Sir, - As a teacher who lived through the 1984 teachers' dispute, I had no illusions about what to expect this time round from the media and from the public at large. What was new was the cynical way in which politicians and media lowbrows manipulated students and the unanimity with which editors rubbished teachers. Consequently, I have never seen such fury among teachers.
Teachers have been turned into pariahs and been put in the very dangerous situation of having nothing left to lose. Mr Woods, back on view, may well be the one who is barking up the wrong tree in assuming that teachers, having been treated with such disdain, will all troop along to rescue him from his exam "contingency plans" this summer. One thing is certain; ASTI members will almost unanimously play hardball from now on with regard to the Department of Education wish-list as outlined in your exclusive report of April 5th. Henceforth, hitherto moderate ASTI members will not yield an inch without remuneration.
Worse still, we may all be going headlong the way of Thatcher's Britain with severe shortages of committed teachers and a sea-change in the atmosphere and ethos in Irish schools now on the cards. In my own school that might mean - and I dearly hope it doesn't - goodbye to many of the things that made school a good place for everyone.
This year these voluntary unpaid extras include 19 teachers away on the Continent with 2 groups of students during their October break; school participation in Slogadh, in Gael Linn, Soroptimists, Lions club and Concern debates; the mammoth undertaking of preparing six groups for participation in the Esat Young Scientists' Competition, including three exhibition days in Belfast in late June; football, camogie, badminton and basketball training; lunchtime chess, art, music and computing, along with extra classes in Maths, French, Geography, etc.; oral Irish, French and German mocks held on Saturdays and after 4 p.m.; an SIP computer project which will result in the production of a CDRom; website maintenance; development and maintenance of video library; administration of computer networks; weekend in Aran; art, music, history and theatre trips to Dublin; teachers' computer courses at night and on Saturdays; marking of mock exams; organisation and reception of French and German exchanges; participation in music composition competition; attendance at night meetings for parents on subject choice and careers, at parents' council and board of management meetings; participation in staff committees on school plan, curriculum, IT, etc.; relentless hassle of checking uniform, lateness, smoking; setting, supervision and marking of entrance tests; extra classes for refugee students and more; and, of course, voluntary supervision.
Were teachers to take up their entitlement to 30 days' uncertified sick leave - a new one on me - as preached on Mr Kenny's morning programme last week, or to work for only 22 hours a week, then there would be no class preparation, no marking of homework, no use of video, computers or other new technology, no new courses. Were Mr Woods to find takers for marking Leaving Certificate papers at a take-home pay of under £4 an hour, teachers could have three months' holidays instead of helping the Government to deliver marking on the cheap.
We heard in last week's TV documentary on Padraig Pearse - a man who believed that the best brains in the community should be involved in educating the young and that teachers should thus be paid an attractive wage - how this State turned its back on his education ideals in the 1920s. We saw an inept Taoiseach attempt to pay tribute to a great man who has been done down. Born-again Bertie sounded very hollow to me as he looked forward to the centenary of 1916, when Pearse's true role would finally be acknowledged.
Right now it seems to me that Bertie's present vision may instead bring about Pearse's nightmare. Long before 2016 this Government, which insists on taking the finance view, will have driven the carers out of the classroom, much as they have already driven them out of the home. We will then be left with a benchmarked, dispirited, underpaid, second-rate teaching force delivering an uninspired, non-holistic, cost-accounted, payments-by-results curriculum - nothing less than the murder machine that Pearse so much despised. The wheel will have come full circle. - Yours, etc.,
Donal Lynch, Belcotton, Termonfeckin, Co Louth.