The nasty side to teaching

mtoutlemonde

I didn't want to derail the thread with the OP asking whether to get into teaching or not so u started this thread - I suppose it's cathartic.

I've been teaching for a long time and as is the norm, did a lot of subbing in many schools. Some of these were great schools which I would loved to have stayed but that's life.

However I have seen and experienced absolutely dreadful behaviour in a professional setting, some of which we dont condone from our students.

Like others in that thread, I hand on heart couldn't recommend teaching to anyone due to two year PME, pay scales, part time hours for years, waiting for the phone to ring, botched interviews etc.

Then when you get the job and management f step in with the power trip - deciding your classes, subjects, don't back you with parents, humiliate, facilitate others with handy timetables while destroying yours where you pick up the slack. Don't get started on posts which have destroyed any collegiality.

I have seen teachers hounded in the workplace, humiliared, poor mental health, taking early retirement, career breaks etc.

Why do we allow this to happen?

I used to love getting up to go to school but I just dread it now because of having to communicate with management who have no idea what they are doing and are out to get you. I would love to go elsewhere and start afresh but redeployment is limited and I can't give up a very hard earned CID for a leap of faith at a fixed term contract.

The huge positive - the interaction with students and getting to understand your subject a little every day. The thank you at the end of the year. Meeting students years after school and seeing where they are now and reminiscing of their days in school. The kind words from parents are also nice.

Now that probably looks like a rant :) What can the normal Joe do?

ottolwinner

Very sorry that that is your experience of a profession. I don’t doubt it but I’m sure of people were honest there are many similarities with those experiences across many professions including self employment working alongside other self employed.

Quitelife

Is secondary teaching a lot tougher than primary teaching or are both the same ?

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121481679#Comment_121481679

I don't know to be honest. The 'hours' situation would make primary a bit more bearable as you are either on full hours or job-share etc. I don't know if you can have a small number of hours in primary. Also (in my area anyway), primary schools would not be that big, it does not mean that bullying behaviou cannot take place. I dpn't know if redeployment is easier for primary being on a panel etc.

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121481419#Comment_121481419

I still enjoy the job but not the treatment from management - and that has only happened in the past few years - hopefully I will be leaving this all behind at the end of the academic year.

spurious

Some of the things that go on, people would say we are making them up.

Esho

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058326461/the-nasty-side-to-teaching

By management, do you mean the Principal? Or dept ed?

I think all those type of people who would have become tyrannical nuns or priests in the last century, now work for the Dept Ed.

listermint

Isn't this not just related to your experience in the current job?.. its not unique to teaching.

It's like telling someone not to get into pharmaceutical industry because they have **** senior managers and directors in the current or past job.

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121491082#Comment_121491082

Current school but did some research into bullying staff in schools. Still love teaching. Have worked for good principals but others were were good to me and a nightmare to others.

csirl

Problem is that unsuitable people are sometimes appointed to Principal positions based on connections with Board of Management, heavy involvement in church or because the BoM is simply poor and doesnt have the skills to pick the right person.

lbunnae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121491082#Comment_121491082

Yeah absolutely , the only difference being the pharma worker having to put up with it for many more hours and days in the year.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121493038#Comment_121493038

Odd didn't know pharma workers don't have to deal with their management team.. .

Padre_Pio

Seems to be something pervasive in public sector jobs where the usual supports have been removed.

I know gardai, teachers, nurses and doctors. All have said their management has opted out of providing any guidance on how to deal with any sort of sensitive subject. Zero guidance on dealing with people who have mental health issues is one.

All have been assaulted multiple times at work and nothing has been done. My friends wife is a nurse and had her jaw broken by a patient who attacked her. The patient was known to be violent but due to short staffing she was left alone.

lbunnae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121493093#Comment_121493093

Yeah its just teachers.

purifol0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121493107#Comment_121493107

The entire public sector doesnt have to worry about money, so there is no incentive to change, adapt or rock the boat. No matter how bad things are, they will all get paid, lump summed and pensioned.

In a case such as injury on the job, it is the tax payer who takes the hit for monetary compensation payouts, again no change needed unless it gets political via unions kicking up a fuss.

I have to ask though, what exactly are the usual supports and do think Irish SME's have them?

ottolwinner

Teachers are not adequately trained to deal with being attacked or assaulted. I’m not talking about adults but children assaulting them.

as for decision making on dealing with people who have mental health issues there’s no training there nor are most qualified or privy to knowing if there are mental health issues.

