TEACHING: THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES FOR WOMEN PRIMARY

SCHOOL TEACHERS IN QUEENSLAND PUBLIC EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

The occupational health of teachers has been investigated in other disciplinary fields in Canada and the US. However, the matter of women teacher's health as a constitutive aspect of schooling and the education of children has been overlooked by Australian educational research. This paper draws on qualitative data from a study in progress of women primary school teachers in Government primary schools in North Queensland. It examines the relationship between primary school teaching and the health of women teachers and discusses factors in their work which influence and cause health disabling conditions. It also provides a preliminary description of teachers' strategies for the prevention of occupational health problems and stress, and their strategies for coping with difficult working and physical conditions, family, gender politics and domestic work.

Dianne Loughhead CooperSCHOOL OF EDUCATIONJAMES COOK UNIVERSITY OF NORTH QUEENSLAND

Paper prepared for AARE 1993 conference, Freemantle, WA, November 22 - 25

Introduction The classroom teacher is the very essence of education. In primary school, the teacher, most commonly a woman, is the essential feature of any classroom. The teacher stays in the room--usually the same room--all day long with the same group of children. These children may leave the classroom for short periods of time 2across the school week if the school has the services of specialist support teachers for music or physical education, or other 'specialty' subjects. But on the whole, all 25-30 children are the sole responsibility of the one teacher and s/he generally works alone. Unlike any other professional, s/he is totally responsible for the physical, social, emotional and intellectual development of these children for six hours per day. The emotional dimension of this relationship has yet to be

measured in terms of psychological or physical stress. However, there are many pathologies to which the primary classroom teacher may fall victim. For example: back or spinal problems may result from stooping over low desks or sitting in chairs designed for small children but which are of a height to bring the teacher down to the 'children's level'. Ringworms, head-lice and impetigo are commonly the result of close contact between infected students and teacher as too are shingles -- an adult response to contact with the childhood disease chickenpox. Measles, mumps, flu and colds are some of the other innumerable contagious diseases that the classroom teacher is susceptible to in the day to day interaction with students. Teachers can also suffer injuries, both physical and psychological, from student abuse -- both verbal and physical aggression (see for example, Bradley, 1993; Tideman, 1992). Teachers may also suffer injuries from using make-shift tools and ladders to display, for instance, children's work on walls. Conditions which are also occupational hazards of teaching include: sexual harassment; voice strain or loss; sunburn -- from lunch and recess duties and/or sport supervision and/or coaching -- heat stress from working in classrooms unsuited to tropical climes; psychological stress and physical stress or exhaustion from the ever increasing demands made on teachers' time and calls for accountability; the psychological effects of a low prestige occupation; poor pay; and for women, little chance for professional advancement or recognition of their contribution to society. For women with children of their own, there are the additional stresses associated with juggling work, family and home. Teaching is now considered among the most stressful professions (Jevne & Zingle,1991) and since it is widely regarded as a woman's "caring" profession, a study of health disabling factors among women teachers seems an urgent priority. Women's healthrelated issues in the teaching profession have not been systematically researched despite the attention given to educational research in recent years. The research presented here attempts to make public the consequences of the Education Department's failure to address teachers' health concerns. It seeks to provide baseline data on health disabling factors among women primary school teachers teaching in public schools and to identify how home and family factors contribute to their health patterns at work. A further aim of the research is to document female teachers' coping strategies that enable them to maintain their health, work and family responsibilities. Why research women teachers rather than both male and female teachers? Women are the dominant force in Queensland primary education. Seventy percent of all primary teachers in 1990 were women; 64 percent of the total Queensland teaching force were women, and 66.4 percent of the public servants in the Department were women. In fact, teaching provides the "biggest single

employment opportunity in Queensland for women with tertiary

qualifications" (Limerick, 1991, p. vii). However, despite the fact that the majority of employees within the Department of Education are women, the number of females in senior management positions has remained acutely low. This then, is a study of women primary school teachers' work and the health related issues that are associated with it. To locate and describe the context of the study I begin by briefly reviewing the literature relevant to women and work, teachers and health, and women, paid work and unpaid domestic work. I then frame the study and its theoretical and methodological underpinnings before proceeding to discuss specific issues identified by women teachers. Themes emerging from the qualitative dimension of the study provide the data for discussion. The focus is on women's discussions of the the diseases, illnesses and injuries they suffer as a result of the work they do and the conditions under which they do it. The voices of women teachers speak to their experiences and form the major part of the paper. Women's Health: Historical Overview Women's health status has become the concern of government and medical personnel at a rate which parallels the involvement of women in the workforce. At the beginning of the century issues of women's health centred around their subordination tothe functioning of their reproductive systems. This focus then shifted to the psychological inadequacies and weaknesses of women in an attempt to demonstrate their difference from men and hence, their inferiority. The conclusion from much of this research stresses that women, even in their healthy state, are not 'normal' healthy adults (see for example, Ehrenreich & English, 1974; Ehrenreich & English, 1990; Kane, 1991). That is, healthy women are effected by their menstrual cycles, reproduction systems and menopause and therefore tend to be unstable, emotional and unreliable. These conclusions have impacted on women in the work place and consequently impeded their progress to leadership roles and aspirations to employment in areas other than those deemed 'suitable' for their perceived mental and physical states (Doyal, 1979). Indeed, women were confined to reproductive and nurturing roles which men prescribed as their 'fit and proper place'. However, these practices which were implemented to protect women and restrict them to 'appropriate' employment have worked to endanger their health. As O'Donnel and Hall (1988) point out:The underlying cause of women's employment injuries is the jobs they do, and that those injuries reflect women's relative lack of power in the workforce. These relationships between employment injury [and illness] and power in the workplace have been obscured by the ways employment injuries [and illness] are measured, described and investigated. (p. 116)

