The recent case involving camera phones and a pornographic picture of a young girl will have been another unpleasant reminder to parents that their teenagers live in a very changed world, writes Breda O'Brien.
A few will have wondered whether it could possibly have been their daughter. More will have glanced uneasily at their children's camera phones and wondered what exactly is circulating via these pricey toys.
Teachers, too, will have had more than a passing interest. We are already driven mad by the bleeps signalling the arrival of texts during class time, and by the occasional foolhardy student who lets a mobile ring in class.
The recent case confirms that phones have moved beyond being irritants to prompting criminal activity, that is, the possession or dissemination of a pornographic image of a minor. Like parents, teachers were reminded sharply that dealing with teenagers is becoming ever more complex.
There are some things which second-level teachers find hard to fathom. Non-teachers will shake their heads and say things like, "I don't envy you your job". Yet this acknowledgement of the difficulties facing teachers evaporates when it comes to benchmarking.
The funny thing is that most teachers enjoy dealing with teenagers. Yes, young people can occasionally be noisy, restless and irritating, but they can also be engaging, stimulating, generous and very, very funny. Few things are as rewarding as seeing them come in as children and go out as young adults, and helping them through that process. Yet even the biggest fans of young people among teachers acknowledge that teaching them has become immeasurably more difficult.
That is why teachers cannot understand why there is little or no public sympathy over parent-teacher meetings outside teachers' official working hours. It is just another reminder that while teachers may get the sympathy vote for working with teenagers, they are not regarded as professionals. Just suggest that your accountant, bank manager, or plumber meet you at a time convenient to you but not within their working hours. Certainly, in some instances you might be facilitated, but not without a hefty fee.
Even in matters potentially of life and death, such as a sick child, after normal working hours your doctor's answering machine will divert you to a locum service. Yet teachers are expected to continue working after an exhausting day, in some cases with a mere 15-minute break between the last class and the parent-teacher meeting, with no demur. Nor should the benchmarking increase be thrown in their faces. For the last decade or more, teachers have been implementing not only new syllabi in established courses, but are teaching entirely new subjects, or subjects which are being examined by the State for the first time. None of this is publicly acknowledged. Nor have the many hours given voluntarily at plays, debates, trips, musicals and sports events been acknowledged. This lack of appreciation has prompted many teachers to wonder why they bother.
The sub-text to the parent-teacher meeting issue is that teachers have such a short working day and such long holidays that the least they can do is facilitate people with proper jobs. Parents, in this era of economic progress, can no longer be expected to give up valuable work-time for anything so irrelevant to the workplace as child welfare.
Envy of teachers' apparently short hours is rampant, but there has not exactly been a rush to requalify as teachers as a result. The public's view seems to be that it would be a great job if it were not for pupils, not to mention hours of correction and preparation. The teachers who actually enjoy working with this much-maligned age group, on the other hand, are rewarded by being treated with far less regard than other professionals.
Parent-teacher meetings have become increasingly stressful. Parents' worries and fears have increased greatly in recent years, and the range of issues discussed at parent-teacher meetings is boggling. No one is more sympathetic to the plight of parents than teachers, because after all, they are probably the only other adults to relate to teenagers so closely.
However, they are also aware that as teachers, they are not qualified as counsellors or life-coaches. And the very dilemma which may be plaguing the parent may also be frazzling the teacher in dealings with his or her own adolescent children. Yet not unnaturally, parents look to teachers for answers.
Take the question of dyslexia and other learning difficulties. Awareness and diagnosis of these conditions has grown immeasurably in recent years, yet resources provided by the Department of Education have not kept pace. A teacher could have five or more pupils with various difficulties, and is expected to deal fairly and humanely with them, while also covering a course for an exam. Teachers are anxious to help, but sometimes they feel stretched to the limit. Then there are the few parents, thankfully a small minority, who treat teachers as functionaries whose sole role is to guarantee their child their God-given right to maximum points.
Far from supporting teachers in practical ways to deal with the increasing demands of teaching, the Minister seems determined to win brownie points by humiliating them. Sending out inspectors before Christmas was standardisation gone mad, and a waste of time and money. Many of the schools visited by apologetic inspectors have been waiting a decade or more for a decent school building, and they are not impressed by a Minister who seems more interested in standardisation than education.
Secondary teachers are in a demoralised state following the inept way in which their union handled their legitimate case for a pay rise, and the Minister seems determined to capitalise on that demoralised state in order to wrest further concessions. It has been a long, long time since any Minister for Education has shown any genuine regard for teachers or treated them as partners. Some veterans claim that the last may have been John Wilson. The majority of teachers still manage to enjoy most aspects of teaching. The question is, how long will that situation continue?