I think the op is talking more so about the management and their inability to manage consistently and fairly. That’s the impression I got from the initial post.

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121493030#Comment_121493030

In my case, previous Principal 'retired' and no one else applied except DP.

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121493165#Comment_121493165

The only time I'm going to praise the Teaching Council :)

I'll find if required but Principals who have complaints against are not permitted to retire until an investigation. Our previous principal had three formal complaints and two early retirements. I don't know if the lump sum would be impacted but the get out card can't be used as easily.

csirl

Teaching Council is a waste of taxpayers money. The only way to get struck off is to commit a crime. They have never upheld a complaint from a parent or student, no matter how bad it was.

I'm also skeptical of their ability to check qualificatiions - I honestly think they accept anything on face value and only check if simeone complains.

History Queen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121496501#Comment_121496501

Not sure where you get your information but it's incorrect. And as regards accepting things at face value, they are notoriously difficult to deal with if you are trying to get registered via anything other than the traditional routes to teaching.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/womans-name-removed-from-teaching-register-over-false-information-about-qualifications/a1888989196.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2022/11/14/teacher-removed-from-professional-register-over-false-claims-he-worked-for-years-at-cork-school/

joebloggs32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121496501#Comment_121496501

Teachers have been removed from the register. Some chose to resignn from the teaching council also to avoid the hearing which would have booted them out so the stats won't show them. This loophole however was closed in the last year.

Getting registered is also notoriously painful for anyone who qualified outside Ireland.

And, finally....a waste of taxpayers money 🤣🤣🤣.... the teaching council is being funded by the annual registration fee that teachers pay.

Hontou

For me the 'nasty side to teaching' revolves around unequal timetabling. In my school, there are some teachers teaching many subjects with full classes and others seem to have few subjects with many resource classes or team teaching classes instead. Some post holders have very light timetables relative to other post holders and non post holders. In teaching, some people get promoted into posts that involve quite basic administration duties (that could be done by non qualified administrators) and in turn get time off their teaching to fulfill these roles in the guise of 'quality' or other wording on their timetables.

rainbowtrout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121481981#Comment_121481981

Some of the stuff that happens in my school on a regular basis is outrageous. To the point that I mention it in a conversation a few weeks later to teacher friends in another school and they are 'you never told me that!!' and I had forgotten to tell them a particular story because I had two other outrageous stories from that week.

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121498424#Comment_121498424

And the narrative spun is that is done randomly even though people are lucky enough to be off last class every day while the others are in first and last.

HazeDoll

It's amazing what you discover when you do S&S.

Teachers with eight or nine kids in their classes while other teachers are wrangling 30 kids in every class.

Teachers with 'team teaching' classes on their timetable. When you show up to cover for them their lead teacher looks bewildered and says "Oh, I didn't know that person was supposed to be here, I always teach this class on my own."

Teachers who have demonstrated an inability to manage a subject or a class full of students so they are give a nice number giving one-to-one support to students who never show up to school. Or lots of 'SEN admin' classes, where nobody knows what they're supposed to be doing or if they're doing anything.

There's really no way to fail out of teaching. You either fail upwards or you find yourself relieved of most of your workload.

ottolwinner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500567#Comment_121500567

is this your personal experience from how many schools?

csirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121497240#Comment_121497240

Waste of teachers hard earned cash 😄

Would be better being fully State funded to eliminate any conflicts of interest.

HazeDoll

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500655#Comment_121500655

My own experience, mostly from one school. A recent change in management has sent things over a cliff.

ottolwinner

I haven’t come across that in my experiences of many schools at all

i would imagine sitting doing something your bored of or pigeonholed into because you’re not able to manage else where is mind numbing and drags the hell out of time.

Icsics

The entire selection process for mgt is deeply flawed. The P controls the BOM…the BOM selects a ‘panel’ for interviews. The P knows who they want in DP & post positions & they always get their way. All of this leads to experienced teachers being overlooked for less experienced teachers. BOMs & selection panels are very carefully selected..once the P does this they have free reign

HazeDoll

I know a lot of teachers are disenchanted because they feel they were unjustly overlooked for posts.

I have very little interest in a post, all my unhappiness comes from the gradual erosion of everything that makes teaching a class possible.

