In Part One we offered a partial rebuttal of the claims of many writing about precarity. We were not dismissing the relative precarity that certain workers face (notably artists, academics and TEFL workers) or a generalised and well-extended subjectivity that we feel our lives to be more uncertain, that the material prospects of the younger generations are less than that of their parents’ generation. However, we want to say that objectively zero hours contracts, temporary contracts and involuntary part-time work are simply not as widespread as many writers suggest and the capital-labour relation is far more contradictory than they assume. In Part Two we went back to Marx to see how he viewed precariousness among the dispossessed classes and then examined how major writers in the field extended or contradicted the views of the great nineteenth century thinker. In Part Three we want to look concretely at the ELT industry, critically examine precarity as it manifests itself, and develop some ideas/principles on how we might draw up strategies for improving teachers’ lives.
Back to the Beginning
As said previously, this short response was in reply to the excellent work Paul Walsh had already started with regards to this theme. Moreover, at the outset we explained that we thought a more personal article on the subject, published in Open Democracy rather than a more academic piece you can find here, motivated us to join the discussion. Put briefly, in the aforementioned article Paul explains how a member of the ELT community and Film director/teacher had taken her own life when faced with the desperate plight of trying to pay the bills, keep a decent roof above her head and pursue her artistic ambitions. It is a heart rending story, not least because the person was (for a good part of her working life) one of us. There but for the grace of God, is the common expression. And indeed many of us may depend on either good fortune or kind and generous relatives; given the difficulty of securing a decent wage, pension, affordable home etc., through the practise of our “profession”.
It is worth pointing out that being an artist has been one of those precarious occupations long predating modern discussions of precarity. Indeed, the “struggling misunderstood artist” is part of a modern mythology of how the creative process must be for the truly gifted. Way back in time such artists would depend on rich patronage or access to resources provided by “generous” family members. This romantic vision of the struggling misunderstood artist certainly does not help modern artists secure decent remuneration and support for their artistic endeavours. There is a fascinating podcast here on the campaign for artists to be properly financially supported.
To be brief, we would highlight how the now super successful and respected artist, Tracy Emin, was able to depend on a “comfortable” Housing Association studio flat in Central London (with affordable rent and housing benefit during tough times) and an affordable nearby studio to make the art which led to her current fame. We say this not out of any malice but only to say we should take care of such people so they might develop their talents to their full potential and we will all be able to share from the results. Even if the person doesn’t “make it,” we would not have discouraged others from attempting to do so. We wonder now whether Tracy Emin would have had her benefits stopped and been forced to deliver pizza for Deliveroo. What we do know is that our colleague did not enjoy the same support in terms of decent and affordable housing and financial support through difficult times (and this in a city which prides itself and markets itself as a city boasting many artists).
We also wanted to begin with this story because it is important to recognise that not everybody has the same principal objective in the ELT community. Whilst some of us may enjoy spending every conceivable hour preparing student-centred classes, researching ELT methodology and sharing ideas via blogs, others will have ambitions outside teaching and require time to pursue those ambitions (that is not to say some lucky ones might not develop as a great musician, cutting-edge ELT practitioner and attentive to friends and family members, but it’s a tough call). This is important when we as a groups of workers come together to define collectively what we hope to get out of teaching. Diversity in the ELT “profession” makes it far more interesting but it also poses certain challenges as regards the “professionalisation” of ELT teaching (i.e., increased credentialism, which is unattractive to those not necessarily prioritising teaching as a “life-goal”).
What the Dickens
When reviewing the work of Judith Butler we saw that she made a useful distinction between precariousness (a human condition) and precarity (the unequal distribution of precariousness):
“Lives are by definition precarious: they can be expunged at will or by accident; their persistence is in no sense guaranteed. In some sense, this is a feature of all life, and there is no thinking of life which is not precarious […] Precarity designates the politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence and death.”
Judith Butler, Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?
Moreover, in Part Two we were keen to show how Butler’s work was grounded in the pathbreaking work of Hannah Arendt and her concern that groups could be delegitimated, excluded from the public sphere. Moreover, it was in the public sphere (a space which exists between individuals) that rights and protections can be and are created.
