Who frames first, wins. Not as catchy as the SAS motto which inspired it, but food for thought nonetheless. By frame I mean presenting one viewpoint so strongly on any issue that presenting any other perspective becomes an uphill struggle, or impossible, writes Breda O'Brien.
Teaching colleagues no longer attempt to explain their position to non-teachers, so firmly entrenched is the frame that teachers are lazy, greedy people who do not even have the decency to hold parent-teacher meetings at a convenient time for parents.
Years of dedicated work apparently stand for nothing.
A clumsy and inept campaign waged by the ASTI has wiped out decades of goodwill in a couple of short years.
There is an argument to be made about parent-teacher meetings, but the frame ensures that there is no space in which to make it. If children are as valuable as we say they are, surely parents should not resent spending a couple of afternoons a year discussing them with their teachers?
Have the demands of the market place triumphed to the extent that this is unthinkable? Is the familyfriendly workplace only for wimps?
In Sweden, it would be considered extraordinary not to take time off if a child's interests and future were under consideration.
There is also the small matter of parity of esteem. It is not acceptable for parents to leave their workplace to meet teachers, because parents' work is so valuable.
On the other hand, the work of teachers is so inconsequential that there is no problem with conducting it outside their normal working hours.
The fact that teachers have to leave their families and return to their workplace is the least they could do, because of those long holidays.
Anyone who denies that long holidays are a perk is a liar.
Anyone who has witnessed the grey faces of teachers in June as they crawl towards their perk would concede that they are well-earned. If these holidays are such a wonderful bonus, why are people not queuing up to enter teaching, and why are young male teachers as rare as teacher-loving radio presenters?
Did the ASTI provide ample material for the construction of the negative frame, and display contempt for the power of the media, for which they are paying dearly?
Undoubtedly. Consequently, their members suffered, to the extent that the black joke among teachers is that it is wiser to admit to being a pimp than a teacher on social occasions.
The ASTI was and is so riven internally that it could not concentrate its energies on constructing a frame which did justice to the full realities of teachers' lives.
Which brings me neatly to the next constituency which may never recover from the way in which it is being framed, and which displays the lack of a guiding centre in a manner that makes the ASTI look positively united.
I was going to use the example of almost universally negative coverage given to the church, as an example of the power of a frame. This construction ignores any good done by it and presumes bad faith at every turn.
It has been constructed by a small number of TV and print journalists, and is embedded very deeply.
However, I have been upset and angered by the latest revelations regarding insurance. Once again, persistent questioning has forced the church into damaging revelations, and once again it seems that priorities were entirely skewed when it came to the issue of clerical sexual abuse of children.
Certainly I accept that insuring against something does not imply full knowledge of the catastrophic impact of that event or issue. In the case of asbestos, the first few cases raised public awareness, but no one could have predicted that it would have affected so many and that the health consequences would be so severe.
No doubt the advice to insure against abuse claims came from the insurance company, as insurers depend for survival on the accuracy of their risk assessment.
The fact that the insurers were at first happy to provide cover and then subsequently withdrew backs up the theory that knowledge of the problem only grew gradually.
To insure against something is an administrative function, which, sadly, can sit quite easily alongside an imaginative or empathetic failure to grasp the extent of the reality of the devastation wreaked by abuse.
But you know what? I am not sure that the church has even yet fully grasped the effect on victims.
If it has, the attempts to show it in actions, as opposed to aspirations, are at worst inept and at best negligent. Mervyn Rundle's family were ignored.
And don't tell me that the church was just following legal advice by not meeting them.
You pay for legal advice, but you decide whether it accords with your moral and ethical code before you take it.
The church had ample opportunity years ago to come clean voluntarily, in a spirit of humility and desire to make reparation.
By truth-telling instead of caution at an early stage, it could have set the frame in a way which would have pre-empted those who are quite happy to see the church disappear.
By failing to do so, it has made it practically impossible to present evidence which contradicts the prevailing frame, even though this causes further injustice to thousands of dedicated women and men who never abused or colluded in the abuse of anybody.
bobrien@irish-times.ie