Deep within the workings of an electric motor lies a split-ring commutator. It reverses the current flowing through the coil every half rotation so that the force on the coil also reverses as it spins between a pair of opposing magnetic poles.
The government has finally published its transgender guidance for schools.* Teachers have been waiting a long time. We were promised we would have this document ‘for the summer term’. Well, it has arrived just in time for Christmas. But was it worth waiting for?
Social justice sounds like a good thing. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it refers to the fair treatment and equitable status of all individuals and social groups within a state or society. Who could argue with that? I am a teacher, and I have seen social justice enter the education lexicon, but while the terminology is widely used, that does not necessarily mean that it is understood. And even when it is understood, does everyone share the same understanding?
For too long, some teachers and schools have been making it up as they go along when presented with the challenge of accommodating transgender-identified children. Either that or they have contracted out their thinking to Stonewall or other third-party providers. The promised guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) cannot come soon enough. The latest snippet that has emerged will reassure single-sex schools that they can indeed remain single-sex.
Which toilet should a trans pupil be allowed to use? Teachers like me have enough on our plates with the day job, but we must also face questions like this. Whatever our answer, we are bound to annoy someone. Yet for too long, ministers have shied away from offering a helping hand in this toxic debate. Unfortunately, it looks as though Liz Truss’s government is going to continue that unhelpful approach.
‘I think I might be transgender!’ How should schools react to such revelations? By the time they find out, the child may already be convinced that their identity lies on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Probably with its own multi-coloured flag.
Schools are far more than mere exam factories. Across the UK, teachers in 32,000 schools and colleges care for children on over half the days in any given year. Or we did until the lockdown in March 2020. Since then, children have missed the best part of two full terms. And while they were out of our sight, some were at risk. Six year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, for example, may have been rescued from the terrible abuse he suffered had his teachers been able to see him every day.
One in five teachers is uncomfortable discussing LGBT+ issues with pupils. As a teacher from the LGBT community, my ears pricked up yesterday when youth charity Just Like Us published the results of a poll of 6,179 primary and secondary school teachers.
Debbie Hayton