As the National Women's Health Policy ((NWHP), Commonwealth Department of Community Health, 1989) indicates, because women are less likely than men to know their rights or to make claims for compensation, their injuries and illnesses are underestimated and in many instances, untreated. Rather than compound their health condition by the additional stress caused by the processes required to make compensation claims, women are more likely to withdraw from the paid workforce or to take sick leave, holidays or unpaid leave. This action reflects women's fear of losing their jobs -- their economic security. It is also a reflection of the power structures in the work place where women are positioned as inferior, emotional and subordinate. In addition, since many women work the 'second shift' at home, they are not in a position to rest (Kane, 1991), to take time out, and "may be more concerned about either losing their jobs or getting the work done than about their own health" (NWHP, 1989, p. 53). While much has been done to improve women's conditions in factories, industry and commerce and to prevent such injuries as

repetitive strain or over-use syndrome,etcetera, there is little indication of any recognition of the issues associated with the health of teachers, and more specifically, female primary teachers. Feminist research on occupational health has overlooked the teaching profession and educational research has focused on human relations, health and drug education for students, but has not considered teacher health. Teachers are the basis of schooling but many of the reforms implemented in recent years and those proposed for primary education, fail to include provision for the maintenance of teachers' health. An examination of instructional objectives, of teachers' work descriptions, and of teachers' roles, gives the impression that they are little more than talking textbooks or mechanical facilitators in children's learning. But living breathing humans require more consideration, more nurturing, and greater provision than do the buildings, equipment and facilities for which policies are written. Teachers, and in particular female teachers, need provisions which address their health needs. This is a field neglected in both Australian educational and occupational health research. Role conflict. One link between women and ill health is the tension experienced in trying to juggle the demands of multiple roles. Many women teachers combine paid work with unpaid domestic work. Studies of time use consistently show that most of the unpaid domestic, child-care, and volunteer labour falls to women (Bittman, 1991). For the majority of multi-roled women who juggle or integrate the wife/mother/domesticworker/career roles, role conflict, role strain and role overload are experienced

(Goode, 1960). Familial roles and career/paid work are associated with high stress levels and job overload but research has shown that many women would rather overload their own assignments than upset the status quo of the division of labour in the home, and, in many cases, in the work force (Bittman, 1991). Richardson (1981) maintains that the degree to which a woman is able to successfully cope with role conflict is directly related to the degree to which her roles are socially valued. For example, women in less socially valued positions are likely to experience greater role conflict, role strain, and role overload than women in highly valued social positions. Women physicians, for instance, are able to tolerate role conflict because of the high levels of satisfaction and gratification they receive from their work. For teachers' health, Richardson's theory of role conflict and its parallels with society's social value of occupational roles has far reaching implications. Teaching inAustralia does not attract high social value (Limerick, 1991), nor indeed does, child-care, domestic labour or the role of wife -- roles many women teachers attempt to combine with their teaching role. Like nursing, catering, cleaning and textile work, education is an occupation that has primarily been a woman's job. These jobs are necessary for the survival of the human species yet attract low pay and low status. They epitomises the ideology that nurturing work is a labour of love and therefore should be done for free. Those engaged in nurturing occupations such as teachers and health workers are among those most at risk of burnout and stress-related illnesses (Cedoline, 1982). A large volume of research exists in this area which I now encapsulate.

Teachers, stress and burnout Much of the research related to teachers' health has focused primarily on issues of teacher stress and burnout, most of it without adequate theoretical attention to the gendered dimension of these health disabling conditions (cf. Baruch, Beiner & Barnett, 1987). Stress in teachers is an international concern

of not only teachers, but also of their employers: governments, education ministries, and those who seek to cure the problem: health care providers, unions and others. It has been the focus of wide and varied research in Australia (for example, Bradley, 1993; Otto, 1986; Teacher Stress in Victoria, 1990; Sarros & Sarros, 1991; Tuettemann & Punch, 1992), Canada (for example, Jevne, & Zingle 1991), Britain (for example, Payne & Fletcher, 1983), the US (for example, Bacharach, Bauer & Conley, 1986), New Zealand (for example, Dewe, 1986) and indeed, many other countries (see for example, Kyriacou, 1987). Stressful events such as unruly students, impersonal administration personnel,

unfair or poorly organised timetables, poor working conditions, multiple role demands, increased workloads, the pressure and pace of curriculum change, negative public attitudes, job dissatisfaction, and so forth, contribute to teachers' stress. Research on teacher stress highlights the need for teachers to have a job description. Curriculum changes and educational innovation requires that teachers undertake a multitude of ever-increasing roles in their everyday interaction with children, colleagues and administration. They are called on to be in loco parentis, social worker, counsellor, mediator, first-aide officer, fund raiser, accountant, intermediary, career adviser, disciplinarian (agent of social control), transport officer, excursion organiser, business administrator, sports' co-ordinator, continuing student, and so the list goes on adfinitim. For many of these roles the teacher is only invariably prepared, but the expectation, nonetheless, is that s/he will competently undertake each and every role. However, if the teacher is a women, this represents just a portion of the roles she will be called upon to fulfil each day. Given this daunting schedule it is not surprising that teachers suffer high stress and burn-out levels. Indeed, their profession is among what Jevne & Zingle (1991) claim is one of the 'high stress professions'. Literature on teachers and stress highlights particularly the debilitating effects of excessive work role demands, lack of administrative support, work role conflict, low community recognition of teachers' work, low professional image, poor work conditions, large class sizes, high parental demands, student aggression and misbehaviour, lack of non-contact time and paraprofessional support personnel, and administrative obligations, duties and paper-work. Stress research has made a valuable contribution to the understanding of teacher stress across a range of sites. Nonetheless, in general, it does not consider factors external to the school environment as likely contributors to teachers' ill health nor the contribution climatic factors have to teachers' stress levels. The gender dimension has been entirely omitted. Ill health resulting from causes other than stress has generally been overlooked and the research has omitted the differences between stressors and roles experienced by male and female teachers. Generally omitted from the research are other health debilitating conditions teachers are subject to as a consequence of their work which includes the effects of climatic conditions and school conditions on teachers' ability to fulfil the demands of their profession, and the health-related consequences of such conditions on teachers. The consequences of 'role overlap' (VandenHeuval, 1993) have been generally omitted from the research along with the coping strategies of women teachers as they juggle the demands of their multiple roles. Similar shortcomings are to be found in literature on teacher burnout.

