Secret Diary of a Teacher: we are worried about going back to school, too
Any educators I chat with — SNAs, teachers, and principals from around the country and abroad — are happy to get back to work. Many use phrases like ‘getting stuck in’ and ‘re-connecting'. Some refer to brave individuals who have worked throughout, often for lower pay. Staff seem ready to re-enter schools.
But they're anxious too, chiefly about how parents might behave.
I’m a parent of three as well as a teacher and the two roles intersect. This weekend, my eldest started coughing. Not just the odd throat-clearing, but a persistent, dry cough. My husband and I looked at each other knowingly — he’d have to be tested.
SouthDoc doesn’t test at the weekends, so I rang my GP today. As I write, I’m waiting to hear back; if we get a test today, we will hopefully get the results by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest.
If this happens in a few weeks’ time, I’ll have to take a minimum of three days off.
Teachers will receive no payments if absent due to Covid-19-related care responsibilities. It’s far from ideal.
But my deeper concern is how other families will behave if their child starts coughing. The HSE tells us they must self-isolate and the family must restrict their movements. So that would mean two teachers and three students down in my household. All because of a single cough.
Are we all ready to comply with this?
This question seemed particularly apparent when I discussed going back to school with principals. They worry that families won’t behave appropriately during this time of transition and uncertainty. Will parents send children in with symptoms? Will they accept their child being sent home for testing? Unsurprisingly, school staff feel uncomfortable playing the part of the doctor. They need parents to take preventative steps. Sanitising and social distancing are not enough to keep us safe if parents ignore guidelines.
Of course, this nervousness is allied to the knowledge that, if an outbreak does occur, the school will be blamed, not the parents and not the department. This was the tone of reports around two staff members testing positive in An Daoine Óga Community Childcare Centre in Navan recently, the owner of the creche nervously assuring the public that their Covid-19 document record was second to none.
School managers worry about being considered negligent. These are the same people — headteachers and deputy headteachers across the country, who have had to wait until now to get funding and guidance on the reopening of schools. Some might say that funding would have been more appropriate back in March, along with a planned, uniform approach to distance learning.
My honest belief is that the relationship between parents and teachers has worsened over this pandemic. There was a lack of uniformity in schools’ approaches; the uncertainty of the pandemic in general, and schools’ guidelines, pitted us against each other. Parents feel they have done more than is reasonable in home-schooling their own children, and that it is now the teachers' turn to take over.
Will that mean them ignoring symptoms and health advice? Because we all know where that will lead us.
One teacher I spoke with last weekend was upset over an encounter with a family member in Tesco. She was "accosted" by a cousin proclaiming, "teachers are a disgrace".
"My mother is a 60-year old nurse; you don’t hear her complaining." These, her parting words, bellowed for all to hear. No hello. No goodbye. As if my friend represented teachers in this country, and was undeserving of being treated as an individual.
But she is one.
And she’s read about the outbreaks in schools in Israel, where they have poor infrastructure like us, overcrowded classrooms, and where they ignored health advice. She knows that, as of April 20, 65 education staff had died in Britain, its national death toll being the highest in Europe. She has a right to be worried for herself and her family. She has a right to ask for suitable conditions. She is also not her union.
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has stated that keeping schools shut would be "morally indefensible". Professor Russell Viner, having researched more than 100 institutions in the UK, assures parents over there that "the majority of cases are staff, not students". I have a close friend teaching in London whose partner is highly vulnerable. I’m certain Prof Viner’s research is of little comfort.
Schools can’t exist without teachers. I hope we do better here and pull together rather than tear each other apart.
Parents, your days of home schooling are not behind you. Expect absences. Expect interruptions in your day. Ensure that your school has an online provision that you are happy with. Get ready to play your part in this because, sadly, it’s not over.
Parents must no longer view school as the natural place for their child, as these are not natural times. I bristle when I hear jokes about getting kids back to school no matter what. Our kids have a right to an education — but, to ensure that right, we must only send healthy children and staff into our schools. Anything else is indeed, to borrow from Boris, "morally indefensible".
If your child is even remotely unwell the only place for them is at home in isolation.
Collaboration and cooperation between schools and homes may very well make or break us over the coming weeks.
Most certainly, we’re in this together.
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