It may surprise you to know that the reasons teachers are demoralised in their job has nothing to do with the cost of rent or better money abroad. Instead, it has everything to do with the current model for schooling, which is stressing out educators, students and parents alike. It makes working in an Amazon fulfilment centre look like a Zen retreat.
The Department of Education or school managers seem to be encouraging practices that treat the student like a raw product and the school as a business. Students’ academic performances are put into projected tracking graphs. Grade predictions are expected based on marshmallow fluff as evidence. Teachers are menaced into getting better grades out of those who show no willingness to participate in their own result. Students who have repeatedly failed term tests are forced to sit higher-level papers for the prestige of the school. Teachers cannot get the curriculum done due to the scale of non-stop photo ops and themed day interruptions aimed at ensuring the school maintains its social media presence.
Impossible expectations are being placed on a teacher’s working week. The blended classroom increasingly resembles a 30-seat restaurant. Imagine a lone chef running his dream small business. He is all set and ready to open. One morning, a tourist bus arrives and 30 passengers tumble out. They pile into his restaurant; the chef is delighted. However, the tour guide insists they must all be served their meal at exactly the same time (not sort of the same time, but exactly the same time). There is another problem: each one has a different food allergy. In addition, some would like their menus printed on pink paper, some on yellow and more again on blue – because they find white paper a bit garish. Now, hit the repeat button on this experience for our chef, six times a day.
For extra spice let’s add in their table manners. Our lone chef is hopeful the patrons will have a pleasant dining experience. He is under pressure to prepare so many different meals due to time constraints and the need to keep running out of his kitchen to deal with complaints. You see, sadly, some of these patrons are lacking in basic table manners. Naturally, there is disappointment that, through no fault of their own, those who enjoy fine dining have had the pleasure of this quality food ruined by others who were on the trip.
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And to finish? Most patrons have, strangely, brought notes saying that their mother or father would like to discuss the meal our chef has given their offspring in great detail by phone! How odd. Our beleaguered chef explains he is a busy man but happy to meet with them once a year and he will give two detailed written reports of the experience per year, but regular phone calls to discuss their offspring’s progress during the meal is unwarranted. The parent, who has never actually eaten at or attended the restaurant, leaves a stonking review of the place on a high-profile website. Why? Because the more you give, the more is expected – and it has to stop.
Similarly, students themselves are demanding so much feedback that in many cases it regularly amounts to a challenge to the grade they have been given. Let’s be clear: students have to work for good grades. They know that, but they often don’t like being told it. Parents would do well to remind their child of the rewards of hard work. Increasingly, students seem to see a good grade as a God-given entitlement.
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Of course, toilet breaks can no longer be challenged. Nobody knows this better than the students, who wander the corridors feigning a need for a bathroom break while missing key curriculum content. Casual disrespect for the teacher and tardiness to class are just par for the course. Being a teacher in a current secondary school can be a bit like dating someone you know in your heart of hearts doesn’t want to go out with you. You can sing and dance all you like, but if a student is not really interested, no amount of entertainment is going to cure that. Their work ethic has to come from inside.
Add in rushed curriculum change for the sake of change, when the whole world of education knows that coursework doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to a final grade, and you will get the picture pretty clearly.
Ask any teacher who has given over weekend after weekend to corrections from ever-growing class sizes, stayed up until 1am lesson-planning or sat through endless punitive Croke Park meetings; they know just how quickly you can burn out.
Teachers simply work their annual hours in a more condensed format – and that kettle is about to blow. The country is short enough of teachers, but the latest senior cycle coursework will march on regardless. No one, it seems, is listening to students or teachers. Just ask parents how much they enjoy the endless, relentless stress of their child’s classroom-based assessments at junior cycle, and how little difference these made to their child’s grades.
So what are the teachers doing about it all? Well, precisely nothing. Their unions are regularly laughed out of the Department of Education. Their latest wheeze – “… what is that you say? Teachers use their own lunch break to protest? Knock yourselves out!” – speaks volumes. The whole idea of a protest is that it should disrupt decision-makers, not deny food to its participants.
The teaching exodus continues, but teachers themselves are collectively doing nothing to change their lot. So, was Michael O’Leary right after all? Lovely people, (and I’m paraphrasing here) but I wouldn’t exactly call on them to get something done.
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