EASTER week is teacher conference week. While one may be inclined to the view that the timing of the conferences has sublime roots in the great Christian themes of persecution followed by rebirth and renewal, the reality is probably somewhat more mundane - down to mere logistical considerations of school holidays and hotel availability.
As the unions survey the world of Irish education today, what is likely to attract their attention and concern? For the first time in nearly two decades the conferences are happening against a backdrop of economic downturn and growing anxiety. Many of today's teachers have little memory of the 1980s. Of the approximately 27,000 primary school teachers, for instance, more than 13,000 have been recruited in the past 10 years. This is a generation with little experience of privation or economic worry. They entered the workforce at a time of full employment. They have little experience of scarcity and have no reason to assume other than that working life and conditions will inevitably and inexorably improve over time.
But of course there are also those at the conferences who were initiated into teaching through the dark days of Ireland of the 1980s. Each year during that decade they witnessed 30,000 young people emigrating from Ireland, many of whom had been in their classrooms just a year or two earlier. For this generation of teachers, there was always something which they found slightly unbelievable to the phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger.
For this generation, this year's conferences are a case of back to the future.
If indeed we are now at the end of an unprecedented cycle of economic buoyancy and growth, it is inevitable that this year's conferences will reflect ruefully on opportunities missed and potential unrealised during the boom. They may be further disheartened by the likelihood that planned developments in education, envisaged against a backdrop of optimistic assumptions on the economic front, may well be revisited in the light of the new circumstances.
In a period of straitened economic circumstances the task of prioritising spending becomes all the more difficult. Against this background it is important that the different sectors within education work in concert towards growing the overall spend on education and not go down the road of inter-sectoral competition.
Such a perspective would mean that each sector within education would look beyond its own particular boundaries in formulating policy, recognising that the presence of a problem within a particular education sector does not automatically mean that a solution to that problem also lies there. The problems which the primary school child encounters there, for instance, are likely to have developed in the pre-school years and in not having been effectively dealt with there, are now persisting into primary. Similarly, if not picked up and dealt with at primary level, they will challenge the post-primary system, putting further pressure on an already overstretched resource-base.
As Maria Montessori articulated: "We cannot possibly estimate the consequences of preventing a spontaneous action as the child is just beginning to do things; perhaps we may be destroying life itself. The humanity which manifests itself in its intellectual splendor in the sweet and tender age of childhood as the sun shows itself at dawn and the flower when it first opens its petals ought to be respected with religious veneration; and if an educational act is to be efficacious it will only be so if it extends to help towards the complete unfolding of life."
Teacher Unions, like all unions, will always seek additional resources.
By comparison with other countries with whom we like to compare ourselves, eg Finland and the US, the Irish spend on education continues to be low. These are just two of a number of countries that spend a substantially greater proportion of their GNP on education than is the case in Ireland.
Teachers are likely to argue that additional resources into education should be spent in two ways - reduced class sizes and greater expenditure on information technology. With regard to class size, there continues to be an alarming number of children taught in classes of 30 or more in Irish primary schools. While this persists, the campaign for reduced class sizes will continue to secure extensive teacher and public support.
With regard to technology, the cost of purchase, maintenance and ongoing training in its utilisation in the classroom represents a major investment challenge in both primary and post-primary schools. In failing to get on top of this issue over the past 10 years, it is difficult to be optimistic in this regard for the coming decade.
In the overall resource mix of the classroom the ultimate resource is that of the teacher. No investment in technology can replace the input of a dedicated and imaginative teacher. Ongoing conversation with teachers suggests that the biggest challenge they face in schools today is simply that of working with a 21st century child or teenager. There is a perception in the teaching profession that teachers are doing more and more while students are doing less and less.
This perception may not be well founded. The fact is that while it can be hard to teach children what they do not know, they usually find it easy to learn things given the appropriate context. Scout, the heroine of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, describes how her teacher on discovering on her first day in school that she was already literate, looked at her "with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me anymore, it would interfere with my reading. 'Teach me?' I said in surprise, 'he hasn't taught me anything, Miss Caroline. Atticus ain't got time to teach me anything'. Miss Caroline apparently thought I was lying. 'Let's not let our imagination run away with us my dear. Now you tell your father not to teach you anymore. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage.'" Teachers will inevitably see the world through the lens of a teacher.
Coming to see it from the vantage point of the learner presents a new kind of challenge. Teachers are increasingly recognising that they must now occupy this world if they are to be effective teachers. As the single most significant resource in the world of Irish education, the developmental needs of Ireland's 60,000 teachers must remain an absolute priority in leveraging the optimal return from public investment in education. Knowledge, unlike any other economic input, is not depleted with use but, rather, increases. The craft knowledge of teachers, in a time of depleting resources elsewhere, could well prove the surest foundation for Irish education into the future.
If this is to be the case, this knowledge needs to be protected and nurtured. Teacher conferences provide an important forum wherein this knowledge is acknowledged and celebrated. If only for that reason alone, they are a welcome and valuable contribution to thinking and morale in the world of Irish education.
Prof Tom Collins is head of education at NUI Maynooth.
