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Drunk in Charge of Classroom · Mark and Pete

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  Drunk in charge of a classroom. Welcome to Mark and Pete.
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  You know, authority depends on clarity.
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  A pilot and a see straight. A surgeon must stand steady, and
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  a teacher must speak without slurring the verbs.
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  Yes, this is Mark and Pete. Oh, here it is, our first
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  thought. Teacher's time If a teacher was
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  a bottle of wine, then a pupil would be the glass as wisdom
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  pours through the Grapevine with high spirits in every class.
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  Well, yes indeed. Now a teacher who was found
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  under the influence of alcohol at 2 schools has been banned
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  from the profession. Why is this?
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  Well, Julia Leith, who worked at Judge Meadow Community College
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  in Leicester has actually been banned.
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  Now, this was as a result of teachers as well as pupils
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  noticing that the teacher was slurring through their class and
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  not being able to communicate effectively and certainly reeked
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  of alcohol. Now, Mr. Pete, I know that you
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  have been under tremendous pressure as a teacher in the
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  past. What would cause somebody to do
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  this? And and to really be in a
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  situation where they would compromise their standing in the
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  profession. Well, the stress of teaching,
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  particularly in the stake sector, I would say in, in this
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  country, yeah, I've had a little bit of experience of it being a
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  being a teacher in state schools.
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  And there's there's a lot of expectation from the teacher,
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  certain standards that you have to reach as a new got to along
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  with an educational aims for each student.
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  You've got to control sometimes an unruly class.
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  And during my time teaching, I can't remember the exact number
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  now, but certainly several teachers went off sick with
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  stress and two actually permanently retired from
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  teaching through stress. And the main school I was in, I
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  won't name it, of course, one of the senior teachers often missed
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  his afternoon lessons and he could be found if you wanted
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  him, sinking gently into the seat in the corner of the local
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  pub. So that's it.
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  Is it is an issue the stress and drinking alcohol can be one way
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  of coping with stress. I would say it's not a good one.
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  Alcohol is fine as part of your natural diet and to relax a
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  little bit of of an evening, but it's not a way a good way to
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  cope with stress for the obvious reasons.
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  You know, it's it's it actually inhibits you from making good
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  decisions for a start, which would be a way of getting you
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  out of the stressful situation. But also after the first, the
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  initial buzz of drinking it actually makes you more
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  depressed, as many Alcoholics and heavy drinkers could attest.
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  So how did she slip into it? Well, I, I, I think we don't, I
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  don't know her exact thinking on this, but I suspect so much
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  stress involved that she just needed a drink to take take the
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  edge of it. And then this became more and
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  more because the stress didn't go away.
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  So it was a terrible cycle of self abuse and she ended up in
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  that situation when she was slurring her words couldn't be
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  understood and the classroom fell into disarray.
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  So it it's sad that that happened.
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  But and although we must say, yeah, that was her decision to
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  go down that route. I think the way that schools are
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  run need seriously looking at. And one of the main things is
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  the importance of being able to exert discipline on students as
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  as soon as you're not just afraid that they might be a
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  little bit out of control, but actually fearful that you might
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  be hurt or in or even, you know, in some cases, as we know over
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  the past few years, actually killed by your people who some
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  of your students knifing incidents going back over years
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  in, in or around UK state schools.
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  So this we need to deal with that.
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  We need to bring back a strong discipline structure supported
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  by the government, national government, which is supported
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  by the local education authority, supported by the
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  management team in the school and by the local police.
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  In certain circumstances it it needs to be put in place that
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  there is a backup for the teachers so they're not left on
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  the front line by themselves, which I'm afraid is the case
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  these days. Well, indeed.
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  And because what happened in this particular case, there were
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  many other incidents where she was swaying from side to side as
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  she was walking along down corridors of the classrooms, et
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  cetera. And I think to your point, maybe
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  the school could have helped. This wasn't just a one off day.
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  This was something that happened over a long period of time.
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  So I think you're right. I think that there are stresses
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  on teachers. You're right also with the
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  incidents, whether it be threats from pupils or parents and many
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  other things. We've also seen teachers,
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  without going down too much of A, of a sidetrack where teachers
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  have taken their lives because the, you know, the, they either
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  got the wrong kind of mark through some of the invigilators
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  and some of the assessments. And that has caused people to
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  have stress within their profession.
