing such officials a hysterical overreaction?

After all, Subbotnikii or Saturday labor campaigns, which were introduced during

the Russian civil war is a deeply rooted custom. During such times, everyone

volunteered to go around the streets clearing up rubbish or , in this case snow.

Perhaps the official was simply attempting to find away to quickly reopen the

school and meant no malice. It was simply an innocuous misjudgment. We

have yet to hear the opinion of the fired official.

For the past two days before Monday Russia had been subject to endlessly

falling snow. The three sisters of snow, slush and ice have been inflicting

constant toil and turmoil on Russians. Old people have fallen and injured

themselves, schools have closed and the metro is mobbed by people seeking

refuge in it. I observed an old homeless man being woken and scolded by a

policeman with the words : "What are you doing here? Why are you sleeping?

This is not a place to sleep. I want to check your documents " ."What difference

does it make as to what I am doing or where I am going? Leave me alone". The

old man was escorted to the police station at the next stop. There seems to be

no real refuge from this snow. It buries and bullies everyone.

One might obtain the misleading impression that the local government is

now set on defending the dignity of teachers. But this is far from the case. Snow

eventually melts but the paperwork which teachers are asked to complete and

the tests they do never melts. Neither do performing other duties such as

going to endless teacher parent meetings or being subject to abuse from

parents, pupils and politicians which is often the lot of teachers. And if teachers

protest they can be told : "If you don't like you job, leave ." If pupils claim they

are being over tested they can be told by the school "If you don't like the school,

go to another one ".In fact, the recent attempts to 'retest ' teachers using

unprofessionally designed exams is far more humiliating than being asked to

clear away snow from school ! In this respect, it is worth reading an article

published by Literaturnaya Gazette 16 to 22nd January 2019 number 1-2{6673}

where Victor Pakhomov,  describes the constant indignity which teachers go

through . The article is aptly called 'The Crucifixion of the Teacher'. {Распни

Учителя]