Another August, another teacher recruitment crisis. Why is it so hard to find teachers?
About 10 years ago, a friend declared that he could never be a teacher because he could never work in a job where every day was the same. I may have looked at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a small ancillary head from his shoulder. No two days are remotely the same in teaching because you are dealing with human beings, who are infinitely complex and various.
In recent years I have been saddened by hearing teachers say things such as: “I love my job but I will never be able to afford a house”, and “Teaching is a great profession but the paperwork and bureaucracy make me want to bang my head slowly off the shining faux wood veneer of the nearest school desk”.
Others say: “I fully support integrating students with additional educational needs, but lie awake worrying at night that we do not have the facilities or budget to do so in a way that students will thrive rather than just being warehoused.”
Amid a crisis where young people head to Australia or Dubai to earn enough for a mortgage for a modest house back home, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that teaching is simultaneously both head-wrecking and among the most rewarding of professions. And a lot of the head-wrecking has nothing to do with the students in front of you.
Everyone has an opinion on teachers because everyone, bar a small minority of home-educated people, has been to school. Almost everyone has had a bad experience with a teacher at some stage. Due to the attentional bias towards negative memories that is part of the human condition, it is unsurprising that the good and even great teachers do not linger in our memories as long as the ones who made us feel, as Michael Harding once pungently put it, like a useless lump of dung. (Although being Michael Harding, he managed to extract a surprising life lesson from the experience.)
Regarding those long summer holidays, only one thing is certain: only teachers truly grasp that no one would be able to do the job for 11 months of the year
To some extent, our vision of teachers is formed by our own experience of decades ago, even though teaching has changed as much or more than any other profession.
There was a brief, shimmering moment at the beginning of the pandemic when people suddenly started to appreciate teachers when the horror of teaching their own children became a necessity. Alas, that is now a faded cultural memory and people have reverted to moaning about the long summer holidays teachers enjoy. (As an aside, it’s probably a myth that those holidays originated to suit the rhythms of pre-industrialised agriculture. Think about it – kids would be in school in spring when needed for sowing and lambing, both very labour-intensive. In this part of the world it probably had more to do with the British custom of the seaside holiday, while in warmer climes, it was more about getting kids out of stifling classrooms. No matter what the origin, only one thing is certain – only teachers truly grasp that no one would be able to do the job for 11 months of the year.)
Nonetheless, not enough is written about the deep satisfaction of those moments when a child finally grasps a difficult concept, or a previously silent student finally feels brave enough to contribute to a class discussion. Artist Donal Teskey talks about the first time a teacher praised his work as the first time he was aware of himself as a person. For post-primary teachers, there is the joy of seeing people progress from childhood to young adulthood, an ordinary wonder that never grows stale.
People often become post-primary teachers because they are passionate about their subject and get a kick out of communicating it to others. Some are motivated by their enjoyment of young people and the endless variety of the job. Sure, there are high rates of burnout and stress. Back in 1980, learning specialist Stephen Truch declared teaching to be the most stressful occupation after air traffic controllers and surgeons. By the 1990s, Irish clinical psychologist Dr Tony Humphreys claimed that teaching was the most stressful occupation after mining, even more than nursing, medicine and policing. Teaching is infinitely faster-paced now.
Nonetheless, most teachers enjoy teaching. What they do not enjoy is not being able to afford a mortgage, not being heard when it comes to curricular change, and being expected to solve every societal ill. The housing catastrophe, while central to the crisis, is not the only reason people are leaving Irish education. Nor is it all about historic underfunding.
Seeing teachers as human beings who deserve respect and manageable workloads would help a great deal to make the return to school more viable for us all and allow more teachers to do what they truly love.