Schools need reform, not just cutting of costs [IrishTimes]
- Published: 08 October 2011
THIS WEEK, I was talking to someone whose job takes him into schools all over Leinster. He talked about the glazed look that teachers have now, and compared it to what you might see on the faces of doctors and nurses in an overcrowded emergency ward. He talked about the air of barely contained stress teachers exude as they rush from place to place. He suggested it was a profession on the verge of mass burnout.
I know exactly what he is talking about, but glumly await the deluge of abusive e-mails that will follow that opening paragraph. Anna Quindlen, the American author and commentator, once wrote a column for Newsweek in which she suggested teaching is the toughest job there is. I am not suggesting that for a minute.
Being out of work with a mortgage to pay and children to rear beats the stress of teaching every time. Being a social worker who deals with children in care would turn me into a blubbering wreck in a week. I wouldn’t last an afternoon in one of those emergency wards.
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