Changes to the JC mean I have a huge course to cover (core subject) so nothing gets covered to my satisfaction. Large mixed ability classes mean nobody achieves what they should. I have 28 in my third year class and 22 have some form of additional need, some genuine and some spurious. This lowers the bar for everybody as well as creating a massive extra workload. Time that used to be spent correcting copies or preparing is now spent responding to emails or filling out pointless progress reports.

If a student wants to show up with no book, no homework done and a bad attitude and then ask to go to the toilet so they can miss 20 minutes of the lesson there's nothing I can do to compel them to stay in the room and participate. If they use their phone without permission I'm not allowed to confiscate it without involving a yearhead, most of whom are so busy they will, understandably, return the phone if they get a grudging apology rather than add to their list of parents to contact that day.

Last year, over half of my leaving cert class had attendance of less than 60% over the two years (Sept 2021 - June 2023). Apart from the usual colds and injuries, 'anxiety' accounted for a lot of absences but holidays were a very significant factor. I frequently got emails saying, "We're going on holidays, we'd appreciate it if you could put work online and we'll see that he does it." They come back with no work done. "I wasn't able to do it because you didn't explain it."

I have SNAs bustling in and out of classes taking kids for 'self-regulation' breaks, then asking me at the end of the class what they missed. Parents explaining to me why I should allow their child to submit homework in the form of a mindmap or an infographic when the task is to write an 800 word essay.

And inspectors who are inexplicably OBSESSED with whether I wrote the date on the board at the start of the lesson.

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121496501#Comment_121496501

Firstly it is not taxpayers paying for the Teaching Council, it is teachers themselves. Ans secondly the Teaching Council are not some sort of service for cranks who don't like teachers.

csirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502456#Comment_121502456

I dont think its appropriate to refer to parents/students who lodge a complaints with the TC as "cranks" - the whole reason teaching exists is for the benefit of the students.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502447#Comment_121502447

Yep....that's the ridiculous nonsense it's descending into

WWMRD

I could have written this myself. I went back in 2010 to do PGDE and in the last 13 years the changes that have occured are scaring me. I dont know if I will get to retirement age doing this as a job....but the way that it is going job share might be the way out!

spurious

I'm sorry, I laughed at the date on the board comment. So true.

csirl

The BOM influence on appointing people to posts of responsibility seems to be a big issue in many schools. In my wifes school its effectively a closed shop. Unless you"ve a connection with one of the BOM, you've no hope.

Treppen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121513156#Comment_121513156

Once that notion gets in , teachers who previously would have applied will look at the vacant notice and chuckle.

csirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121513566#Comment_121513566

There was one occassion in my wife's school where a staff member brazenly told a couple of other staff who'd applied for a post nor to bother turning up for the interview as she was on a promise!

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121513711#Comment_121513711

Happening in every school. The interviews are being rigged for the favourites who leave an apple on the principal's desk every morning.

gaiscioch

Does anybody know how, in fact, timetabling is done? I was told I am with 6 or so other teachers and that if I want to adjust my timetable they would have to change the other teachers in my group. Is that true?

ottolwinner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121513727#Comment_121513727

It’s a stretch to say it’s every school. Maybe a minority. I know people in jobs teaching and otherwise who although capable haven’t interviewed well and in fact weakened their capabilities at interview by the poor answers they gave, being funny out if nerves etc. ive been in situations interviewing possible candidates for jobs where I know they can do the job but they haven’t convinced the rest of a panel of interviewers. Decisions have to be unanimous and full transparency is available should it be required

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121515884#Comment_121515884

It is most definitely NOT a stretch. In the vast majority of schools the interviews are rigged. I know of a school where excellent teachers of 25+ years experience are being overlooked for teachers with less than 5 years experience, and then subsequently humiliated with "advice" on how to improve after their 6th or 7th interview. Sometimes they're being interviewed by shysters in their early to mid 30s who know nothing.

The Ps and DPs who engage in this practice are sick. Not only are they stupid (as they divide their staff) but they don't give a **** about their school or their students.

You've interviewed candidates where you "know they can do the job"?. . . . Gimme a break - you make it sound as if these are posts are at NASA.