We explained that this could augment our Marxist understanding of precariousness as precarity went beyond the simple binary division around ownership of the means of production or the creation of a reserve army of labour (“an overproduction of people,” as Bauman might term it). Oddly enough, we can trace this back to Marx’s own times and the writings of Charles Dickens. While Dickens was concerned about the conditions of the labouring classes he was also (if not a whole deal more so) concerned about the precarity (and here we use Butler’s distinction deliberately) of his own social class. Three particular prominent Dickensian themes concern us here and they are debt, patronage and inheritance. Three themes that have resurfaced in the current regime of capital accumulation and impact greatly on ELT teachers.
Debtors prisons (originating during the middle ages) were not abolished in the UK until 1869 (the 1869 Debtors act)and it was not only the labouring classes who found themselves incarcerated but the middle-class “living beyond their means”. Charles Dickens’ own father was sent to prison for an unpaid debt and Dickens was forced to undertake work at 12 years of age to help alleviate the family situation (no wonder the theme comes up in so much of his work). The US abolished debtors prisons as early as 1833.
Legislative changes, which not only allowed debtors a living allowance before paying liabilities but also protected the private wealth of investors and business owners whose investments had failed, provided much greater protection to the population and, of course, the middle-class in particular. Obviously there was some resentment at the time and people felt such legislative change encouraged moral jeopardy but now it is generally accepted, particular with business investment, that risk takers must be protected if society is to generate wealth (a clear case of the role of public sphere – a deeply unequal one – in legitimating or deligitimating a specific part of the population).
In an ironic twist (return to the 19th century) household debt in the advance core of capitalist countries has reached record heights and personal savings have reached record lows as income has stagnated and debt has not only become more available but more necessary. In the case of ELT, the vast majority of new entrants to the profession will already have student debts of around 50,000 Euros if from the UK and even higher if from the US. On top of this, they can be paying in excess of 1,000 Euros for a teacher training course (CELTA level) and further 1,000 and above for an advanced teaching certificate (Diploma). Some will then go on to study a Masters for 9,000 Euros and above in order to advance their career. Hopefully (though highly improbable for most teachers), not only can the ELT practitioner recoup this investment but they might also find sufficient resources to secure long term stable housing and sufficient funds for a comfortable retirement. No doubt we have triggered deep feelings of precariousness by just mentioning these plain facts.
Of course, some teachers might be helped by partners earning a more substantial salary in a more secure and lucrative profession or by contributions/loans by family members (particularly parents). Crucially, they may be helped by inheritance where they can benefit (at least in the short term as they may want to purchase those very same assets themselves) from inflated asset prices. This returns to other Dickensian themes (think Bleak House, Great Expectations and A Mutual Friend) of the importance of inheritance and, of course, personal patronage (in modern terms: “networking”). In Dickens’ novels we see a harsh critique of this dependence on the whims of others and how controlling this can be. Clearly we are abandoning the public sphere for a private sphere of personal domination and control, where “deviants” are left to survive on diminishing resources(because the wage no longer holds the same power) .
An American Anthropolgist in the New York Times wrote (talking about extensive interviews with students and their families):
An inescapable conclusion from my research is that the high cost of college is forcing middle-class families to engage in what I call “social speculation.” This is the third moral trap: Parents must wager money today that their children’s education will secure them a place in the middle class tomorrow.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that this bet will pay off — for the parents or the children. And too often, I found, it doesn’t. Some parents’ saving plans were waylaid by crises — health emergencies, job losses, family breakups — that were common enough but impossible to foresee. Likewise, many children failed to land well-paying jobs out of college, forcing them to bear the weight of paying off debt during the most vulnerable decade of their adult lives.
And:
It’s also no wonder that as so many of my interviews ended, parents joked about their financial predicament by saying they might win the lottery. They have come to see outlandish luck as their best chance of dealing with their predicament. And in the absence of real changes to the current system of paying for college, what other hope do they have?