Studies on teacher burnout illustrate that without support networks, co-operative and sympathetic administrators, teaching can lead to occupational burnout. The research makes evident that men and women are stressed by different stressors and have their own way of dealing with stress and burnout. Men tend to

use depersonalisation as a means of coping while women tend to deal with their stress through colleague support and camaraderie (Greenglass & Burke, 1988; Sarros & Sarros, 1992). Moreover, Greenglass and Burke (1988) make clear the role conflict women with families experience as theyjuggle the multiple demands on their time and attention. Occupational burnout is an extreme price for women to pay as they attempt to manipulate their multiple roles as teachers, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, etc. Therefore, given the personal and monetary costs of burnout through absenteeism, turnover, poor performance and waste, it would be beneficial to identify the physiological symptoms and illnesses that women experience in carrying out their multiple roles before their health deteriorates to the level of burnout and their expertise is lost to the profession and to those children whose lives they touch. Research reviewed does not consider climatic factors as a possible stressor in teachers' occupations nor does it identify the day to day health hazards that women primary school teachers are faced with in their daily classroom routines and which may contribute to the cumulative processes causing burnout. Stress and burnout literature have guided the construction of the survey instrument used in the present study, particularly Jevne and Zingle (1991) and Teacher Stress in Victoria (1990). I now turn to outline the methodological processes used in this research and then proceed to discuss the themes that have emerged from interview data. But first I provide the working definition of health that is used in this paper. I acknowledge that health is a multifaceted phenomenon (Aggleton, 1990) and that there are many definitions and theoretical assumptions implicit in this concept; however, these will not be discussed here. I refer instead to the bio-medical explanation of health. In biomedical terms health is not merely the absence of disease, sickness or disability nor the absence of feelings of anxiety, pain or distress, but encompasses all aspects of the social being -- mental, physical and social. Thus wellness or health can be defined as "a state of complete mental, physical and social wellbeing" (Kane, 1991, p. xv). It follows then, that to look at the health of any group, these three aspects must be addressed. Hence, my study looks at women teachers' mental, physical and social circumstances and the factors within these elements that become health disabling. It employs multidisciplinary methods to illuminate these factors which I now outline.

The Study: Methodology Jevne and Zingle (1991) argue that qualitative data provide, through a collective voice, the experience of the individual while the quantitative data provide descriptive statistical characteristics of groups of persons without concern for their individuality. Thus the subjective emotional experience attached to instances and events providemeaning and elucidation not available through the objective medium of figures and statistics. This study applies a multidisciplinary methodology to examine the health patterns of women teachers. Quantitative and qualitative sociological and feminist methodologies are used. A large-scale questionnaire informed by both the literature and interviews conducted with a sample of women teachers has been constructed for dissemination to approximately 780 women primary teachers in northern Queensland. It involves the descriptive-statistical accounts of occupational and domestic factors in the lives of the respondents as well as the recently developed item- and person-cluster analyses which permits the empirical patterns of context, belief, illness, and coping to show themselves through association of variables. Feminist research methodology includes personal interviews of participants. Interviews provide women teachers with a forum to

express their standpoints and concerns, and to share information on health issues as it relates to their professional and personal lives. However, feminist research methodologies require that several principles must guide the research. Firstly, the selection of research topics and questions must be in the interest of women. A second consideration is the need to develop non-exploitative relationships between the researcher and her subject. Thirdly, is the necessity for the collaborative production of knowledges, and finally, the need to return the data of the experiences narrated by women to all participants. The aim of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies is to provide insights into the subjective experiences of individuals and to also identify the objective insights gained from inferential statistical analyses. However, due to delays within the Queensland Department of Education in the distribution of this instrument, only themes manifesting in interviews will be discussed in this paper. Interviews loosely followed a schedule and were conducted in situations chosen by the subjects and at times convenient to them. They generally took from 90 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the issues different women wanted to discuss and elaborate. All interviews were tape-recorded using a portable recording machine and solar-powered, ultra-sensitive microphone and were subsequently transcribed verbatim. Copies of each transcript were sent to the teacher for verification and editing. Requests

from teachers to have excerpts from transcripts expunged or modified have been respected in line with the principles of feminist research methodologies. Interviews are continuing but analyses ofdata collected to date reveal many emergent themes which powerfully illustrate the working conditions and experiences of women in primary school teaching and the health disabling conditions that result from them. As much as possible I have allowed the voices of teachers to speak to their own experiences but some interpretive comments are made. Women teachers speak out. Attitudes to the job One of the central themes to emerge from interviews was women teachers' love of their work. Most respondents projected an ethic of care (Gilligan, 1982) and had made conscious subjective investments in teaching and in their professional role. As one teacher put it: I just love teaching....I feel like I'm touching them, the children, in some way. I see them grow and develop and mature. I like to see them happy with themselves because they have accomplished something. But for some teachers the glow has diminished as is evident by the comments of a teacher with 21 years experience: I always loved it, but teaching for me isn't enjoyable at the moment. I feel kids have changed, the Departmental structure has changed. For some teachers their disillusionment is tied to the increased pressures of work. They're piling more and more on top of us. There's Social Justice, then there's HRE, then there's LOTE. They just keep piling things on, yet they don't take anything away. You just have to find the time to do it. Then you have to write up all your own programs, policies.... These comments illustrate the conflict teachers experience between emotion and practice and the stress associated with role conflict (Richardson, 1975; Sarros & Sarros, 1990) experienced when excessive demands are made on teachers' time and resources. The public image of teachers The public image of the teacher caused many teachers to comment that the community did not respect teachers as they once did. In the community I work in, teachers are simply glorified babysitters. Parents bring their sick kids in and say "I'd prefer him to be here and you looking after him than me having to look after him. I get that sort of thing all the time. The lack

of community support for teachers became particularly evident when primary teachers in Queensland took industrial action in the form of a one hour per week passive strike over four weeks in the last term of 1992. Much public comment and vitriol focused on teachers' six hour working day and annualten week holiday allotment. Only those parents and community members intimate with the work teachers do supported their stand

