Jennifer Horgan: I'm returning from anger to hope as schools reopen

Jennifer Horgan: offers her take on schools reopening

I’ve read that hope is the only thing stronger than fear.

To lessen my fears about returning to school with soaring cases, inadequate supports, and a dearth of data, I’m gathering my hopes together.

I hope antigen tests and better masks have been distributed to all schools, at least to SNAs. I hope Hepa filters are in classrooms. I hope contact tracing and cluster investigations start again. I hope our numbers, the worst in the EU, go down.

In the raspy narrating voice of Morgan Freeman at the end of Shawshank Redemption, gazing into that middle distance, I hope…

A less Hollywood version of myself, the woman back in a freezing classroom with her students, understands that circumstances are unlikely to change. Anger might be a better option than hope, given the Government’s ceaseless, unsupported mantras. Schools are no longer safe, but they are operating safely.

For very many children, I’m relieved that schools are opening. I couldn’t have supported a full closure, even with numbers high. Some children are simply safer in schools, as are their families. But they’re safer there in smaller numbers.

We tend to open and close schools bluntly, like we couldn’t be bothered with nuance. Education is as varied as the learners in our classrooms, and it doesn’t always need to happen in a school building.

We might have considered a partial opening. When we closed non-essential retail, delayed non-essential medical appointments, we acknowledged degrees of need. The same can apply to schools. Many students could manage an online provision until Omicron peaks. 

Others could come in to be supervised while accessing the same resources, getting that much-needed social interaction. Ireland always prioritises parent choice over equality in education. Irish children have vastly different school experiences for this reason. 

Why don’t we prioritise parent choice now? Why don’t we switch to remote learning for two or three weeks, but still have schools open for those who most desperately need it?

Such nuance requires planning we seem reluctant to consider. I imagine many families, who live with conditions that make them physically vulnerable, or who are isolating, will fall through the cracks now. In-person teaching will be offered, but many schools won’t manage remote teaching on top of that. These families will be the fallout of our binary way of thinking.

Government Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Conor O’Mahony, argues that “school closures protected physical health, but caused significant damage to the mental health of many children (particularly adolescents)”. He points to the important work of schools in identifying children at risk and in need of outside intervention. He’s right. Following lockdown last year, reports to Tusla surged, up 25% from the previous March. This is down to the work of schools.

They’re given little credit for it. They’re given even less respect. Schools have been left down by this government in their failure to protect them, and we have been left down by commentators who argue that schools are essential without acknowledging the people who make it so. Anger grows in the absence of a simple thank you, or an acknowledgement of how we feel entering busy classrooms when the virus is so rampant in our communities.

The atmosphere returning to school this week could be more positive if school staff felt a weight of public support. Instead, we read single-minded viewpoints: ‘Common sense has prevailed at last;’ ‘down with those unions;’ ‘all children have a right to education.’ There is no nuance, no compassion, no patience at all. We are told to shut up and get on with it. An open building is what matters.

It’s as if the work of schools is carried out by the building itself, the freezing cold prefab, the whiteboard, the flip chart, and not the humans walking the halls, getting by, helping each other get by.

Coming to the end of this week’s column, and thinking of my own lovely school, I’m returning from anger to hope. But my hope has nothing to do with the Government, filters, or contract tracing. I’m tired of asking for them.

No, my hope is that school staff continue to be inspiring and committed. My hope is that parents and commentators turn up the kindness to an end-of-a-Hollywood blockbuster level, that they send a card, a thank you, smile at the gate, continue saying what they’re currently saying: School staff are doing essential work.

Treat them accordingly.