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  But surely the profession itself should be protecting the
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  teachers better. And I think that that's one
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  side, but there's the other side as well, which is, I know that
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  pupils should be there to learn, but there should be a mechanism
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  where ironically, the pupils should also be able to go in
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  confidence to the headmaster or someone to raise some points of
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  concern. Because at the end of the day,
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  we're there to learn from one another, aren't we?
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  I mean, surely the system itself needs to be readdressed?
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  Yes, I mean that it's a whole, it's a systemic problem that
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  teachers are left without support.
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  And this is bad for everyone because you need to have the
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  teacher being an authority. Of course they can't be an
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  authority if they're not supportive.
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  Of course, I would add you can't be an authority if you're drunk
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  on the job either. And that, that goes without
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  saying. We're not saying at all that
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  that excuses the behaviour of being drunk in a class.
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  And I, I believe she can just be struck off.
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  I, I don't know what's happened in this case in that there
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  there's a body called the teaching Regulation Agency,
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  which can prohibit her from teaching that that could happen.
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  I don't know if it'll be be so in this case because although
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  she was drunk in charge of a class, it doesn't appear that
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  anything other than poor teaching has happened.
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  Doesn't seem to be in a a serious incident in addition to
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  that. But yes, it's it's the teachers
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  need the support. Students need to be disciplined
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  and then within that you then need to encourage good quality
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  teaching. The good quality teaching is
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  encouraged, but with the lack of this level of support, the level
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  of support that's given tends to be at what I would call a tick
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  box level. There are reports and examples
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  of work that you as a teacher have to collect to prove that
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  you're actually teaching students.
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  There's a whole extra layer of administrative work that
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  teachers have had to do over the past.
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  I think it's now about 20 years since this started to be
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  introduced. And it's built up and up and up
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  until, you know, the level of work that teachers have to do is
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  far too high. And yet many teachers feel
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  called to teach. They want to teach.
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  And so I, I imagine just thinking about this woman, I
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  don't know this teacher's personal circumstance, but I
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  mentioned this is a complete disaster for her because she
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  will have felt called into teaching this what she wanted to
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  do. And she may not be able to do it
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  anymore because the stress driving her to drink is how
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  we're interpreting it now. Whether or not that's true in
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  her case, it is true generally that teachers are too stressed.
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  It's one of the most stressful jobs in the country and it
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  shouldn't be it it, it should. Obviously it's, there's pressure
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  in the job, but it shouldn't be overwhelming pressure.
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  The way is to to give more support.
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  By support, I mean, they're certainly actually practical.
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  You should be able to give detentions, after school
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  detentions for bad behaviour. Pupils who who are constantly
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  misbehaved should be thrown out of the school straight away and
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  they should be under some sort of supervision, not just thrown
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  out completely out of that school, but then they need to be
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  supervised. I think personally some sort of
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  police notified by the police is important if he gets to that
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  level. I mean, if a child is behaving
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  in such a way they have to be expelled by the school.
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  This is such a level of behaviour that it should be
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  noted to the police. I don't think it's, it's not a
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  crime. They're underage, but it should
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  be, they should be notified. And I think you should take it
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  that seriously. You know, if parents realise
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  that that was going to happen, maybe they would take their
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  responsibilities more seriously as well.
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  But parents, of course, well, that's a whole other level of
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  stress of having to have both parents working in order to get
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  enough money. And maybe we'll that's, that's
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  for another episode. But so I'm not going to put all
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  the blame on the parents. I'm saying it's the whole
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  system, which does include the parents.
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  We need to get rid of this idea that we can cajole pupils into
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  behaving well or encourage them into behaving well.
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  We can, but we need you need. Let's put it this way, and I'm
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  speaking figuratively of course, both the stick and the carrot.
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  Yes, well the Teaching Regulation Agency, the TRA, did
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  mention that when it came to the misleads conduct, they said that
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  obviously when it came to drinking etcetera, this was
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  something that they could not accept.
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  It says whilst there was no evidence that misleads conduct
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  cause harm to people, the panel was mindful of the potential
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  harm that could be caused had misleads colleagues not
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  intervened and sent her home. Now that's all very well, but to
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  the point where those who are, as you say, who are committed to
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  the profession, who want to add value, to educate and to, to
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  give our next generation an opportunity to be able to learn
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  and add value to society. And when you have to have to
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  turn to to alcohol, it's a sobering thought, isn't it, in
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  terms of where we are with our education system?