Irish Teacher: This is why The Department of Education is a bully
Jennifer Horgan, Diary of an Irish Schoolteacher. "We need to stand up to the bullies and call out bullying when we see it. Especially when the bully is the Department of Education."
Raymond Heaslip’s father made a plea at his son’s funeral. He asked young people to speak up when they witness bullying. He’d just lost his son Eden, his eighteen-year-old boy, and yet he channelled his remaining energy into protecting other possible victims – showing immeasurable courage amid immeasurable grief.
There’s a great irony when us teachers take up the fight against bullying in our classrooms. The truth is that the Irish education system is a bully, and every one of us who goes along with it, pretends not to see it, is part of the problem. In our silence, we position ourselves on the bully’s side.
Our system bullies in big, general ways. And it bullies in medium, every so often ways and it bullies in very particular, targeted ways. The general bullying comes in how we separate young people by gender, class, and so-called ability. It comes when we funnel individuals through a rigid system, often neglecting those who need our attention and kindness most.
It exists wherever we ask non-Roman Catholic teachers to teach what they don’t believe, or whenever we instruct non-Roman Catholic children to sit at the back of the class, to stay put when the priest visits, to make themselves invisible inside their own communities.
But the individually targeted bullying is the most horrific. And it’s exactly what’s happening to Calum Geary and his family.
This one story has been covered numerous times in the media, but it’s not going away – nor should it. Because Calum’s father, Andrew, has no intention of being silent. He will speak up and he will keep on speaking up until we listen.
Calum Geary was born profoundly deaf. According to his psychologist’s report he ‘requires’ a fully qualified Irish Sign Language Teacher in his class. The hearing population often regards ISL as a basic mode of communication. Andrew Geary defines it as a robust, complex language. He explains that If Calum’s SNA doesn’t know the sign for adverb or adjective or isosceles triangle or oxbow lake, then they cannot adequately educate Calum across his subjects. It’s the equivalent of learning a language from somebody who doesn’t speak it very well. Except it’s not about one subject. It’s every subject.
Denying Calum access to a graduate interpreter from the Centre for Deaf Studies denies Calum his constitutional and human right to an education. Alongside Irish and English, ISL is an official language of Ireland. There is a statutory duty on all public bodies to provide free interpretation, a legal fact that continues to be ignored.
The Department of Education is refusing to pay anything beyond a standard SNA wage for someone to sign for Calum. The course to become a truly qualified ISL interpreter or teacher takes four years and is highly specialised. The Department of Education is unwilling to offer even the highest rates offered to an SNA. It remains opposed to adequately supporting Calum and the other 80-100 children like him.
Calum’s twin brother started in secondary school last September. Calum remains in sixth class.
This is a story of a deaf boy who is being bullied. It’s also the story of a father who is not afraid to stand up to the bullies. Andrew, a Garda sergeant of 24 years, confides that he nearly died in service nine years ago but rushed to put his uniform back on to serve his country and all its citizens.
Andrew Geary is not backing down neither is he begging for favours. He understands that by investing a maximum of maybe €70 000 in Calum’s education now, the state avoids far bigger long-term costs. If Calum is bullied out of reaching his potential, the state will pay his unemployment benefit, his transport costs, his rent allowance, his medical expenses.
Andrew Geary’s determination comes from a place of love for his son and country. He believes we can be better, that we are better. He’s willing to embrace the pain as he puts it, because he believes that truth will have its triumph.
The final hope he shares with me is a patriot’s one. His hope is that Calum never learns about the fight he’s had to fight. He wants Calum to look up at the Irish flag one day and feel as loved as anyone.
Andrew Geary believes in his country – so much so that he’s willing to call out the bullies.
Who will join him?