and addressed the industrial action in terms of the benefits that might accrue to students from non-contact time, an entitlement which is available to teachers in all other Australian States as part of teachers' award conditions. Teachers felt frustrated by the community reactions and several suggested that teachers need a good public relations spokesperson. One felt that there should be an intense public education program through which the multiple roles of teachers and their work demands were explained and illustrated and the extent of out-of-school work that is necessary for teachers to fulfil in-school work is stressed and publicised. Integration and intensification of work Integration and special needs students have posed problems for every teacher interviewed. Much attention was given to talking about their lack of training, class size, lack of teacher-aide time and the intensification of role demands especially when a teacher has students with differing challenges and degrees of ability. For instance, one year two teacher has 24 full-time students of which 18 are hearing students, two totally deaf students and four students with other problems. She also caters for three other deaf students who come to her class from the start of the school day until lunch time. She has a child with Carpenters disease. Then there is Jake. He is very slow and he is deaf also but he can hear me if he has his hearing aides on; I don't have to sign for him. Rachel is deaf and also has something else wrong with her. Allan has no immunity...no immune system to fight colds, coughs, ear diseases, infections, no feeling in his nostrils so his nose runs all the time. (YUK!) He is also deaf but was not one of the integrated children so he had to cope like one of the normal children in the classroom. He is now being assessed and I was told he would probably be a level 5 or 6. Helen is developmentally delayed, but because there is nothing physically wrong with her nothing has been done. I teach her at a pre-school level. I have Hope who is under guidance at the moment...Child guidance sent me documentation about what I should be doing with her...but because I have a range of abilities in my class, I feel that like Helen, I can cater for her at a preschool level. Like Helen, she will not stay down next year. This teacher has no special-education training. She did two terms of signing at night classes in her own time and at her own expense so as to be able to communicate with her class, but when the specialist teacher--herself deaf-- for the hearing impaired children is in the classroom to dothe interpreting she has been told in no uncertain terms that her job is to teach NOT to sign. Not only does this teacher have special needs children included as part of her regular class but she also has other deaf students coming into her class from the attached Hearing Impaired Unit. The main dilemma associated with this practice is that the students don't come in at a time that I would choose. The

children come into the class at a time suited to the Special Education teachers and their programs. The classroom teacher finds this lack of liaison particularly frustrating and stressful. She stresses that there is a need for consultation and collaboration between classroom teachers and specialist teachers so that the child's learning is maximised. She felt that the opportunity for learning were greatly reduced by the poorly co-ordinated 'visits' these children had to the mainstream classroom.

To cope with the diversity of abilities in her classroom this teacher runs individual programs for some students and about 5 programs that she runs for different group ability levels. One of these caters for 4 children who are very bright and can work independently but, like most children in grade 2, yearn for individual attention which the teacher feels they are entitled to and endeavours to provide where ever possible. Originally this teacher did individualised programs for all her students but when she ended up with 26-27 children she decided that for her own survival she had to reduce her programs. She spends in excess of 50 hours a week on school work and also has two children of her own. Life for her is a juggling act as she tries to hold her multiple roles together and keep each dimension separate. Another teacher, Joy, with two special needs children suffered anxiety attacks on Sunday nights knowing it was going to be confrontation with the students again on Monday. Rethinking the confrontation again at nights caused disturbed sleep patterns and anxiety. I was quite often in tears on Sunday nights and not to see improvements for many weeks begins to take its toll. Joy had a child with spina bifida as well as hydrocephalus, a hearing and a sight defect. She had to be catheterised in the morning and afternoons. Originally this was done by the "Blue Nurses" (a community mobile nursing service) but economic rationalisation of their services has meant that teachers and aides are now responsible for this procedure. The aides are not trained in this medical nursing field but they've had to learn to catheterise this little girl. The other specialneeds child was intellectually disabled and has been assessed as having an intellectual age of between 2 1/2 and 3. For these two children Joy was awarded eight and a half hours aide time a week. Integration: Survival strategies Due to the intensification of her work and feeling that she was inadequate as a teacher, and despite 19 years of successful, rewarding teaching, Joy found herself thinking of leaving the profession she had loved for some eighteen years. She sought help from her doctor to alleviate her stress and was prescribed valium. This was a conscious precaution Joy took to ensure her problems were 'put on record'. She [the doctor] has a record of the valium prescribed and I've told her some of the things that

worry me and why I've wanted the medication. If I ever wanted to take stress leave, some of this health history is already documented. Joy is well aware of the addictive properties of the drug but is convinced she has not become dependant on them. I don't think I'm dependent on it. I have a mild dose and I take a half if I really can't sleep. If I've had a confrontation with a child or I'm worried about my work or other people at school or I start thinking and start to feel upset and can't calm down, I take a half or sometimes a whole one. Coping with the demands of integration involves teachers in various survival strategies. For the aforementioned teacher it was medication, others have been able to get through by going to the gymnasium. At the gym I have an hour in airconditioned comfort and wipe school from my mind. I think this hour helps me to look at things more objectively but it is sometimes very hard to make myself go, especially when the day has been very stressful and all I want to do is go home and rest.. One teacher has consciously decided to only do school work at school which entails arriving there at about 7am and leaving at 5pm. She feels that keeping her private and professional life separate is the only way she can cope. However, when reports are due or meetings or inservice or parent interviews have impinged on her after-school time, she finds herself having to take work home. Every Monday night I find I have to bring work home because we have our staff meetings on Mondays and they go on until about 4:30 and after that I just want to go home. Another teacher combines 'gym' with early morning starts and late finishes at

school and makes a concerted effort to devote one full week-end day to planning and other school work, but she usually finds herself having to work on school-related tasks on at least one night through the week. Intensification of work beyond the 'chalk-face' Policy and curriculum development and the pressures related to committee work and inservice training were a source of great stress for most teachers. For one teacher, the greatest health problem at the time of interview was stress and burnout. She commented that she felt the burnout was related to the pressure she was under to produce policies and curriculum documents for committees I am on, and it just so happens that the 3 committees I am on are priority areas of the school development plan. Joy pointed out that in small schools there is often only one person on a 'committee' so you go ahead and do the best you can. Meg is into ELA and a key teacher, so every other Monday I'm writing up an ELA program with aims and objectives for 1993. This is for the whole school, because I'm the only key teacher for this school this year it's all up to me to do the programs and the workshops. I'm also on the early childhood [committee]. I have to write aims and objectives for early childhood for next

