Learner Dad: My kids won’t always love their teachers this much

Picture: iStock 

We were helping our two with a homework exercise the other day, where they had to write down the adults they would talk to if something scary happened to them. I’m happy to report that both of them put me on their list, and my wife made the cut as well. The other adult they both mentioned came as a surprise – they both said they’d talk to their teacher.

I don’t know why it came as a surprise . My kids love their teachers always have since they started school. I think I just forgot that kids spend six hours a day learning about the world from these professionals – no wonder there’s a bond.

The problem over the past week is that our kids haven’t been spending six hours a week-day with their teachers – they’ve been spending it with us as Covid snakes its way around our house. It doesn’t help that my wife and I have been trying to work around it. Let’s just say, I don’t know how teachers do it. 

People rightly talk about nurses going above and beyond, that it’s a vocation as well as a job. But I think, particularly in primary school, there must be an element of vocation there as well, that they are doing something more than just turning up for work every day, and during a pandemic. 

Which of course they are – they’re basically making people. Good people, if it all pans out. The world is a better place because of teachers.

And now I feel bad because I used to be one of those people who growl ed when I heard the word teachers on the news. I think it’s a leftover from the aftermath of the financial crash in 2008. L ike most people at the time, I was struggling a bit financially. Working in the private sector, where friends were losing income and work , it was hard not to be jealous of people in safe public sector jobs.

It didn’t help when an acquaintance working for the government suggested it was my fault I didn’t choose a career in the public sector. In the absence of money, there was no shortage of fury to go around Ireland at the time. All you had to do to start a fight in a crowded room was say, 'Croke Park Agreement'.

I didn’t have much time for teachers around 2011. But then I didn’t have kids at the time either, let alone kids in school. I thought teachers were people who worked 30 hours a week when they weren’t on a four-month holiday.

That changed during the first lockdown when I got a taste of what it’s like to help kids with their school work. It also showed me how much progress they’d made since starting school, which was down to them and their teachers.

But this week’s revelation that they trust, and I’d say love their teachers, takes it to another level. So apologies to any teacher reading this. Sorry for growling when your profession was mentioned on the news. The only lesson to be learned from teachers’ unions angling for better conditions is that we’d all be better off in a union.

My kids won’t always love their teachers this much. I had some lovely, brilliant, funny, warm teachers in secondary school, but I hated the way they gave me loads of homework and made me study for exams. Anyway, teenagers can’t be seen to respect an adult in authority – it’s bad for the brand. To be honest, I respect secondary school teachers a touch more for walking into that firing line.

But for now, I’m glad that my kids like their teachers. I can still remember all my primary school teachers - they’re a big part of your life. So let’s hear it for the teachers. Particularly next week when my two are out of isolation and we can send them back into school. Can’t wait.