Negative portrayals in the Australian media situate teachers as a problem and teaching as a deficit practice. Society is positioning teachers, especially teachers of literacy, as the reason for poor student performance. In addition, negative media discourse around deficit initial teacher education, especially with regard to the teaching of reading and writing, is adding to the overall assumption that teachers of literacy are failing. This article highlights instances of teacher practice by literacy teachers during the global pandemic of COVID-19 which oppose the ‘problem teacher’ discourse. Snowball sampling was used to garner seven early years and primary school teachers for interviews, focussing on teacher perceptions of multimodal texts. A Foucaultian lens of governmentality and power and Fairclough’s approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) were used as lens and method of analysis. The findings of this study indicate that these participant teachers have been sophisticated practitioners in their planning and practice during the pandemic, despite the institutional barriers and extreme disruptions experienced. On reflection, therefore, the constructed societal discourse around ‘problem teachers’ needs to be reviewed and adjusted.

澳大利亚媒体的负面描述将教师视为一个问题，将教学视为一种缺陷实践。社会将教师，尤其是识字教师定位为学生表现不佳的原因。此外，关于教师初始教育不足的负面媒体言论，特别是关于阅读和写作教学的负面言论，正在增加识字教师失败的总体假设。本文重点介绍了在 COVID-19 全球大流行期间识字教师的教师实践实例，这些实例反对“问题教师”话语。雪球抽样用于收集七名早教和小学教师进行访谈，重点关注教师对多模态文本的看法。福柯式的治理和权力视角和费尔克劳的批判性话语分析（CDA）方法被用作分析的视角和方法。这项研究的结果表明，尽管经历了制度障碍和极端破坏，但这些参与教师在大流行期间的规划和实践中都是老练的实践者。因此，经过反思，围绕“问题教师”构建的社会话语需要重新审视和调整。