Such speculative, wishful thinking may seem irrational. But until we reform how a college education is financed, that is how countless middle-class families are holding on to the American dream.
Of course, we take middle-class here to be middling income, which includes “aspiring” (those that can aspire) working class as well as lower middle-class families. The simple fact is that in many homes in the advanced capitalist core the belief that one’s children will enjoy a better material standard of living than their parents is fast disappearing. Not to mention that some are not so lucky to be able to count on the support of parents and many of us would like to make our own way independently of our parents’ financial support (another issue of diversity and divergence within our ELT community).
Foucault and The Corporate Self
If families/social networks indulge in an increasing subjectivity of “social speculation” (again very Victorian) what impact might modern changes in regimes of capital accumulation impact on individual subjectivities. It is here we return to Foucault (see Part Two) and clearly identifiable trends in ELT, namely homo economicus:
In the figure of homo œconomicus—a subject of governmental rationality serving as a grid of intelligibility between the government and the governed—Foucault traces the profound depth of the transformation of classical liberalism to a neo-liberal form. Homo œconomicus, Foucault argues, ceases to be‚ one of the two partners in the process of exchange‛ and becomes‚ an entrepreneur of himself. This is such a fundamental shift that Foucault goes so far as to say that, “in practice, the stake in all neo-liberal analysis is the replacement every time of homo œconomicus as a partner of exchange with homo œconomicus as entrepreneur of himself, being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer, being for himself the source of [his] earnings. Foucault argues that this figure is the bedrock assumption of all neo-liberal analysis.
In Foucault’s own words:
“… the life of the individual – including the relationship, for example, with his private property, his family, his partner, his relationship with his insurance, his retirement – making it a sort of permanent and multipurpose business” [Foucault, (2007), pp.262–277]
Basically the self, our value choices, our choice of partner and friends becomes a matter of “wise investments” and capital building. Indeed, modern companies feel the confidence to demand that employees personal value systems are aligned with their own and that despite whatever befalls the employee, they remain positive and smiling. The individual is no longer just selling their labour power but also their personal self.
Now we at MTG recognise this self as corporate entity very well, it is very well in evidence in the manner people are constructing and publicising their “value propositions” through social media or the conference circuit, keen to be challenging but careful not to stray too far with such criticisms. However, this practise is very much weighted towards the TEFL (tertiary private) sector rather than EPA (university sector) and TESOL (state further education sector). In these different sectors there will be different systems (ie., in EPA endless production of academic papers and acquisition of credentials and in TESOL endless targets to achieve and performance appraisals to navigate).
With all these systems there is a concentration on hierarchy and on self-monitoring in order to climb or appease that hierarchy; even if the need to sell your self (your personal value systems / the “public friends you choose”) is not so prevalent in EPA and TESOL. It should hardly be any wonder we choose to remain anonymous on this site as it allows us to be honest and critical where necessary and not worry about the damaging effects on our “career prospects” (as limited as they are already).
Challenging a Basic Tenet
Yes, it is entirely true that the TEFL sector is dominated by temporary or zero hour contracts. However, it would be wrong to think we are entirely dispensable. We have often been critical of EL Gazette on these pages but there is no doubting that Melanie Butler (a key figure behind the Gazette) is one of the most knowledgeable if not the most knowledgeable person in the TEFL industry. She never appears in the top six of ELT celebrities simply because she is a woman and deals with practical issues facing the industry. We in no way share Melanie Butler’s politics but credit where credit is due, since the passing away of David Graddol she is the only significant voice mapping future trends in the industry. And it is Butler who provides us with concrete evidence that it is schools with the lowest staff turnover, those that are able to train, retain and motivate their teachers, that outperform rival schools. In the 2019 Rankings for ELT schools Butler provides empirical evidence that quality schools are based on quality teaching which is itself based on a cohesive core of teachers who know the school and each other well. This cuts against the idea that short term contracts and high staff turnover are in the direct interests of of the school/teaching centre, though the fear of precarity and the existence of precarity in “lower quality schools” can help depress wages and conditions in “higher quality schools” where staff turnover is much lower and training and experience is both promoted and valued. Food for thought indeed when we too easily believe ourselves to be readily dispensable.
