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‘June, July and August… need I say more?’

Image credit: Sabrina Fitzsimons

In the DCU Centre for Collaborative Research Across Teacher Education (), we have spent the past year carefully listening to teachers’ accounts of occupational wellbeing in Ireland. In our of more than 1,000 primary and post-primary teachers, participants repeatedly described media and social media commentary about teachers as a persistent demoralising force. They told us that the commentary often misrepresents their work, and many described public discourse itself as a source of stress, particularly when teaching was portrayed as easy and undeserving of sympathy (O’Farrell et al., 2025). Many described ‘hostile’ coverage and the ‘constant vilification in the media of teachers’.

As one participant summarised: ‘I am appalled at how the media and society see us. It really upsets me.’ Another put it plainly: ‘The media does nothing to help. Teachers are berated for things that are out of their control.’

Our on teacher occupational wellbeing in Ireland were widely in the media in spring 2025, sparking wide-ranging comment. We collected, anonymised and nearly 400 comments from various platforms. These revealed recurring storylines about teachers and burnout, offering a small window into how teacher wellbeing, and indeed teachers’ work, is publicly received (see Furlong et al., 2026).

‘June, July and August … need I say more’

The most common storyline we encountered in our data was that ‘Teachers have it easy’. Commenters focused on holidays, job security and pensions: ‘Short days, long holidays, pension, job for life – what’s the problem?’ These are judgments: teachers are privileged, and complaints are seen as entitlement. But this ‘privilege’ storyline works by highlighting what is visible and easy to count, namely, time ‘off’, hours ‘in work’, while ignoring what teachers describe as the real weight of the job. In our wider research, teachers emphasised the gap between online narratives and the reality of workload and recovery time (O’Farrell et al., 2025).

Teachers described how ‘snide and dismissive’ comments about short hours undermine support for what they see as ‘a difficult and important job’. Research shows visible aspects of teaching are often privileged in debate, while hidden demands are overlooked (Mockler, 2022).

‘Try being a builder’

Another storyline treats burnout as a competition. Many compared teaching unfavourably with other professions: ‘Farmers and construction workers have it worse.’ Teaching is framed as less legitimate in its claim to stress; burnout is something to ‘earn’ through physical labour, while emotional and cognitive strain are dismissed.

‘Teaching is framed as less legitimate in its claim to stress; burnout is something to “earn” through physical labour, while emotional and cognitive strain are dismissed.’

‘Poor darlings’

Sarcasm was rife in the comment section: ‘Maybe they need 5 months off instead.’ ‘Try working a real job.’ One radio commentator even suggested teachers should ‘grow a backbone’. Such remarks go beyond mockery; they can shut down conversation and make it harder to speak honestly about stress.

‘So-called experts’

Some questioned the credibility of research: ‘They only surveyed the complainers,’ or ‘This is media spin.’ This distrust turns discussion about working conditions into suspicion about motives. We are also conscious that when burnout is treated as an exaggeration, meaningful solutions may recede.

It’s important to note, though, that not all comments were negative. Some defended teachers: ‘Teaching doesn’t stop at 3 pm’, they are ‘counsellors and carers’ – reminding us that burnout is a real consequence of sustained and sometimes invisible relational demands.

Researching social media commentary raises ethical challenges and requires careful planning. The principle of ‘do no harm’ is essential (BPS, 2021), and researchers should remain reflective and purposeful (Buck & Ralston, 2021). For researchers and practitioners, public discourse is a key factor in teacher wellbeing. Similar patterns appear internationally: Mockler (2022), for example, found deficit-based media portrayals of teachers in Australia; while there were comparable findings in the UK and US (Mockler & Redpath, 2023). Together, these studies suggest that what we discovered in Ireland may not be uniquely Irish.

References

British Psychological Society [BPS]. (2021). Ethics guidelines for internet-mediated research.

Buck, A. M., & Ralston, D. F. (2021). I didn’t sign up for your research study: The ethics of using ‘public’ data. Computers and Composition, 61, Article 102655.

Furlong, C., Fitzsimons, S., & O’Farrell, P. (2026). ‘Biggest bunch of entitled moaners in Ireland’: A thematic and discourse analysis of social media responses to teacher burnout and their implications for teacher well-being. Irish Educational Studies. Advance online publication.

Mockler, N. (2022). Constructing teacher identities: How the print media define and represent teachers and their work. Bloomsbury Academic.

Mockler, N., & Redpath, E. (2023). Shoring up ‘teacher quality’: Media discourses of teacher education in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. In I. Menter (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of teacher education research (pp. 933–961). Palgrave Macmillan.

O’Farrell, P., Fitzsimons, S. Furlong, C. & Scully, C. (2025). Layers of strain: An ecological perspective on teacher burnout in Ireland. British Educational Research Journal, 52(2), 1554–1573.