Letter From A Mandated Teacher

Some days it is just painful.

From NZTSOS via FreeNZ

Author: Kassandra

It’s tough to get out of bed, to pretend to my kids that everything is OK, and that our country is a safe and fair place to live. I cannot count the times when I have completely melted down in the last ten months, while driving alone so that they can’t see the heartbreak I feel – the broken heart that I don’t want them to see.

For many of us in education, who have had the courage to be true to what we inwardly felt was the right thing for our bodies, had friends, families, and colleagues treat us as if we had done something wrong, and vilify us for not following the mandate. It was as if we somehow deserved to be terminated, stood down and ostracised, for standing up against what we knew to be a major breach of our shared Human Rights. We knew that this was government overreach which was never about Health. It was all about compliance.

The reality is – we did nothing wrong except stand firm and hold the line. In fact, we have shown exactly what our teaching Code of Conduct asks of us, which is pono: showing integrity by acting in ways that are fair, honest, ethical and just. Somehow, this has been translated in the current New Zealand teaching climate, as becoming someone undesirable to hire, and a troublemaker who may refuse to comply.

To many of us, who value our critical thinking intellect and training, this teachers’ mandate made no sense, especially when we all know Covid was ripping through our schools after they forced us to leave.

For the thousands of teachers who refused to comply, the pressure was extreme once the announcement was made in October 2021. The shock announcement left many of us reeling at the absurdity of the order. It felt like a nightmare from which we would eventually wake, once people stood up against such ridiculous government overreach.

Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Instead, we had principals, colleagues and our unions pressuring us to make us follow – or else suffer the consequences. In staffrooms around the country, a line had been drawn. If you did not roll up your sleeve, you were branded an anti-vaxxer, a threat to the students and staff, and someone who shouldn’t be an educator.

The mandate also pulled students into this division when teachers (people in positions of power) spewed their rhetoric about the unvaxxed and how dangerous they were. My heart shattered when I had a student approach me and laugh, cruelly, while saying that I would die from Covid. It seemed like all compassion and kindness had been wiped out, and at that moment it became clear we were in a two-tiered society.

Each meeting we were ordered into by our principals with Board members, had the tone of bristling disapproval, and the underlying message that we were doing an unthinkable action. In these disrespectful meetings, we were made out to be completely unreasonable and an inconvenience for not complying with their orders. Any evidence or medical certificates we presented were completely disregarded. That, to them, did not come from the “one source of truth.”

We were told to not discuss what was happening with the students – as this was considered pushing our own unscientific viewpoint, and an anti-government stance.

The reality was that we were simply fighting to try to keep the jobs that we loved. The stress of facing your boss, while feeling as though you had perpetrated a crime, was intense. The only time educators were called into these sorts of meetings before this Covid hysteria, was when they had indeed committed a serious breach. In fact, prior to this, firing a teacher in any school involved a long-drawn-out process that was backed by the legal power and ethical commitment of the unions to protect their members. 

Under the Covid response panic, my fifteen years of paying into the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to protect me from any unreasonable actions by my employer, were quickly obliterated in one fell swoop. There was no longer any safeguard for those of us choosing not to put this jab into our bodies.  The unions had hung us out to dry.

We were sacrificial lambs to be used as an example to other teachers less brave, to intimidate them into capitulating to this government order. 

On 15 November 2021, all the educators who had not obeyed the government’s directive were given a letter specifying that we were “no longer permitted to continue performing the role”, and asserting that “we were in breach of the order”. Then the final blow: we were “prohibited from attending school.”

In effect, it was now unlawful for us to step foot on the property. We could be arrested and fined. Upstanding citizens who had never done anything illegal, who had cared deeply for our young students, who had dedicated years of service to teaching and helping Kiwi children to be set up for good and solid life paths, were suddenly treated like criminals. Unable to even have contact with the students into whose education we had put our hearts and souls, and years of dedication.

It took months before I could walk past any school without silently weeping. I felt the hole that was left in my spirit, from my forced departure. It was a constant ache.

Now, ten months later, many of us are still in limbo. The mandates are supposedly ‘dropped’, but the reality is that the government simply put the decision onto the Boards and education institutions. Unfortunately, many of them still buy into the preposterous idea that unvaxxed teachers are somehow dangerous. Is this the effect of the skewed and inaccurate reporting on our nightly news, from a mainstream media in New Zealand that appears dedicated to spouting government propaganda in a manner that would have been at home in the brutal days of communist East Germany, or apartheid South Africa?

If you look at the education advertisements, for teaching jobs, some state you must still be vaccinated, and also willing to take a booster. Even the ones that say nothing about vaccination, still back off when they find out you were ‘one of those’ mandated educators. A pariah. An undesirable.  Someone who said no.

While our students are being sent home because they have no teachers, the unjabbed teachers are not being hired by certain schools. When you have a reputation for being a troublemaker – albeit completely undeserved – the endless applications to start over are meaningless. It erodes the essence of your self-confidence when schools don’t even contact your references, simply because you tried to fight for the job that you loved with all your heart, while maintaining your basic human right to defend your bodily autonomy. 

I still sit here some days, and just cannot believe what has taken place in our New Zealand. How could the job I adored have been ripped away from me simply because I refused a jab that was not safe? And a jab that now is clearly shown to be ineffective at stopping Kiwis from getting sick. At times, I worry that not only do we have to deal with our own trauma (and it was traumatic), but also with this collective trauma that has broken even the best of us. To be fair, I think many of us who have been so unfairly ostracised, could possibly get over the actions of our government if our normal lives resume once these politicians are gone. But what destroys me most, is the betrayal from my friends, family, colleagues and community. When those of us with the courage to honour our inner code, were terminated or stood down, the staff at the schools often simply told us to get out. Immediately. All contact was swiftly severed. We were so blacklisted that for many, there wasn’t even an acknowledgment of the fact we had been there, let alone an honouring of our years of hard work. Like ghosts, we were expected to just disappear. All this cruelty, simply because we said no to what is, in effect, a deeply personal medical procedure.

Fast-forward to now. For those lucky enough to have their jobs back, or those who have been given a lesser role, such as babysitting/relief (at a much lower pay rate), they now find in the staff rooms that people who took the jab barely acknowledge what happened. They certainly don’t acknowledge the pain they have caused to their innocent fellow Kiwis. They don’t acknowledge that those of us who were thrown out like garbage, actually needed someone from our former school to call up and ask if we were OK. We needed them to stand up for our shared humanity, and our shared and sacred Human Rights.

Instead, it was, and is, all swept under the carpet. Let’s all pretend that we did not have segregation and pure hatred against the unjabbed. Our teachers will teach about anti-bullying and anti-segregation, but yet in the months previous, they were part of the biggest campaign to bully and segregate their own colleagues.

For me, that means we cannot heal. I see the pain and ongoing ache in so many courageous, but deeply sad and hurt teachers who stood up for what they believed. An ethical stand, which came at great personal cost to themselves.

There must be an acknowledgment of the pain and harm that took place. There needs to be an apology from those who stood by and did nothing. Your silence helped to perpetuate the many wrongs.

I worry that without this….we will continue to be broken. And that the education system in New Zealand will in turn reflect that brokenness and the ongoing deep, deep hurt.

There needs to be Truth. And Apology. Then perhaps can come Reconciliation.

–Kassandra

Website: NZ Teachers Speaking Out With Science (NZTSOS)

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