I sit here with two slices of heavily buttered brown bread, ham and cheddar cheese balancing precariously on my lap as I rearrange my desk, moving corrected copies to the left and stacking those awaiting correction on my right.
I search, again, for my pink “correcting” pen, the unicorn one, a present from my eldest.
Some days, it’s like today, sixth-year essays, all five A4 pages long.
Other days, its filling in reports, or reading over a chapter I’ll be teaching, or one of the frequent circulars from the department.
READ MORE
This is my lunchtime.
Like many people, in all kinds of jobs, I work through my lunch, as I do through my 11 o‘clock break. I also come in early, about an hour before school starts.
Why?
Because I never bring work home. Never have. Teaching, for me, is a job that takes place in school and not one where it continues at home.
But school life is getting busier and busier. I find myself stuck in my classroom all day, every day. The result of this confinement? I rarely see or interact with another adult, from the moment I arrive until the moment I slip out a side door and head to my car.
I see my students, of course, but none of my peers. No colleagues. No adults.
There was a time when we would chat in the corridors between classes, or my fellow English teachers would “pop in” during my free class for a chat, a joke, to discuss particular issues I or they may be having, to chat about a new approach, a new book.
These chats were precious, especially when I might have had a “tricky” moment in class. A quick chat in the corridor with a colleague who knows the feeling, a moment of sharing, can alleviate the worry, can calm the mind.
But these are all gone now and teaching, like many professions, has become an increasingly lonely profession.
Now I find myself isolated in my classroom.
Without adult conversations giving respite throughout the day, empathy becomes exhausting; you feel cut off from the world
This feeling of isolation, this loneliness, is an odd one for teachers. I have hour-long classes where I am in a room full of people, except that they are my students, teenagers, sitting, waiting to be both taught and, in a way, entertained. The version of me that I present to them is not fully me. My sense of self is subdued, restrained, covered over with a sheen, a performance that is close to my reality, but still a conscious act.
The fact of the 30 students sitting in front of me merely highlights my own isolation.
The 1,000 people in the building even more so.
Of course, I am there for my students. That’s the job. They come first, as they should. But that’s also the difficulty.
I was out recently with two friends, one a teacher one not. The non-teacher asked us what the main part of our job during class time is, what are we actually doing. My teacher friend and I said the same thing. We are scanning the class assessing each student, making sure each one feels safe and comfortable. We try to gauge their mental state as they enter. And then we deal with each one according to those assessments. Our friend was a bit taken aback. “What about your subject?” “Well,” we told him, “that’s the easy bit. It’s like driving the family on holiday, the driving is the easy bit, the difficult bit is finding the right music that all the children will like.”
The exhaustion of empathy is real. This is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job, but without adult conversations giving respite throughout the day, empathy becomes exhausting; you feel cut off from the world.
[ Diarmaid Ferriter: Too many Irish teachers are wrecked and hate their jobsOpens in new window ]
Before taking up teaching I had a number of jobs. I worked in a bank, in retail, in a warehouse, I was even a private detective for a short while. In each one of those jobs there was time for a chat and a joke with a colleague. Time to let off steam, time to talk about a difficult interaction with a customer.
These are increasingly rare in teaching, as they are in many professions.
In place of these informal occasions we have formal settings, with agendas, for our interactions. We sit in cold gymnasiums, watch a PowerPoint and then we are given a specific amount of time to chat and give feedback. Once done, it’s back to our individualised existence.
All interactions have become formalised.
When I do get to go for a quick walk around the school, I hear classes full of laughter or hear that teacher voice that’s just too loud, too high, too earnest. But I also see teachers alone, working away on copies or computers. The staff room is nearly always empty.
No chats, no laughs, no sharing of experiences.
And students notice.
I regularly get small groups of students calling into me at lunchtime for a chat, or other students, as they come into class, asking me if I’m okay. I tell them the truth; as a society, we have hidden our feelings for too long. I let them know if I’m feeling “down”, but then I put on the teacher performance and on with the show.
We can’t let the interiority of the human experience overwhelm us, our sense of separation from those around us dominate.
Bring back chats, jokes, sharing.