year. This one I do on Wednesdays at lunch time. ELA workshops are run after school and usually finish at 5pm. For most teachers interviewed, there was no 'release' time to carry out these extra duties. After-school demands for one teacher were interfering with her home life to such an extent that if she wanted to do anything of a personal nature I've got to go to my diary first; I can't just say 'yes I can do it', I've got to check up in my diary first because every afternoon is taken up. Oh shit...this is awful, I'm just sort of thinking, this is taking up all my time, basically. It's enough to really...really send you inside out.Occupational health hazards in the classroom Health hazards of teaching not only include stress and burnout but many other factors in the classroom and school grounds. Putting up classroom displays can be a hazardous exercise for many teachers. You have to put netting up and calico up and lots of things for displays. Now, because each room isn't given a ladder, you've got to improvise -- standing on desks or chairs or whatever the case may be. I've hurt my back stepping down off tables and the castors underneath the OHP have sort of started to roll as I've been stepping on that to try and reach things. I've hurt my back a lot. Classroom equipment and furniture can also be an occupational hazard. I've hammered my fingers because you've also got to be a carpenter. If things are falling apart in the classroom, we don't have anyone who comes in and fixes them. We have tofix it up. If we want it badly, we fix it up. I've hammered my thumb many times. We have chairs that fall apart...good chairs for teachers! Your dress gets caught in it, you stand up and you rip your dress. I've also got my fingers caught between desks. The occupational hazards associated with teaching are increased by the close contact teachers have with children. This poses most risk for teachers of children in early childhood classes. Teachers appear to be susceptible to contagion from many conditions children bring into the classroom, particularly colds, flu, coughs, school sores, head lice, vomiting, measles, mumps, chicken-pox, and viruses in general. One teacher contracted a parasite in the blood and it took the doctors a long, long time to work out what was wrong. It was only after a special blood test -- this parasite only shows up in one particular blood test, apparently -- it is something that's very common in children but with no side effects or illness. My doctor actually suggested that it was caught from a child who may have been drinking from my cup. I sent the child to the taps

with my cup for a cool drink in hot weather. It is possible a child used the cup at the taps and then brought back a drink. One teacher talked about getting head lice and school sores

from her students. I had a dreadful one [school sore] on my heel that came up in a big welt, so...especially with infants that are lying on the carpet, and if you sit on the carpet with them too you're susceptible to that sort of infection. Marking their books when they have this sort of infection can be a problem. It is worse with younger kids, they scratch and pick their sores all the time and then they write on their books and give them to you...There's also this sort of skin infection that you get from time to time and stress and tiredness that's a result of interacting with kids. Carpets were suggested to be a source of infection by other teachers as well as this one. We get kids vomiting all over the floor. We either clean it up or sprinkle this powdery stuff all over it and have to put up with the stench. What sort of health problems does this cause? Another spoke of similar experiences and suggested that once the "powdery stuff" has dried it is vacuumed up but you know that the carpet hasn't been cleaned so you're sitting on the floor. You have kids that will sneeze in your face; they pick their noses and between their legs and its yuk..gross and then next thing you feel this little hand slipping into your hand because they want to be your partner and then you turn aside and look down and you say "that's him", and you know where those hands havebeen. Classroom mechanisms for coping: Cleanliness Taking cushions, towels and loose covers home to launder was an additional job several teachers found themselves doing in an attempt to reduce cross-infection in the classroom: I'm bringing them home to wash all the time. Heaven knows if there are any bugs in the washing machine!! I take all the precautions I can but you'd be wearing rubber gloves and masks to cover everything. You can't do that, it's just one of the hazards of the job. Frequent washing of hands was a strategy mentioned by many teachers to try and eliminate the risk of infection from students. I'm continually washing my hands and I'm continually trying to get these children to wash theirs. It's filthy, and it makes me sick...it makes me sick. Kids sneeze and there's all this green stuff...and yuk...and you tell them to blow their nose and the next thing you see this filthy dirty tissue that's been left on the seat or on the floor or stuffed back in the tissue box so all the time I'm talking about the importance of health and how that you don't sneeze all over the place but it doesn't work...Especially in winter when everyone's got colds. Kids have coughs and bad coughs at that. You know they've got some infection on their chest because of what they cough up on their hand and show you. Most teachers keep a supply of tissues, bought at their own expense, in the classroom because the school, so lovingly, supplies us with one box of tissues per term. Taking time out: Guilt trips Teachers are well aware of the likelihood of catching

infections from students and try to take precautions, such as frequent hand washing, and trying to teach children ways of containing their infection so as to minimise the risk of the infection spreading to peers and themselves. However, when teachers are stressed and tired many feel they are susceptible to any infection. I was just plain tired...from the heat, from the stress of getting the classroom up and running. By the time it came close to half way through the term, I thought that I will just have to take this day off. I took the day off, not because I had a cold or anything visibly wrong with me. I was just tired! I took that day off and slept most of the day, woke up the next day with a very heavy flu and stayed home the second day, so all it says to me is that when I decide to stop, I just stop and

