If you know a teacher, or you are a teacher yourself, you will understand that it is a thankless job. Endless workloads, targets and individual learning plans make teaching one of the most difficult jobs, yet one of the most rewarding. Those moments when a child that you thought despised you thanks you for a great lesson or a previously silent student says good morning for the first time can make all the midnight lesson planning worth it.
Teaching is not merely a job, ask any teacher. It consumes you and becomes a passion. So, what happens when your passion clashes with your beliefs? For some time it has been accepted that teachers and teaching assistants who practice a certain religion are able to remove themselves from Religious Education lessons or religious assemblies if they feel uncomfortable teaching something contrary to their belief. This also applies to pupils; parents are able to stop their child from attending RE lessons, under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, if they wish to. But what about vegan beliefs? Veganism is protected as a human right under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, veganism is not taught as part of the national curriculum and vegan teachers are teaching concepts which they believe to be fundamentally wrong. An essential skill for any good teacher is inspiring their pupils to want to learn; one of the best ways to do that is by having a passion for what you are teaching. Vegan teachers cannot show a passion for subjects which are fundamentally different to their own and they shouldn’t have to.