By Nadine Wilson-Harris
The fear of speaking their minds when dealing with school administrators has been listed as one of the reasons for teachers feeling overwhelmed and leaving the classroom.
According to former classroom teacher Dr. Lorraine Vernal, several teachers have contacted her over the years to talk about not feeling valued. As the country continues to grapple with a teacher migration crisis that placed some schools in a quandry at the start of the new school year on Monday, she appealed to administrators and parents to respect educators.
“Sometimes they complain; sometimes they’re afraid to talk. Having had the opportunity sometimes to deal with conflict at the workplace and talking with teachers and administrators, I say teachers need to know that if they speak their minds, if they speak their truths respectfully, they won’t be penalised. Because that’s why sometimes they don’t say anything; they just leave,” said Dr.Vernal, the director of Women, Children and Adolescent Ministries at the Jamaica Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Dr. Vernal, a trained teacher who was in the classroom for several years, is concerned about the mental health of those teachers who have decided to stay behind and educate the nation’s children. Education minister Fayval Williams disclosed recently that 854 teachers had resigned in the public sector between January and September this year. A total of 1,538 teachers had resigned during the same period last year.
“There are many who are staying, and some are staying, and they are unhappy. They feel overwhelmed by some of the requests; they feel disrespected sometimes by teachers and students and administrators,” she told reporters and editors during the Freedom Come Rain newspaper’s Freedom Talks forum recently.
Guidance counsellor Traceyann Taffe-Thompson suspects many more resignations will be announced in the coming months.
“The remuneration, I believe is a major contributing factor to teachers wanting and deciding to leave. I can tell you: be prepared for more persons to leave. Almost every other teacher says it to me, and what can I say, because the reality is the guidance departments in some schools are also assisting teachers with lunch, teachers who have two and three children,” she revealed.
Taffe-Thompson, who is the immediate past president of the Association of Guidance Counsellors in Education, said that at the end of the day, teachers need better pay. In some cases, teachers are taking care of over 40 students each day, do not drive and have to take the bus, and upon reaching home, still have to mark scripts and plan effective lessons.
“Teachers working for ten years and can’t own a vehicle. Teachers working for 20 years still can’t own a home because they have children, and especially if it’s two educators in the household, it cannot work,” said the guidance counsellor, who pointed to the fact that teacher training institutions have seen a decrease in enrollment.
President of the National Parents’ Teachers Association (PTA), Stewart Jacobs, has called on all stakeholders to pray for the nation’s teachers and for the issues causing the mass migration to be resolved.
“A lot of the strength from teaching comes from experience. We can’t expect to get a product when the machinery that normally puts together and assembles this product is missing. That’s a serious problem,” he said.
