The arranged marriage of schools and teachers

   A school teacher committed suicide last week, which, like bullying, is not a new phenomenon. I recall that a high school teacher of mine also committed suicide. And I remember we, the students, making fun of him (something I am not proud of), despite his sweetness and educational effort. I was in a school where the student population was diverse, with a high rate of students from disadvantageous neighborhoods with family-related violence problems. Since that time, I have wondered why public schools in Portugal are not involved in the hiring of teachers.
   Schools are assigned teachers according to the schools’ needs in their fields of studies. But the uniqueness of a school comes not only from its infrastructure and curriculum but from the uniqueness of the communities and neighborhoods they serve, and consequently the background and ability of their students. Therefore, a “good teacher” is in part school-specific. Apart from formal qualifications, on-the-job future training and personality traits are extremely important and left out of the centralized school-teacher matching.