Stepping off a 100-pole safely can be difficult

How do you step from the top of a 100-foot pole? I rip the question from my zen desk calendar and score three points Michael Jordan-style with my shot to the rubbish bin. Two bemused seven-year-olds are greeted with high fives and whoops. Other early arrivals bustle around my desk anxious to tell me about the 17 medals won at the local feis and the smashed head of a motor cyclist in a weekend crash. Protective parents usher their offspring to their seats while scanning the walls for signs of progress.

Aisling, the junior infants' teacher, slides by my classroom.

"Good weekend?" She reverses and is framed by the door. Owl-eared listeners divert their attention from displays of sunset paintings and worksheets to her answer.

"The usual. Noting major." Sonar is switched off. Graham's poem and Lisa's poster are more interesting than teacher banalities.

"Remember, don't mention the `r' word today," she adds before jaunting off to the joys of auditory discrimination. Which one? Relationships or responsibility?

Preparation for the relationships and sexuality education programme have now been completed. There was much apprehension and controversy in the weeks leading up to the final in-service training day. Gossip and rumours dominated teacher talk every lunch-time. Vital issues such as sexual intercourse, emotional maturity, contraception and homosexuality were ignored. Dessert was top of the agenda.

We had been given none at the second training day. Secondary teachers did. Why did we only get two courses? Letters were faxed. Calls were made. Protests were registered. Primary teachers wanted equality, parity of esteem and Black Forest gateau.

The circular from the Department of Education on posts of responsibility caused similar consternation. Three new posts of responsibility were assigned to the school. Five members of staff had expressed serious interest in the positions since seniority is no longer the sole criterion of selection. Suitability, willingness and merit are new factors to internal primary school appointments.

Three jobs. Five people. The observer from Stokes Kennedy Crowley acknowledged that there could be trouble ahead.

The opening salvos were being fired across pots of Maxwell House. Six Christmas concerts. Five sales of work for the new boiler. Seventy-five training sessions with the hurling teams. A two-year Master's course in Maynooth. Four years service on the board of management. All assertions were accompanied by glares. Unspoken claims festered. Colleagues were becoming rivals.

Two will not get posts. Two will be disappointed. Two will feel slighted. How will they react? Will Angela still spend November and December evenings drilling Silent Night into the choir? Will Fergal still coach the hurlers next year? Seniority was simple. Stepping off a 100-foot pole is more difficult.