Teaching is becoming untenable as more and more teachers are being bullied in their schools and classrooms, the newly-elected vice-president of the ASTI, Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan, said.
There were highly-charged contributions from teachers for more than an hour at a public session of the ASTI convention in Tralee yesterday, on the increase in bullying of teachers.
Mr P.J. Sheehy, who proposed that the ASTI formulate a policy document and draft advice on the issue, said he was not being alarmist in raising it. Although it was not a new issue, he said, the recognition that teachers were being bullied was new. This included physical assault, damage to property, verbal abuse, threats and intimidation to teachers and to members of their families, he said.
"Do you recognise these as something that has been happening right under your noses?" he asked the assembly of more than 500 delegates. He said bullying was carried out in schools by principals, parents, students and "yes, by colleagues".
Ms O'Sullivan said that because of the increase in bullying, "teaching is becoming untenable", and "we as teachers very often do not want to admit what's happening in our schools. Very often we are keeping the lid on the problems of society."
The motion calling for a committee to examine the incidence and nature of bullying of teachers was, she said, "one of the most important motions that we are going to deal with in this convention".
Another delegate, Mr Sean Higgins from the union's Drogheda branch, said: "There's a real problem out there". He referred to a teacher who contacted him at Easter to say he had been head-butted in class.
He said there had been incidents of bullying where teachers had been assaulted by pupils, as well as the parents and siblings of pupils. He said teachers had been threatened and some had had their cars deliberately damaged. "The appalling thing about this is that the majority of school managements involved have tried to keep it quiet, on a low level. The reason was that the school didn't want bad publicity."
In many cases, the teachers were asked to carry on with the pupil still in the school, "as if nothing had happened". He cited the high number of teachers who had gone ex-directory because they had received phone-calls containing sexual innuendo.
He also noted the number of lewd anatomical drawings on teachers' desks and chairs. "The whole thing is getting out of hand. We need a policy here that people can refer to and to have access to it quickly," he said. "The teacher should not have to act as if nothing had happened."
Mr Joe Kenny, another west Mayo delegate, spoke about "the selective intimidation by management" of teachers. A delegate from the Desmond branch, Ms Catherine Fitzpatrick, said teachers who were bullied "must not be left traumatised".
Mr Don McCluskey, Monaghan, one of the union's 18 regional representatives, spoke about the bullying by management of part-time teachers in particular. One teacher who complained to a principal about a disruptive pupil was told that perhaps he was not making the class interesting enough and told: "Maybe he's bored." "We must get full support for teachers who are being bullied," Mr McCluskey urged.
Another Dublin delegate said female teachers were being targeted for "sexual harassment in one way or another by young male students".
A delegate from Clonmel said: "We have to ask ourselves what we have been doing". As a young teacher he had been a victim. "I was told, `There won't be a job here for you next year'." He said the union's aim should be "to protect its weakest members. I'm talking about collective action."