‘I’m dreading the thought of it all happening again’
LACK OF SUPPORTS FOR TEACHERS WITH CHILDREN PUSHING THEM TO THE BRINK
LAST spring, after eight weeks of lockdown, eight weeks of teaching her students online, and eight weeks of teaching her own three children at home, Brenda Connick finally succumbed to the mounting pressure.
A single mother, a woman committed to her profession, she fell into what she describes as a ‘deep depression’, a state of mind where it was no longer possible to do the job she loved.
Brenda is a languages teacher at Selskar College in Wexford town where she has taught for the past 20 years. She has decided to share her story in an attempt to change public perception of teachers, to reveal the kind of pressures they have been working under since the pandemic began.
She starts by discussing her experiences of the first lockdown last year.
‘During the first lockdown it got really bad, I was on my own for eight weeks; my children’s schools were sending in stuff for me to do with them, and I was working on sending stuff out for my students to do,’ Brenda recalls.
‘We’d have meetings on Zoom, it was just constant. My mental health suffered, my situation became unsustainable. I fell into a deep depression during the summer, it was awful.’
In the end, despite fears about catching the virus or transmitting it to her vulnerable father, she went to stay at her mother’s, allowed herself to ask for help so she could get some work done.
But the memory of that time, of the effect it had on her children, who are aged 9, 7 and 4, has stayed with her.
‘My kids ended up on iPads and tablets, I never wanted them to be doing that at such an early age, but I had to give them something to do, and now they’re addicted,’ she says.
‘I’ve always suffered from mammy guilt, and trying to be everything to everyone, including my students; I try to give everything to my students, not just in academic sense, but also emotionally, and when I feel I can no longer do that it’s hard.
‘I don’t just see myself as a teacher, I’m a nurse, maid, councillor, agony aunt, but I love it, I love my job. But there is a lot required of you, and when your own cup is empty you can’t give to others.’
In the end Brenda says she was unable to give her best to her students nor to her children. What made it worse was that, at the time, she thought she was the only one.
‘At the time I thought it was just me, but when I returned to school and spoke to my colleagues I discovered a lot of them had experienced the same kind of things,’ she says.
That realisation, the knowledge that others were in the same boat, has lightened the load somewhat, as has the support of the school community in general.
‘ Talking to other teachers about it makes you feel like you’re not alone, that it’s not just me who’s thinking or dealing with these things.
I know I wouldn’t have got through it without them.’
Yet, less than 12 months later, Brenda finds herself facing into a similar situation, another lockdown. At one point it appeared as if she and her colleagues would be required to teach their Leaving Cert classes for three days a week, but that plan has since been abandoned by the Department of Education.
‘ They had no choice really, the schools weren’t going to go through with it so they had to change the decision,’ Brenda says. ‘A lot of our students aren’t happy about the u-turn, some of them would be autonomous learners but a lot more need that one-toone mentorship you can only get in class.
‘But if they had brought in the three-day week, what were they expecting to happen? For us to teach classes online as well? It was totally untenable. Although in saying that, teaching online is equally untenable.’
Ultimately, Brenda believes teachers in her position need support, someone to acknowledge the position they find themselves in and act accordingly.
‘I would like to see us be recognised as an essential workers, and for childcare to be put in place for parents who teach,’ Brenda says. ‘My mam helps me out but my dad would be in the vulnerable category, he had a stroke a few years ago and has diabetes. But unfortunately it’s a risk we have to take, what else am I supposed to do?’
‘ There’s no facility in the local area to take my children, I had been able to avail of the breakfast club and after-school but that’s gone now.’
With schools taking every precaution to ensure the safety of staff and students, Brenda believes they should have been allowed to remain open and says her own experiences since returning to class have been positive.
‘Personally I’m not in favour of the closure. I didn’t feel unsafe being in school, and it did my mental health good to be back. I was happy enough, my kids were happy being in school. I’d be thrilled if I was told I was going back full-time on Monday.’
Yet neither she nor her students will decide if and when the schools reopen, a position which she says is unfair on those most affected.
‘With regards to the schools opening I think students need to be given a say, they haven’t been given a voice throughout this, neither were teachers, we weren’t consulted about any of this.
‘ There’s been a lot of teacher bashing, parents don’t understand that it’s not our idea to close, a lot of us want to be back.’
Suggesting that this year’s school curriculum be reduced and the Leaving Cert papers be devised accordingly, Brenda says the decision on whether or not to hold the exams should also be made in tandem with teachers and their pupils.
For now though she must prepare herself for a return to the thing she fears most; another lockdown.
‘I’m dreading the thought of it all happening again, but I am in a better place now and I know that I was able to get through it last time so I’m feeling more positive.’