Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Dear colleagues,
We send you a selection of useful materials; we hope you never need them;
We would like to remind you that in case of impending dismissal, you should not declare yourself willing to write a letter of resignation. At least not until you have thought the situation through thoroughly. Often, those who have been laid off “due to a paragraph” can keep their jobs, but in the case of dismissals “at their own wish”, this is almost never the case.
Warnings, abstinence, dismissals - anything can be questioned in court.
We are still ready to help you with any problems.
Send us your stories about how you have been enforcing your right to an opinion in your workplace or not enforcing what’s going on in your school. We will spread them on social networks. You can find one of these stories in this email.
Useful links:
The guidelines for teachers are clear when it comes to teaching freedoms:
Can they suspend me for posting something on social networks or having a conflict at school? They can’t do that! A teacher’s union advisor: https://m.vk.com/wall-40374966_42131
What can I get fired for in connection with protests?
Here OVD information [Legal protection] to reduce the risk of pressure in various situations (Law on fake news, arrests, communication with prosecutors).
https://ovd.legal/instruction/uvolnenie
(We should add that a paragraph of the Labor Law book about malignant misbehavior can be applied to teachers, but the chance of you winning an appeal is high because there is nothing wrong with the protests. )
Teachers talk about the situation at school (from the DOXA student newspaper newsletter):
“I read the first file and didn’t want to open the rest.”
Dmitry (name changed at the request of the heroic colleague), principal of a village school, talks about the silent resistance against propaganda:
“The Ministry of Education was very considerate of these methodical materials and wrote: ’We ask you to test the possibility of doing this.” ’On a municipal level, the challenge turned into an imperative: Conducting events based on these and all materials, feedback on how many Schüler:innen participated in it. There were rumors that we were almost asked in some schools to make video footage of these classes.
We got a bunch of school materials sent out, I read the first file and didn’t want to open the rest. I was really outraged about the unforgotten propaganda. I took it in the teachers room and said look what they sent us. These are materials for conversations with kids. What do you think ? ’I wondered how the teachers would react. I thought it would seem extremely inappropriate to everyone, to give such a prepared opinion for the children - and not even the facts! - to judge .
In the teaching material it says:
’In February 2014 there was a coup in Ukraine. Radicals, who came to power with strong support from the West in 2014, organized terror against those who resisted anti-constitution measures. ’
(Quote from a presentation for the 6th history lesson. until 8. Class)
It turned out that some of the college follows these views and agrees with what is in the handouts. In the end, there was a political argument and the sound escalated. When I compared this propaganda to that of ’39 in Germany, this part of the college was really upset.
I’ve been in contact with some teachers in other schools and we’ve been discussing how people respond in our schools all week. This is painfully aware of all of us, especially the differences of opinion - both in the workplace and with parents. To me, this all turned out to be very frustrating. You normally assume that your colleagues are reasonable people. And then you hear these people teaching children to blindly repeat the bullshit on TV as their own opinion, and honestly, it scares me.
It was hard to work for a long time after these political changes. I couldn’t even go to the teacher’s room because it was just painful to be there. "
Education Forces Against War
Newsletter of the initiative group “Education Forces Against War”, 15.03.2022
Translation: Christoph Wälz
Click here to subscribe to ESSF newsletters in English and/or French.
Twitter
Facebook