There's no full transparency as you well know. The totalling of the points is easily rigged in favour of the chosen candidate and "transparency" or appeal is only applicable if the points happened to be totalled up wrong [which given the quality of management these days is probably not a bad thing].

ottolwinner

I have to disagree with you. Years doing a job doesn’t guarantee someone should get a post. If they are being given advice on how for the 6th/7th interview as you mention they need to factor that into their interviewing ability.

I can’t go into details of where I’ve been on panels for interviewing but some positions would have been for roles where life and death was on the line. 25+ years doing something isn’t always the most important criteria.

in fact the more years experience someone has the more the stronger a hand they should have in terms of experiences they can call on as examples of why they get a job.

I understand you’re passionate on the topic but you can’t make mad statements that interviews are being rigged and bring an apple expecting it to be treated as fact. It’s simply not.

there’s more to interviewing results than points scoring and if someone wants to appeal they can. Plenty of interview coaches will tell you exactly on what grounds to appeal.

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516075#Comment_121516075

What I'm stating is fact. The interview panels should be brought to an end (most of you on them are onto a nice little earner btw so no wonder you're trying to portray integrity and professionalism). Seniority should be returned. It was a system that worked, a system that didn't have principals playing teachers off each other, a system which brought no backbiting and backstabbing and a system which rewarded teachers for their service and experience and not because they're the local GAA guy or known to someone on the panel.

ottolwinner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516122#Comment_121516122

It appears to me that if it’s not to your liking you’re very quick to make out it’s all wrong. I would definitely be noting that it any interview if you happened to be interviewing.

its a pity you’re so assuming that cash changes hands for these roles on panels. I haven’t interviewed in educational setting and have no knowledge if there are payments for such. In the private sector where I have interviewed no payment was made. It’s a pity you make so many assumptions and direct accusations because it helps form opinions of you. Maybe why you’re aggrieved by these interviews.

Anyhow I’m not arguing black is white with you. Get yourself a mirror for that. Good luck.

HazeDoll

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516122#Comment_121516122

The problem with seniority is that posts become a sinecure for worn-out teachers or lazy feckers who had 'done their time.' When seniority was an important factor in interviews there were chancers who had never taught a full week being handed year-head positions, which they proceeded to approach the same way they had approached teaching.

The current system is far from perfect but at least it's transparent. There is some effort to acknowledge merit and hard work.

drserious4

Interesting points above.

I agree with one poster - children are constantly on holidays these days.

Children missing for a week of school here, a week of school there, to go to the Canaries (in November when it's cheap, for example) or a few days away midweek in Centre Parks or Lapland or anywhere else that takes their fancy is becoming exceptionally common.

Parents will look for work for their children to do over the span of the holiday (and then generally not do it).

I just wonder - in general, has people's work ethic suffered and is this affecting how they view their child's education as well?

Maybe it was Covid, or maybe it predates that. I just think that people are constantly looking for reasons to get a day off work for any old reason and children are constantly missing school for equally unimportant reasons.

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516199#Comment_121516199

I have indeed seen hard working teachers get promoted under the new system. I've also seen lazy teachers get promoted simply because they're drinking buddies of the principal. I've seen hardworking teachers who are hardworking OUTSIDE the classroom and skiving off from the job they're paid to do - TEACH. This, apparently, is what is known as "leadership". The best teachers are the hardworking ones and whilst it is the case that teachers become tired as they get older (this is inevitable for EVERY teacher) they also become more experienced.

The appointment process for AP1 and AP2 posts is just an appalling disgrace.

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121516158#Comment_121516158

So let me be clear here. . . . In your 25+ years experience of interviewing you have never received any payment for acting as an interviewer?

Sheep breeder

Come across this thread, as a parent view, when your children talk about a teacher you get a mental picture of them and like last week went to fifth year PT meeting, and they were exactly as I had them in my head, the teachers that knew the child inside out and were able to tell how they were progressing in that subject, the waffler who hadn’t got time yet to correct the last two class exams and was out with the sports teams and missed half the classes so far and was friendly with the principal, the teacher who told us her door is open at lunchtime and stays back in her class for extra hour on Wednesday and anything that student wanted to ask call. The teacher who was nervous and hadn’t much to say and the one that can’t control the class and gets very little work done and our girl’s subject she is falling behind in. Last year our other daughter done leaving cert German and we had to met the principal several times about homework being put up at 10 o’clock at night( 5 other parents also) due to the teacher being so poor and struggling to speak the language. The principal attitude was the teacher was doing so much for the school gaa teams and would look into it.