It’s not some problem that can just be hand waved away because they should have handled it better in the first place or something

Nah, I think it was EXACTLY like that. That’s where I was going, with my analogy about the construction industry. If the construction workers started being asked to bring in concrete and steel for the jobs, out of their own pay, THEY WOULD BE INCREDIBLY STUPID TO START DOING IT.

They should refuse, immediately. They should absolutely nip that shit in the bud. Never give it any chance to become a massive problem.

Imagine if every teacher had said “nope, we don’t do that,” the first time they didn’t have enough supplies in their classrooms, and someone started making throat-clearing noises, implying that they could just bring that shit from home. If they had all showed solidarity with each other, from the start, things would be very different.

Now, of course, the practices are ingrained. It has been normalized.

It WAS a mistake for teachers to allow that shit. The problem is massively more difficult to solve, now.