I'm just so low I usually just get whatever is happening. I've found that for most of this year I got a cold about Friday and I'm usually right by Monday. I guess it's just the thought and youpush it aside. A teacher pointed out that the award states that if a large number of children in the classroom has an illness such as chicken pox or shingles and the teacher is infected by it, any time taken off work is not to be deducted from the teacher's sick leave. However, the teacher maintains principals are selective in this area and generally do not apply the principle at all and never if the infection is cold or flu regardless of how many students in the class have the infection. I had two days off with flu this term and it doesn't have to come off my sick leave. But it was taken off my sick leave because it wasn't something obvious like chicken-pox or measles or glandular fever or something like that. I had every child in my class away in about the end 3 weeks of term. Every child was away for 2 or 3 days and I was sick on Thursday and Friday. I took those days off, although I was sick on Wednesday, so that I could have the weekend to get over it so I could get back to school. Few teachers seem to take the time off that doctors recommend is necessary for them to resume good health. Reasons given for not following doctors' advice are fourfold. Firstly is the knowledge that sick days are limited and that exceeding the allotment results in a teacher recovering without the benefit of pay. This can have serious consequences both for the health of teachers and for their budgets, especially if they have financial commitments that depend on regular and full pay 52 weeks of the year. The second consideration teachers have concerns their students and the likely effect any interruption to their learning might have. I feel a responsibility towards my students so I tend to work rather than take time off. A third consideration is colleagues and the likely effect a teacher's absence will have on

them in terms of extra duty, and, if all 'District Relief Teacher' (DRT) services allocated to the school have been used, the possibility of 'doubling up'. When 'doubling up' occurs the students of the absent teacher either become the responsibility of another teacher along with her/his existing class or the children are shared among several teachers. This practice brings on feelings of guilt at placing additional work and responsibility on colleagues who, the sick teacher is all too well aware, are already overburdened coping with her/his regular class. The fourth concern teachers mentioned was the time and effort involved in preparing a program for the relief teacher to work from. As one teacher says It is easier to continue working than to organise detailed instructions for relief teacher and to have tosettle the children down after a stranger has taken them. A further aspect mentioned by several teachers was the incredible guilt imposed on them by principals trying to budget the school finances. Teachers are told that the cost of a DRT to the school is $170 a day and that there are only a certain amount of 'free' DRT days allocated to the school. But if DRT allocations are used they have to be paid out of the school's budget, not only when the allocated number of DRT days have been used but also if the sick teacher has not had the foresight to know if she/he was going to be sick by 2:00pm the day before taking the 'sick' day. Teachers expressed frustration at the logic behind foreknowing the onset of illness and the guilt that they felt if their health cost the school $170 each day they were away. It's impossible to know by two o'clock in the afternoon how you'll be feeling the following morning, but we are told if there is any possibility you may be away then let the office know and stay away. It seems

unethical to me. Another teacher said she had to know if she was going to be sick by 7:45 in the morning and if you go to school and all of a sudden you get a case of diarrhoea or vomiting or you're really sick and it's 10:30, then you stay at school. It's not like an office where you can put everything on your desk and say "I'll finish that in the morning". I've got to know if I'm going to be sick because if I haven't rung up by quarter to eight, then the DRTs aren't available and its taken out of TRS days [Teacher Release Staff] and it costs the school a $170.00. They tell you it costs a $170 for each TRS day. The last time I got sick, I didn't feel sick, I thought I had a bit of a cold and I thought "I'll take an Aspro". Quarter to eight came and I felt okay so I went to work and was working around in the classroom getting everything ready. About half past nine I started to feel really off and left the religion teacher with my class and went down to get a couple of Aspirins. I had a couple of Aspirins and by the time I got back to the classroom I was nearly going to

faint...it hit me so fast. I had to walk down to the office and say that I'm too sick to work. The office was unconcerned about the teacher's health but very concerned to know why she had not rung in sick by the required time that morning and stayed home. The fact that she was not sick when she left home was seemingly irrelevant. The teacher was told that another teacher might be able to take her class until midday but that there was no-one available after that point. The teacher was made well aware that she was causing a big inconvenience. Her teaching partner, seeing that she was sick offered to take the class for the day -- 36 kidsplus the deaf kids. I felt really guilty because I thought I was putting Molly into a position where she might have to take my class, even if it was just for an hour or two hours. So I said to them, well if you can't find someone to take my class, I'll stay -- they made me feel that guilty. A teacher was found for the class, but the office requested that the teacher remain with her class for another hour, which she felt unable to do. So they accepted that and I went up and got my things and went but I felt very, very guilty. This incident occurred on Melbourne cup day which she thought may have been the reason for the principal ringing her in the afternoon. I felt like they were checking up on me to see if I was at home. Another phone call followed the second day, perhaps related to the teacher's responsibility to present two ELA workshops organised for the succeeding day and for which teachers were released at $170 per teacher. This teacher was reminded, repeatedly, that the next time she even thinks she might be sick to phone in. It should be noted that this was the first day she had ever had to go home during school time. Similar experiences were common to the interviewed subjects who repeatedly said they were made to feel guilty for being sick and inconveniencing the school, other teachers, and effecting the school budget. You're made to feel that you've created the problem. Do you really have to go home? Haven't you let the team down? This his how you are made to feel. Sometimes they suggest that someone will take your class if you want to lay down for half an hour! Departmental Policy: Compounding the guilt An important aspect of Departmental policy on sick leave was revealed in an interview with a teacher explaining why she preferred not to take time off when she was sick. She claimed there was a fair amount of pressure put on you to be very ill before you take a sick day. That's because of the departmental regulation whereby each school is allocated something like 2.1 sick days per teacher per year. So, while the public service regulation entitlement is ten sick days per year, the Education Department will only pay for you to be sick for 2.1. For our school with ten teachers, the department will pay for something

