I am a Teaching Principal in a three teacher school ( plus ** S.E.T. teachers!) I am almost ** years old and I have been absent on sick leave since early June 2017. My health has completely broken down.
The past two years have been a very expensive nightmare of visiting doctors, dentists, two neurologists and a pain management specialist. I now have a diagnosis of aytypical trigeminal neuropathy and occipital neuropathy. To cut to the chase….
I have very bad nerve pain on one side of my face, my ear, my mouth, teeth and my gums.I also suffer from very bad nerve pain in the back of my head and neck.This disease is also known as “The suicide Disease” because the painful flare ups are so unbearable and unremitting that eventually the sufferers seek a way to end it all. Seriously! Not much consolation in finally getting THAT Diagnosis.
Thankfully I am getting considerable relief from medication and although I am not a suitable candidate for surgery I have been left with very little hope that this disease will improve or go into remission in the short term. And so my life is a constant round of consuming very strong tablets that leave me in a “zombie“ state and nerve blocks ( injections into the back of my neck and throat) every six weeks to calm the trigeminal and occipital nerves and stop them flaring.
Meanwhile Medmark are doing their best to get me back to work…Another story….
For the past six or seven years the job of a Teaching Principal has become an impossible task.
I really do mean impossible. Principal teachers are a rare breed.They are extremely conscientious and hardworking. School comes before your own life, family and health and even with the best staff in the world and a good Board of Management it is a lonely job. I cannot imagine how much more stressful it would be if the staff and BOM were not supportive of the principal. I can say with certainty that I would never have heard of “The Suicide Disease” let alone be suffering from it if I had had the good sense to step down from my position with the advent of school Self-Evaluation.With the benefit of Hindsight I might have have got out of the job before I reached this point in my life.
Let me now “self-evaluate “ as to what major stressors have brought my health to breaking point.
- Serious and ongoing underfunding of small schools by the Department for the last ten/12 years. There is constant pressure to have fundraisers just to pay the bills. All of this pressure falls on the principal.
- Ridiculous and vexatious amount of paperwork FOR EVERYTHING but especially the duplication of paperwork with Garda vetting. What ARE The Teaching Council doing?????? What is their function? Either a teacher is registered and vetted or not.
- The change in the pupil /teacher ratio. It used to be 49 pupils to retain our 3rd teacher. It rose to 56 at one stage.The loss of a teaching colleague has been hanging over my head for the past few years and every September it has been down to the wire. This is an extremely stressful situation not helped by difficult parents mindful of their new power over the school demanding Tommy or Billy get x, y and z or they will be moving schools! Reduce the pupil/ teacher ratio for rural schools.
- The sheer amount of time and work required to get any additional help for children with Special Needs.
- The paltry remuneration for the job of being a principal.
- The increasingly common pattern of extra work landing on our desk the day before the Christmas/Easter/Summer holidays.
I am glad to see principals fighting back at last against the absolute senseless workload. At present I am unable to help.
I would like to warn you all that we are not invincible and I am paying the price for being overworked and over stressed.
Be careful and remember Your health is your wealth