Teachers should know now is not the time for hubris and entitlement

REACTION to the brazen suggestion of an early Christmas holiday for schools was conditioned as much by lockdown fatigue as the sheer cheek of the idea itself.

The proposal from the Teachers’ Union of Ireland was as substantial as a snowflake, and it met with instant, justified exasperation.

This was partly due to the incoherence of the suggestion itself.

In a post on its website advocating this policy, Michael Gillespie, the general secretary of the TUI, said how ‘unprecedentedly difficult’ recent months have been for its members.

So difficult, perhaps, that Mr Gillespie hasn’t had time to notice the tens of thousands who have lost their jobs, and the thousands of others whose employment is being maintained only through State intervention.

In one interview, he said teachers and students were almost burned out, and cited the effects of maskwearing in this regard.

But wearing a mask is now a fact of life for most people around the world, and it is one we will be obliged to live with for many months to come.

The idea that shutting on Friday, December 18, rather than the following Tuesday mitigates the risks of extended families meeting on Christmas Day was even less credible, with no grounding in public health guidance.

This sounded suspiciously like a teaching union looking to extend their holidays, and no argument advanced by the TUI has convincingly challenged that view.

Teachers have undoubtedly made sacrifices in recent months.

They have been obliged to adjust their work practices, and they must leave their homes and families every morning and potentially put themselves at risk. But there are thousands and thousands taking those same risks, and many of them are working in sectors that offer nothing like the job security or pension and holiday entitlements enjoyed by teachers.

Furthermore, there is no job in the country that has not been significantly changed by the effects of living in a pandemic.

Teachers fulfil one of the most important roles in society, and that status was emphasised anew in homes around the country during those difficult months of the first lockdown when schools were shut.

Their importance is widely acknowledged, but it was notable that many teachers have spoken out in recent days to share their frustration with this suggestion of an early Christmas.

One contacted a radio show to argue that teachers are more than their unions. It was an obvious but still relevant observation, because it pointed up how poorly the TUI has served its members – and backed up the revelation in this newspaper that the entire daft scheme originated with an online petition.

THERE is nothing new in the general membership of a teaching union being let down by the interventions of its leadership, but tolerance for this nonsense has never been so low.

And that is a consequence of pervasive lockdown f atigue. Attention has been directed in r ecent days at breaches of restrictions, but the much more important fact is that widespread adherence t o Government advice continues.

This speaks to the admirable sense of responsibility that governs the conduct of the great majority of the Irish population.

The reserves of civic-mindedness on which people have relied are not inexhaustible, though.

There are only so many times they can honour the demands of a Government that continues to fumble for an exit from this latest lockdown, or listen to the grave warnings f rom public health experts that may be designed in part to pressurise policymakers.

Nerves are frayed and patience is gossamer-thin. That is why the ill-conceived posturing by the TUI met with such an angry and tired response.