Jennifer Horgan: I’m embarrassed to have to stand on the side of the road asking for money

I love teaching, but I don't love being a teacher. It's not all about the holidays, writes Jennifer Horgan

Irish Examiner columnist Jennifer Horgan, second left, and colleagues from ASTI, TUI and Forsa unions on the picket at Cork Educate Together Secondary School ( temporarily based at Griffith College, Cork) during the national strike by public sector workers on Wednesday. Picture: Larry Cummins

This week, for obvious reasons, I’d like to share two things. The first is that I love teaching. The second is that I don’t love being a teacher.

I love teaching. I love my subject and I love spending time with my students. Exploring novels and plays and poems with them for the very first time never gets old. Hearing what students feel compelled to say, watching how they react — that’s the stuff that keeps me in the classroom. 

They’ll often change texts for me, even ones I’ve taught a dozen times before. And I love creating lessons with students in mind, thinking about what might help them access older or more challenging material. 

This year, it will be Shakespeare’s Hamlet for my fifth-year students. How will I pitch it best? Andrew Scott will certainly play his part. Who on this blessed earth doesn’t ADORE that man?

I love knowing my students: the first-year who loves everything about Japan and is teaching himself how to write the language; the fifth year who is obsessed with a zombie series set in a basement carpark; the third year who loves dinosaurs; and the second year who can’t get enough of Daft Punk.

I love teaching but I do not love being a teacher. I do not love being without a classroom in an adequate school building, somewhere I might store all the resources I’ve gathered over two decades of teaching in Ireland and abroad. I make the most of a small locker. 

Ten years after opening, my school is still in temporary accommodation. It’s old and inadequate. I do not love that my students, particularly my neurodivergent students, are affected by these cramped conditions too. It sends us all the same resounding message: you’re not important; you don’t matter. Your work, your education, it doesn’t matter either.

I love teaching but I don’t love being a teacher. Listening to discussions about the strike on The Brendan O’Connor Show last Sunday, brought home that distinction. Two teachers (one an ex-teacher) sat on the panel. Why? Two out of four panellists, Brendan. Why? 

Ava Conway, Edel Buttery and Maurice Lynch picketing at University Hospital Limerick. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

Social workers, nurses, SNAs, court and administrative staff, firefighters, doctors and dentists — they’re also striking. During the show, the same old lines got trotted out about the impact of school closures on families. 

The opposite is never mentioned, that schools work for families every day, doing far more than their job to keep children safe and happy, despite crumbling facilities, an absence of wraparound support, and insufficient staffing. 

I know the truth behind the statistics principal and panellist Kevin Shortall shared on air about teacher burnout. But the media is rarely a friend of teachers. Often we get pushed into the spotlight at moments of high tension simply to get a rise out of people and boost ratings.

I love teaching but I don’t love being a teacher. I love the camaraderie between staff in my school. I love how we help one another through the more emotional days. But I could do without spending my entire working life with them. 

One of the most common lines I’ve heard about this strike is that people in the private sector don’t always get pay rises to match inflation. There is no comparison between the public and private sectors. The private sector has its own woes, but those woes are vastly different to the woes of the public sector. 

For example, I can’t leave my current school without jeopardising my job security. Teachers have permanent contracts in their own schools only. If they choose to leave, they start over. I simply can’t afford the gamble of moving because there is no guarantee of permanency elsewhere. I mean, it could work out. But I could also end up on my arse in a few months. 

The private sector is insecure in other ways but it is competitive and dynamic at least. Teaching is more like a flatline. If you’re in a permanent job, you’re there for life. Conversations about productivity are pointless in this context. The whole sector needs a shake-up.

Other comparisons? Well, I have far longer holidays, yes. I can only speak for myself here but I would trade half of them for flexibility, more training, and the option to work from home one day a week. 

I’d trade them to not have to do marking and planning in the evenings or at the weekend. I would trade my long holidays to have fewer students in my classroom because their needs (from not speaking English to having profound learning difficulties) are getting far more complex. I am over-stimulated every day. 

I would trade my long summer holidays for a school building that serves all staff and students well. I would trade my long summer holidays for the freedom to make a doctor’s appointment without having to organise cover and fill in paperwork for my boss, without having to plead like a child for basic adult freedoms.

I would trade in my holidays because I genuinely love teaching. I enjoy being in the classroom. I particularly enjoy getting to work with younger teachers as they train. The trainee teacher I’m working with this year has a real spark about him. I’m so glad he’s choosing to be a teacher because he has all the signs of making a brilliant one.

But will he stay? I hate that he must work for two years for free, just like nurses, and that these graduates are very likely to graduate and leave this country for better lives with more respect, fairer contracts and better pay. 

I know young teachers are struggling to get full contracts, that they’re struggling to pay the bills, pay the rent. I know nurses are sleeping in their cars to avoid the cost of fuel. I know they simply stay put, stretched out in the car park between shifts.

I’m far better off, but these are my public sector colleagues and I resent how unattractive we are making these professions for young, educated, talented people. We talk about wealth creation but we forget that health and education are fundamental to any and all wealth creation. 

I have asked my students if they’d ever consider becoming a teacher like me. They know about the holidays. They say no.

That is why I’m striking this week — I’m striking for young teachers and nurses and social workers and for the dignity of those professions. To be honest, I’m embarrassed to have to stand on the side of the road asking for money. I doubt anyone particularly enjoys having to do that, do they? 

I work hard to sustain myself and my family and I resent being put in this position. I’m losing a day’s pay. On a more basic level, I have a heavy period and no access to a toilet for the duration of my shift. Will the hotel across the road take pity on us? Here’s hoping.

And here’s hoping I’m not doing the same nonsense on Wednesday next week. Because I’d like to get back to what I love — teaching.