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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>When a teacher dies in class</SPAN>
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>The collapse and death soon thereafter of a teacher at the Swallowfield Primary and Junior High School on Whitehall Avenue in Kingston would, without doubt, have caused much introspection among teachers generally.<P class=StoryText align=justify>We certainly don't wish to speculate on whether the death of vice principal and grade six teacher, Mrs Delores Fenton, was caused by conditions related to her job as a teacher, since we are not doctors and we don't feel qualified to do so.
But we can't help wondering if at all the two things were related, especially because we have since heard that that was not an isolated incident and that something similar has happened at other schools.<P class=StoryText align=justify>What we would most certainly like to hear is whether the education ministry, the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) or the school authorities have done anything to determine whether there was any connection between Mrs Fenton's demise and the job.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Mrs Fenton was teaching her Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) class one week ago Wednesday when she suddenly keeled over and never recovered. The tragedy, understandably, sent her students into panic and trauma. The entire school community had to be put through counselling.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Our reporter was informed by the school's principal that Mrs Fenton had been ailing for some time with a heart condition and last year had undergone several surgeries related to that condition.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It is no secret that things are getting tougher and tougher in the classroom. Teaching is no stroll in the park, and many teachers face the classroom in the mornings as if they are entering a battlefield.
The schoolroom is no longer a place of childhood innocence, assuming that it ever was. Much of the shortcomings of the society spill over into the school community; parents - many of them under-equipped themselves - abandon their responsibility for the proper upbringing of their children to the school, and teachers are often not trained in the disciplines that must be brought to bear on the many resultant problems that confront them every day.<P class=StoryText align=justify>What we are trying to say is that the school community is a place of great stress and strain, increasingly so, and we would wish to be assured that all the necessary measures are being taken to minimise this stress on teachers.<P class=StoryText align=justify>For example, do our schools carry out therapeutic activities benefiting teachers in any structured way? Do teachers undergo counselling to determine how they are coping with the job? Are there any monitoring mechanisms to catch stress-related illnesses when they begin to manifest themselves?<P class=StoryText align=justify>If, in fact, there are no such provisions, then we would suggest that the education ministry, in concert with the JTA, act swiftly to give our teachers this protection. If there is no plan to address this concern already included in the work being undertaken by the Education Transformation Task Force, then this might be the right time to include it.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Things are not going to get better in the short or even medium term in the classrooms of the land. They may, in fact, get worse before they get better.
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>The collapse and death soon thereafter of a teacher at the Swallowfield Primary and Junior High School on Whitehall Avenue in Kingston would, without doubt, have caused much introspection among teachers generally.<P class=StoryText align=justify>We certainly don't wish to speculate on whether the death of vice principal and grade six teacher, Mrs Delores Fenton, was caused by conditions related to her job as a teacher, since we are not doctors and we don't feel qualified to do so.
But we can't help wondering if at all the two things were related, especially because we have since heard that that was not an isolated incident and that something similar has happened at other schools.<P class=StoryText align=justify>What we would most certainly like to hear is whether the education ministry, the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) or the school authorities have done anything to determine whether there was any connection between Mrs Fenton's demise and the job.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Mrs Fenton was teaching her Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) class one week ago Wednesday when she suddenly keeled over and never recovered. The tragedy, understandably, sent her students into panic and trauma. The entire school community had to be put through counselling.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Our reporter was informed by the school's principal that Mrs Fenton had been ailing for some time with a heart condition and last year had undergone several surgeries related to that condition.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It is no secret that things are getting tougher and tougher in the classroom. Teaching is no stroll in the park, and many teachers face the classroom in the mornings as if they are entering a battlefield.
The schoolroom is no longer a place of childhood innocence, assuming that it ever was. Much of the shortcomings of the society spill over into the school community; parents - many of them under-equipped themselves - abandon their responsibility for the proper upbringing of their children to the school, and teachers are often not trained in the disciplines that must be brought to bear on the many resultant problems that confront them every day.<P class=StoryText align=justify>What we are trying to say is that the school community is a place of great stress and strain, increasingly so, and we would wish to be assured that all the necessary measures are being taken to minimise this stress on teachers.<P class=StoryText align=justify>For example, do our schools carry out therapeutic activities benefiting teachers in any structured way? Do teachers undergo counselling to determine how they are coping with the job? Are there any monitoring mechanisms to catch stress-related illnesses when they begin to manifest themselves?<P class=StoryText align=justify>If, in fact, there are no such provisions, then we would suggest that the education ministry, in concert with the JTA, act swiftly to give our teachers this protection. If there is no plan to address this concern already included in the work being undertaken by the Education Transformation Task Force, then this might be the right time to include it.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Things are not going to get better in the short or even medium term in the classrooms of the land. They may, in fact, get worse before they get better.