Teaching Matters: You know that old cliché about someone in hospital, that they are "as well as can be expected?" The funny thing about second-level teachers, who were feeling very unwell indeed a few years ago, is that they are feeling better than might be expected. It is not that the bruising years of industrial action have been forgotten, or the contempt of the media forgiven, but that teachers are getting on with it.
Volunteerism has suffered much less than was predicted. Teachers are still ferrying teams to matches, and debaters to competitions, while their colleagues are producing dramas and musicals, or teaching chess to first years. There has been little impact on voluntary work. However, the Department of Education has lost a great deal of goodwill, compounded by ham-fisted initiatives such as sending out inspectors last Christmas. That will be difficult, if not impossible, to restore.
Teachers, by nature, are not a cynical lot. You do get the odd one who oozes bile, but most teachers retain a certain idealism. Most of them went into teaching because it revolves around involvement with, and caring for, young people. There are few people in teaching who are primarily motivated by money. Job satisfaction is much more important.
Perhaps it was because of that idealism that teachers were so shocked by how quickly public support evaporated. They felt they had a just cause, that for many years they had muted demands for pay increases when Ireland was struggling to get on its feet economically, but that now the time had come for some recompense. The industrial action may have been handled badly, but it did not merit the kind of backlash that it provoked.
The controversy over benchmarking and over the timing of parent-teacher meetings left teachers more certain than ever that there was little regard for them as professionals.
After the citizenship referendum, one non-national woman wrote an emotional piece in this newspaper, saying that she found herself looking at people and wondering whether they had voted Yes. After the industrial action, more than a few teachers looked at parents and wondered whether they had supported them or joined in the general condemnation.
When it comes to teacher morale, public attention tends to be focused on the aftermath of the strike, but there are other very important factors at play, not least rapid changes in society. A richer Ireland is a more demanding Ireland. Conversely, those left behind by the boom are more embittered, and more difficult to teach. Some factors, such as an increase in teenage drinking and consumption of so-called soft drugs, affect youngsters right across the socio-economic spectrum, as does greater incidence of lone parenthood and marital breakdown.
Lack of discipline is a key question for teachers at the moment. It is indisputable that attention spans have decreased, and restlessness has increased at an alarming rate among young people. No-one has quite figured out why, although it is laid at the feet of everything from television to increased consumption of junk food. In middle-class schools, with those from relatively privileged backgrounds, it can manifest itself in ways that are best described as low-key, irritating levels of disruption, such as constant talking. In less well-off areas, teachers can endure foul language, and threats of - or actual - physical violence. In a survey conducted by the ASTI in schools, almost 30 per cent of teachers had contemplated leaving the profession, because of the constant stress of dealing with student discipline. Interestingly, almost all those surveyed felt only a minority of students were responsible for most disruption. The pupil who takes an inordinate amount of time is an increasing problem, either because he or she is so personally demanding in class, or because liaison with home takes so much time. Even where the concern is not dramatically bad behaviour, but insidious, low-level attention-seeking or refusal to co-operate, it can be an enormous drain on a teacher, or on anyone concerned with pastoral care. Other pupils lose out as a result.
In addition, some 11 per cent of pupils are estimated to have special educational needs - either specific learning disabilities or emotional or behavioural difficulties. Yet few teachers have received additional training to facilitate these students. There are still long delays in accessing psychological assessment from the National Educational Psychological Service. Another difficulty is that there is no automatic transfer of a right to a special needs assistant from primary to secondary school. This means that at a crucial time in their development, students languish without assistance while the school and family try to re-establish support for vulnerable students.
Schools are a microcosm of the world, yet they are expected to solve problems with which the world is wrestling without any particular success. Some of this struggle might be more bearable if there were a genuine sense of partnership with the Department of Education, but no such sense exists. Why, then, is it still true that the majority of teachers have no intention of moving out of education? The answer probably lies in something that might sound very hackneyed. Teaching matters, because it involves working closely with young people on their way to adulthood.
Few other jobs can offer either that challenge or that satisfaction.
• Breda O'Brien teaches at Dominican Convent, Muckross Park, Dublin and is a columnist with The Irish Times
