Integration of non-Irish pupils is one of the unsung successes of education, due in large part to teachers' efforts, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
THE DEATH of any young person in what appears to have been a racially motivated attack is truly shocking. Yet hope can be found in the unity displayed by Toyosi Shitta-bey’s classmates and friends and their utter rejection of racism.
The Irish education system has undergone massive changes during the last 10 years, and one of the unheralded success stories is the degree to which non-Irish pupils have been integrated into schools.
Toyosi Shitta-bey’s form tutor, Julie Reilly, spoke of having Nigerians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Romanians and Irish in her class. Overall, she said that it had been a very positive experience.
That is due in no small part to the efforts of teachers who received little or no formal training in how to deal with the sudden influx of non-Irish kids into Irish schools, but who coped nonetheless. Recent cutbacks in language support make that task more difficult.
When Toyosi was stabbed to death, his school opened during the holidays and helped grief-stricken teens to come to terms with his shocking death through the use of symbols and rituals.
We expect things like that from our schools, and it is right that we do. But at the same time, the teacher conferences prompted the usual complaints from the public about whinging teachers “who just don’t get the extent of the economic crisis”. Believe me, speaking as a second-level teacher myself, teachers “get” the economic crisis. Aside from their own hefty drop in pay, they have to deal with the insecurities every day of a generation who never knew anything except the Celtic Tiger and are now shell-shocked.
Long before the downturn, Irish schools were familiar with economic difficulty. We have one of the lowest levels of educational funding in the OECD. In the EU, only the Slovak Republic spent less, and that was before the last round of cuts.
There is another way in which Irish schools have changed. There has been a laudable move to integrate children with special needs.
When people talk about cutbacks, and especially among special needs assistants (SNA) they need to realise that every cutback in SNAs that is not compensated for in other ways threatens the right of a child to a mainstream education.
While some children with disabilities cannot cope with or benefit from mainstream education, it is appalling to think that children who could do so might be denied the chance due to cutbacks.
Toyosi Shitta-bey was not the only teenager to die in tragic circumstances recently. Irish-born Phoebe Prince hanged herself after enduring months of unrelenting bullying in an American high school. Donal Lynch of the Sunday Independentquoted academic and Obama adviser Samantha Power, also Irish-born, as saying her move from an Irish school to an American high school prepared her for work in the most dangerous of war zones.
It’s an interesting observation, but somewhat scary. Samantha Power was born in 1970. Would she see such a huge difference between Irish and American schools today? Certainly, one would hope that no Irish school would ignore bullying on such a vast scale as affected Phoebe Prince, but all the elements that made the whole scenario so nasty are increasingly common in Ireland.
The internet featured highly, with abuse being poured on Phoebe from internet sites, along with text bullying. While most Irish secondary schools are safe places, e-bullying of various kinds is rampant, and increasingly difficult for schools to deal with.
Parents often feel helpless to deal with it, but teachers are expected to – the same teachers who will then turn on their radios and hear about how they are whingers for talking about stress in their jobs.
The Irish education system is far from perfect. This column has highlighted again and again the distortions caused by our points-focused second-level system, and how it militates against real education.
However, the people who work in our schools, the teachers, SNAs and management, humanise and soften a system that is often brutally stressful for pupils. People seize on details like teachers only being contracted for 22 hours a week. It is generally not known that in other countries, teachers are contracted for more hours, but they are not teaching hours. The amount of time Irish second-level teachers spend teaching per annum is well above the OECD average
They also have one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios in the OECD, especially at primary level. Perhaps this provides some context for the bitterness aroused by the suggestion that second-level teachers would be available, unpaid, for a further three periods a week of supervision, and a further hour for meetings and so on.
It sounds very little, until you realise that it is on top of all the other unpaid hours already done by teachers. The TUI released a study which shows that the average teacher already works 46 to 48 hours a week.
It feels like a slap in the face to be asked for extra time, with no acknowledgment of the time already freely given for everything from educational trips to musicals, to sports, to chess clubs.
Teaching is a good way to make a living. You have the sense of making a real difference to people at a crucial stage of their development. However, teachers are also human, and they see the grim unfairness of bailouts for banks at the expense of sectors like education.
Teachers have uncomplainingly implemented vast changes in the education system. Whole new subjects and curricula have been adopted with minimum fuss. However, their patience is not inexhaustible, and they should not be taken for granted.