Teaching the Government some lessons

First, a declaration of interest. Although I am not teaching at the moment, secondary-school teaching has been the one consistent thread in my somewhat erratic career.

Like most teachers I know, I actually like teaching. I never tired of seeing pupils, in my case girls, come into the school as 12-year-old children and go out six years later as young women. It is a privilege to be so closely involved with young people at such a vital time in their lives. So if it's such a great job, why are so many teachers so unhappy? There has been a lot of talk about teachers' loss of status, of nostalgia for the days when the teacher, the doctor and the priest were the people in the community who were placed on pedestals. I think the idea that teachers hanker after this kind of status is utter nonsense. Teachers do want status, but only the status which comes from recognition of a difficult job well done. Part of that status is adequate pay.

While principals are really stretched to find graduates to fill jobs in certain subject areas, I still do not think that attracting people to the profession is the main problem. Retaining people may well be.

Much has been made of the fact that all the Higher Diploma courses receive far more applications than there are places available. But this tells only part of the story. Interesting recent research by Sheelagh Drudy of University College Dublin surveyed over a thousand sixth-year pupils. The research compared the pupils' perceptions of primary and second-level teachers in comparison to engineers, television producers, computer programmers, social workers, doctors, lawyers and accountants.

With regard to job satisfaction, girls ranked being a primary teacher and social worker highest, while boys chose being an engineer, computer programmer and television producer.

Second-level teaching ranked very poorly among both boys and girls in terms of job satisfaction, with boys being much more dismissive. In relation to how enjoyable a job might be, second-level teaching ranked lowest among the surveyed pupils. Perhaps the results indicate the pupils' awareness of how challenging a group they are to teach.

Teaching is tough. It is not the toughest job, and it is certainly nowhere near as tough as having no job at all. However, data from insurance companies show that the health of significant numbers of teachers breaks down due to stress. Indeed, the Department of Education's belated recognition of teacher stress is shown by the fact that in January they are launching a stress-prevention pilot project in schools, designed by Work Research Centre Ltd.

The nature of the stress is difficult to explain to someone who has only experienced school from the pupils' side of the desk. Each of those 30 people in front of you rightly considers you to be responsible for their personal wellbeing and their education. You can never be under par when you are in front of 30 teenagers. This is true whether you teach in areas of deprivation or in middle-class areas. Indeed, middle-class schools can present difficulties which never manifest themselves in areas of deprivation.

For example, a minority of pupils and their parents see teachers as mere hired labour. A colleague of mine reprimanded a class because of the state of their classroom, only to have a pupil suggest that the teacher should clean up the pupil-created mess because she was drawing a salary from the Department of Education and the pupils were not.

Not that I have a problem with greater assertiveness among the pupils. I would much prefer a lively class to one which is half asleep - again, a not infrequent occurrence where many of the older pupils work as well as go to school, and have proportionately far higher income to spend on entertainment at the weekend as a result.

Teachers are supposed to be managers of all the social problems which manifest themselves in young people. No part of my training prepared me in any way to deal with the emotional turmoil which pupils feel when, for example, parents separate.

Some young people sail through it, particularly if they have been well prepared and know that they will continue to have extensive contact with both parents. But many take up to two years to recover their equilibrium, only to lose it again when either Mum or Dad has a baby with a new partner. That loss of equilibrium can manifest itself in very diverse ways, from under-achievement to over-achievement, from disruptive, challenging behaviour to a quiet slide into depression.

Teachers are supposed to shoulder all the problems of society while being prone to all the same difficulties themselves.

Does any or all of this justify the industrial action being undertaken, and the worry which parents and pupils will feel? I can only say that it was not undertaken lightly, and that any teachers I know will kill themselves making up for lost time. The sad thing is that years of feeling unheard by successive governments have convinced teachers that this is the only way.

Benchmarking was a typical fudge. It might have offered a way forward if anyone could explain exactly how it is to work. Asking teachers who have been burned before to put their faith in an untried, ill-defined process is simply unrealistic. The other teacher unions are approaching benchmarking with a high degree of scepticism. Plan B is to follow the ASTI into industrial action.

The Government is playing a cynical game of pushing secondary teachers into escalating action, calculating that public support will ebb away as a result. This only confirms to teachers that the Government has no regard for them.

The only solution is to get around a table and negotiate. To suggest that the benchmarking process is the answer is to ask the union to return meekly to the process which they have indicated in robust terms has already failed them.

Teachers will not be fobbed off this time. There may be only 16,500 ASTI members, but 23,500 other teachers and their families are watching. The Government will have to find a way to negotiate before this dispute escalates. If they do not, the parents, pupils and teachers will not easily forgive them.

bobrien@irish-times.ie