Higher Wages and Improved Conditions Mean Higher Fees
We should not forget, however, for one moment that not everyone can afford languages classes (even in the TESOL sector). And as stated so many times before, if English (or other languages) can open doors they can just as well close them. Moreover, certain types of English (say standard British or US English) are prioritised over others (say non-standard Englishes which appear on social media- see note at end of aricle- or, more importantly, International English).
It would seem reasonable and rational that students would seek the cheapest and most efficient means of achieving the level required for their personal purposes, the question is how they might have access to affordable courses where English (or other languages) are taught in an efficient manner and the students can benefit from a broader curriculum than just a technical exercise of dominating certain linguistic structures. This is particularly relevant for people who may through advanced age (not having learnt a second language before) or through a disability may have difficulties progressing far with the language but the cognitive and social benefits of engaging with language learning are enormously beneficial.
All of this brings into question the role of local states and their willingness to promote inclusion and opportunity rather than turning a blind eye to how language learning (promoted in the tertiary sector, including the selection of recognised examinations) promotes inequality. The campaign for improved wages and conditions should be linked to a campaign to ensure quality language classes for all who would benefit from them. As pointed out before, many local states through subventions (often part EU funding) perpetuate low pay and conditions by rewarding private schools and operators who employ teachers on poor wages and zero hours contracts; the two issues are inseparable.
Increased Wages are Not Enough but It’s a Good Start
Whilst improved wages and better working conditions are a must in the ELT sector, improved wages and better working conditions will not help much if rents, house prices and interest payments on large debts incurred outstrip those wage increases. Indeed, we can choose to eat out less, buy less clothes but we are not allowed to pay less rent or default on our interest payments. We know certain teachers manage excessive rents by renting out rooms either on a semi-permanent basis (as long as they want) or through Airbnb or similar but this just feeding the monster rather than slaying it.
Getting involved in national political campaigns over affordable housing and local campaigns over speculation and gentrification is also necessary if we are to improve our conditions and escape precarity. However, because of the diversity of the ELT community, the capacity and desire to engage in such activities will probably be less than what can be generated around campaigns to improve wages and working conditions (this is not say they cannot be raised in an appropriate manner in trade union meetings).
Joy, Generosity and the Public Sphere (avoiding a bleak future)
No doubt our references to Dickens may have been lost on some readers, but to quote a certain film, Magnolia, “We may be through with the past, but the past isn’t through with us. ” To our mind it is most sad that we have returned to a world where debt peonage, patronage and the importance of inheritance have returned to assume such importance. Not only do they shrink our capacity for true individual expression and corrode solidarity, they also promote severe mental health problems. This is not to say that joy and generosity do not exist in such a world (Dickens shows that amid the nastiness of his own society they did indeed exist) and ELT, despite its faults, has its fair share of joy and generosity.
Our argument, however, is that we must embed this joy and generosity in the public sphere in the relations between us as a diverse community, not in the relations of the market and profit making, the privatised family, or the patronage of those high up in a self-reinforcing hierarchy. Tears should well up in our eyes to read about a colleague of ours who could take no more so she took her own life and we should be resolute in determining to do all that is possible to avoid a further recurrence rather than try to climb the slippery ladder to our own “individual success”.
This will require a new politics and a more radical politics. It will mean principally seeking to own the means of production but only as a means for exercising care and responsibility for each other (see Part Two and reference to Arendt), for sharing the pain and agony of our human precariousness and attempting to alleviate it where possible and comfort each other where not. It is in accepting our precariousness but rejecting precarity (unequal distribution of precariousness) that we can begin to give meaning to our lives and construct a meaningful public sphere which guarantees individual freedom.
It all starts with collective non-hierarchical organisation.
*Note conerning non-standard Englishes: it is a “constant joy” for us as ageing teachers that our students will often update us on the latest vocabulary and structures of youtube English and we find ourselves referring to the Urban Dictionary as much as Collins.
Marxist TEFL Group 