Jennifer Horgan: The teachers of Tralee has a certain ring to it
Katelyn Cummins (centre) on stage at the Kerry Sports Academy just before she is selected as the Rose of Tralee on Tuesday night. Photo: Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus Ltd
I wonder if the organisers of The Rose of Tralee would be up for a rebrand. A makeover, starting with the title. The Teachers of Tralee. What do you think?
A third of contestants this year were teachers, and the title change might give the dwindling profession a boost. It could run in collaboration with teacher unions around the globe – offering a resuscitating jolt to deserted staffrooms worldwide.
In all seriousness, it would be nice to see a bit more diversity in the Dome. On the opening night in particular, I have never been so relieved to hear from an accountant or a tax expert. It’s depressing to think that for a woman to be deemed likeable in 21st-century Ireland, she must teach, nurse or nurture for a living.
Female business owners be damned! Witches the lot of them! They are possibly as bad as the worst of teachers - those who dare travel, go on a secondment, or take a career break.
This is certainly the impression I was left with having joined a panel of contributors on last week. The focus of the segment was whether, given our severe recruitment crisis, teachers abroad should be incentivised to come home.
I was ill-prepared for the witch hunt. I certainly wasn’t ready when the host suggested returning teachers shouldn’t earn as much as teachers who stay, having enjoyed a ‘tax-free lifestyle’ abroad.
Nor was I ready for the comment from another contributor about teachers feeling they can just ‘swan off’ to other countries. Never mind the final voice, a teacher himself, suggesting that teachers who travel or go on career breaks tear communities apart.
That last one truly baffled me. Workplaces might change and develop in every other sector but if you want to be a teacher in Ireland nothing must change EVER. Teachers must only leave their school to retire or die.
As bemusing as this definition of community might seem, this is how the system is set up. When teachers secure a permanent position, they are expected to stay in that same school for life.
I can see why an increase in career breaks is problematic but they are the inevitable result of a faulty system.
Teachers don’t have the option of moving freely. I only have permanency, and the security that goes with it, in my current school. I leave my school and I’m back to the starting line. As a mother of three with a mortgage to pay, it’s a risk I can’t take.
Young teachers are lucky to get permanent, full, contracts these days, in cities anyway, but permanency is a lifelong sentence. So, they take career breaks, secondments or travel overseas. It was certainly a common theme among the Roses.
Before the Newstalk conversation, I didn’t realise this was perceived by people as some kind of betrayal. Surely, it’s inevitable. Staying in the same job for life is no longer a desirable prospect for young people.
The world of work has changed beyond recognition. People work from home now; they often wear what they want; they very often change career or direction altogether. Only teachers are expected to stay in the past.
The Newstalk contributors seemed unaware of the economic factors pushing teachers out of Ireland. God, did I bristle when that woman accused teachers of ‘swanning off’. I even tried to interrupt – rude of me I know, but it felt deeply personal. I tossed and turned in my bed for two nights afterwards.
I never wanted to leave Ireland. Swanning off! I left with my tail between my legs, afraid of my own shadow. When I graduated in 2006, there was no work and so when an East London employer came to my university to recruit teachers, I took what they offered.
I cried every day for months. I had extraordinarily little experience and training so I learned the hard way by being chewed up and spat out by classrooms of teenage boys. I was remarkably close to moving home to my parents that first Christmas but I persevered.
Soon enough two babies came along with fresh challenges. Our apartment was infested with mice. Our landlord was treating us like vermin. We had no disposable income from two teaching salaries.
We desperately wanted to return to Ireland to live, but we’d no savings with every other penny going towards rent or childcare. It’s a common tale, right? Shared by many.
So, we went to one of the only places in the world where teachers can save money to buy a home – The United Arab Emirates. There was no ‘swanning off’ I can assure you. I arrived there with no family or friends, two babies under two, and to top it all off, I couldn’t drive. I was back to crying every day.
Was I a weakling? Maybe. Was I privileged and in need of a few hard knocks? I think so. My life had been soft before having to leave. I needed the knocks, but that doesn’t mean they were easy.
My years of teaching in Abu Dhabi aren’t recognised but after six years we had saved enough to put down a deposit on a house so we came home. Other teachers will stay away, or they will go elsewhere for better conditions.
I don’t blame them. It’s even harder to buy a house now and even harder to get a full contract. All of that aside, why would they return to be paid the same as a trainee teacher? It makes no sense.
The teaching profession needs to be dynamic and exciting if it is going to attract capable, bright teachers. We must offer them room to develop and change. Returning teachers bring back a wealth of experience and expertise – the State should not expect to get those skills, that hard-won expertise, for free.
My discussion on air revealed the fact that a lot of people think economic emigrants deserve to be punished for leaving Ireland in the first place. It’s striking, considering how kind we are to Ireland’s economic emigrants of old, those suited and booted men who left Ireland for England, Australia, America.
Some Irish teachers leaving the profession or the country now are not so different. Mostly, they simply can’t afford to live here as teachers. They can’t afford to buy a home for their families.
They can’t get full contracts to pay the bills. The hours offered are often too few as schools work within very tight limits, with only the bare minimum of hours for their student population.
And if they are lucky enough to get permanency, as I was, they may need a change every so often, or a break. Re-work the conditions of the job, offer teachers more flexibility to move and develop, resource schools adequately, and the desire for career breaks will go away.
So, I will take back what I said about The Rose of Tralee. It may be outdated, even offensive, but it does offer a dozen female teachers recognition they are unlikely to get otherwise.
Keep it as the Rose of Tralee. It’s the teaching profession that needs a makeover.
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