like twenty-one sick days. After that school funds have to buy in supply teachers at one hundred and seventy dollars a day to replace us. You're constantly reminded about how many sick days are still left out of those 21 as they dwindle down. At this school one of the teachers was seriously ill the previous year with a parasite infection that took some months to diagnose and treat. As a result the teacher, who hadaccrued some 60 days in unused sick leave, had to have twenty days off on sick leave which meant that twenty days were deducted from the school's twenty-one day yearly allocation. As a result, no sick days were available for other staff to draw on. So, when other teachers were sick, it was made clear that "we're getting to the stage where people will have to double-up. Teachers will have to take two classes." So you're put into the position of feeling that your colleagues are going to have to bear the brunt of you being unwell. It really is unacceptable. It is not surprising that teachers choose to teach when they are ill when such pressures are placed on them to remain at school regardless of their health condition. But it is to be wondered what long-term effect this might have and what future illnesses/disease might manifest as a result of not looking after the self in times of ill health. When teachers do succumb to infections or other illness they often have to make the choice between continuing to teach and taking time off. Mostly teachers just keep going and take their class so that other teachers do not have to bear the burden. When I go to work and I'm sick, usually someone will swap playground duty with you. You don't get out of doing it, it's just postponed. I find the women at the school very supportive. If it's a small school, it makes a difference. If I'm not well, I try and sit down as much as I can through the day and use busy-work. You need to change whatever it is you have on the program to make sure that you don't tackle anything like story-writing or activities where you need to be roving round and busy all day. I went quite a lot when I had laryngitis because one day off with that didn't do a lot of good anyway. What the long term effects of remaining on the job whilst ill might have on teachers' health is yet to be determined.Institutional conditions of work: Denying the "call of nature" A problem that effected all women was that associated with toilet breaks or lack of them. Time to access this basic facility seems to be almost non-existent for primary teachers and particularly for those teaching in the lower classes. One teacher placed this second only to stress as a health hazard of teaching. She located the problem in the way schools are structured, the work conditions, and the nature of teaching as a profession. One thing is you can't go to the toilet when you'd like to because you are responsible for the kids in the class. Anyone who has to go to the toilet has to go during morning tea

or lunch. At our school this is a problem because, equity wise, we have only one toilet for males and one for females. This is with ten female teachers and 3 male teachers andthat's also for the secretaries, and aides who are females and for student teachers, who are mostly female, when they are at the school on prac. So there's little chance for many women to use the toilet at morning tea time, anyway. It seems that although most schools have a predominance of female staff, they often have the same number of toilets for men and women. The sorts of health problems, short- and long-term, related to passing an entire day without accessing toilets was cause for much speculation and even some mirth. My teaching partner and I would sometimes say how when we got home there would be a dash to the toilet because you hadn't been all day...what that does for your kidneys, I don't know! Several teachers talked about urinary tract infections which their doctors put down to not having enough water and not going to the

toilet when necessary. Having sufficient water poses a problem. When you're drinking water, when you're forcing yourself to drink water, then you've got to go to the toilet! Problems are multiplied for many teachers during menstruation which is vividly described in this teacher's voice. I have a problem with menstruation. Every month I have at least one day, sometimes two when clots of blood are released followed by heavy blood flow. I know when this happens that whatever I'm wearing is not going to hold the blood flow and you can't go to the toilet. What I do then is make sure that I don't sit down and just hope for the best until I get to the toilet. Another teacher, unprepared for the early onset of her period, knew that if she did not get to the toilet soon that there would be blood everywhere. She asked the teacher in the next class to watch her students while she went to the toilet but I felt stressed that I was responsible for them and not in the room.....and if anything happened I knew I would be in strife. Another teacher in a similar situation was literally stranded without pad or tampon in the toilet until an aide could bring her something. It's quite traumatic. You always make sure you wear dark clothes when you've got your periods, either black or dark floral or something because it's more often than not a that if you have some sort of problem that you could end up being annoyingly embarrassed. Another teacher said that she was at the stage where I have spare underwear, a washer, tampons, and pads in my handbag. The positioning of toilet facilities causes additional problems, particularly if they are some distance from the classrooms. Teachers consider themselves to be extremely lucky if the toilet block is positioned near their classroom and even more so if they can duck out to the toilet when they need to. A teacher with a bowel problem which requires

her to access a toilet quickly is now taking this anti-diarrhoea stuff that I have to take a swig of every now and then and I put that down to not being able to go when I need to. You're holding on and all of a sudden you've got a lazy bowel or something like that. Surprisingly, very few teachers had talked about the problems associated with toilet access with other women teachers. This is something not many [women] teachers talk about. In fact, I've only ever spoken to Sara about periods and what a problem it is and it was only just the other day. I've never ever spoken to anybody about it before...it's not something you bring up as staff meetings! Teachers not only expressed a desire for more toilets, but that they be situated closer to the staff room or classrooms, and that they be equipped with a shower unit and a mirror and hand-basin that can't be seen from outside. Regular relief time, employing community members to do playground duty, and toilets attached to each classroom have been solutions teachers have proposed to relieve the discomfort and health disabling conditions associated with this problem. School location: Environmental pollution Pollution posed a real problem for several women. One school, situated near a cement plant has a collector pole for measuring fallout situated in the school ground which personnel from the cement company monitor from time to time. No measure that exceeds any health standard has ever been reported. Not surprisingly, with the company doing its own testing, I don't think that a fair result is likely. The principal is quite adamant that the results are correct. He has a greater trust in corporations than I do! This teacher reported that the smell of sulphur was often very strong - you can almost taste it, it's that strong. This year for the first time I have had asthma and bronchitis and sore throats to the point of having laryngitis. I really think that the problem is due to the fallout from the cement works. Other teachers from the school have had similar problems and similarly, blame the nearby cement plant. Within

the student population there has been a high incidence of asthma sufferers. Similarly, another teacher reported teaching at a school in another district with a very high incidence of asthma which was located near an industrial area and on the side of river flat land. In the mornings there was often a grey lingering fog. Yet another teacher expressed concern at being exposed to electromagnetic radiation from high voltage electric cables. She recognised that the cause/effect relationship may be hard to prove, as with the other instances of pollutants, but nonetheless felt that schools should be situated well away from such possible health hazards. Tropical conditions: The health risks Climatic conditions in this region cause much discomfort for

