What if… teachers were not the bottom? Questions English teachers need to ask about the evidence-based paradigm

Teachers in Australia are known, in government documents such as the Productivity Commission’s report into the establishment of a national evidence base for teaching (2016), as the “bottom”. Teacher input in policy and curriculum is labelled as “bottom-up”. Internationally, teachers experience ongoing vilification in the form of media put-downs. Teachers and education academics in the UK have been described as “the blob”. In the United States, Donald Trump Jr openly refers to “loser teachers” (2019). This article describes recent research that equips teachers with ways to speak back to the language of “low”. This research problematised outcomes and evidence-based education, Visible Learning (Hattie, 2008), clinical teaching and other dictates from on “high” and shared the tribulations associated with related articles that have gone viral in education circles… plus the backlash accompanying this success.