teachers and students. The area has a long, hot, humid period that stretch from around September to May each year. No classrooms in which teachers in this study taught had the benefit of airconditioning. Most found the few fans that they had totally inadequate and in most instances, injudiciously placed. Sue claimed that the heat had a lot to do with her frequent headaches because where my chair is situated -- I don't have a desk, I have a chair --there is no fan. One of the two fan in this teacher's room is situated near the sink area, which means that work involving paper or other materials that would be caught by the fan is not done on hot days or the fans are turned off. One teacher who teaches in a 'demountable' claimed that they had had forty degrees in our room already this term and it would average about thirty-five in the afternoons. We can't teach under those conditions. When the temperature is really high we go outside or one group goes to the preschool which is available in the afternoons. We'd go under a tree and have some games and stories, for two to three afternoons a week anyway. You just have to be flexible. It may be that you can't do something you really wanted to do that day and you go out and have a story under a tree. Another teacher felt that fans were strategically placed to ensure that dignitaries got the full benefit rather than students or teachers. Why else would they be placed in walk ways, she asked? Some teachers simply do not teach after lunch. I don't teach, I give them cool activities. I let them lie around under what fans we have. There is no fan above the carpet space where we teach. Providing children with cool drinks posed many problems. Some schools had policy that discouraged children from leaving the classroom for drinks. Hence, many teachers provide coolerbottles for the children. But then you have the problem of each child having their own cup and the cups then are open to flies and cockroaches, or whatever when they are stored overnight. I think there are health problems associated with water bottles. Another teacher stressed that the two drinking fountains attached to the cooling system were totally inadequate for the student number. She pointed out that the older students tend to push the younger ones out of the way which means the younger children come to class hot and thirsty. For her, this means sending students out two at a time to get a drink and incurring the wrath of the principal because the practice is against school policy. This also interferes with teaching plans and adds to the stress and tension of teachers. Headaches were common health disabling symptoms suffered by the women interviewed and seem related to the composition of students in the classroom, physical institutional conditions and climatic factors. Teachers with hearing impaired students in this study appear to be subject to more headaches than those teachers with hearing students. Sue explained that this was because the deaf kids can't hear themselves and they raise their voices a lot and they squeal and squeak and make a lot of those

sorts of noises. Sue also has a visiting hearing specialist who is herself deaf. She finds that because Kelly is unable to hear them screaming out and making all the noise that it is up to her

make Kelly aware of the excessive noise by signing or if she is not looking, by moving to where she is and somehow attracting her attention. Sue finds this very stressful and the resulting headaches a frequent occurrence. Students also suffer from headaches in this class. External noise causes teachers much frustration and contributes to loss of voice as well as headaches. The oppressive summer heat has also been implicated in this health disabling condition. A teacher suffering from sun cancers was unsure if she could blame the cause on playground duty, sports supervision, or atmospheric pollutants. She consciously takes every precaution possible to protect herself from exposure to the sun but feels that these precautions should have been school policy decades ago. Sun burn was a condition experienced by most teachers at some time during their professional career, mostly during playground duty or while at sporting events. Emphasis was placed on the necessity of wearing sun hats and sun screen lotion and in policing children to do likewise. Most schools in this area have a 'no hat, no play' policy and teachers are expected to set the example by wearing hats at all times in the playground. However, teachers have still reported being sunburned, particularly at major sporting events that require their presence in or around the field across and entire school day.Health hazards in the playground The playground is not only a source of sun- related health problems but also the place where teachers are faced with both physical and verbal abuse. Injury may result from mis-aimed missiles such as balls and bats. One teacher recently witnessed a teacher getting punched and kicked. The teacher retaliated to protect herself, but was reprimanded for so doing. The child was not. For some teachers playground duty is the most stressful part of the working week. I find that I get scared out there, although I'm told that I'm notto get scared. There are hazards from kids hurling things, from trying to break up fistfights in the playground or on the oval...And with the heat all the tempers rise and the fights are many. Trying to pull them apart you cop a fist or a foot or a mouthful of cheek...you're lucky if you get a mouthful of cheek! I had a coke can thrown at me last week. Put it down to prayer. I pray on the days I'm on duty. Kids pose a threat to teachers. Indeed, playground violence and associated health hazards together with lack of support from administration have been the cause of a number of teachers transferring out of one particular urban school according to one interviewee. At this school those teachers not granted transfers have taken action of their own:

one teacher opting for leave without pay, another is resigning and another has applied for long-service leave. All have done that just to have a break from the system. Behaviour management is on the agenda in most district and urban schools in this region and is the cause of much stress. For me at the moment behaviour management is the single most stressful aspect of teaching. It's not only with the children in your class but during playground duty and bus duty. Some days it seems like one confrontation after another. There hasn't been any physical violence to me but there is verbal abuse. Conclusion Data here suggest that women primary school teachers are prone to many physical and psychological health disabling conditions including those associated with a lack of adequate and safe equipment, a lack of facilities and opportunity to cater for their personal needs, climatic conditions and inadequate classroom cooling systems, environmental pollutants, intensification of work, integration of special needs students, and the close contact teachers have with their clientele which exposes them to the risk of contagion. Teachers have spoken of the health risks associated with playgrounds and other outdoor

activities. They have voiced their commitment to their student and the extra-ordinary lengths they go to to avoid taking sick days, the guilt they experience when they succumb to illness and require time out from school to recover their health, and the strategies they employ to enable them to continue teaching while unwell. They have also given voice to their frustration with the intensification of their work loads and the apparant lack of departmental provisions for maintaining the health of teaching personnel. Other themes identified in the data but not included in this paper are: problems associated with taking time off when children or other family members are ill and thestress related to this; problems associated with juggling paid work, child- family-care, domestic work, and leisure/interests; the hours of time women spend at home engaged in activities related to their teaching position; strategies women employ that allow them to juggle their multiple roles; precautions teachers take to protect themselves and their students from cross-infection of contagious conditions, and recommendations teachers have made that may assist in reducing the occupational health hazards for women teachers in Queensland State schools. As I noted at the beginning of this paper, teaching is considered among the most stressful occupations. The testimony of the women presented in this paper suggests that 'stress' and 'burnout' have far more complex dimensions than the research has documented. The gendered labour of primary school teaching--the predominance of women and the nurturing/caring nature of primary school today-

-makes the politics of health for women teachers a primary issue. Importantly, it is also a pedagogical concern of national importance. Women who teach while sick, or sick children who are sent to school make unhealthy classrooms and poor teaching/learning encounters. What I have presented here is what women teachers have voiced and want heard by government departments and educational authorities. From making public their collective voices, women teachers involved in this study hope change will ensue that will improve the health situation for all women in education.

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