I still maintain that his mental state didn't suddenly appear so. My guess is that he'd been hiding his illness for some time,but nobody only himself would have been aware of this.
His wife was also a teacher.
Is it worth all the stresses and strains that it takes to strive for a life-style that's seen as an acceptable part of how life should be lived at the risk of losing it ?
You know there is an unhealthy obsession with the league tables which completely loses sight of the individual as pupils are sluiced
en masse through a system which may well be more efficient, but which has lost touch with reality, as Alan Howe did those last few months. I checked up on the Castlerahan Primary School, where he was Deputy Head(someone who has to make his superior the Head look good and therefore that much more added pressure) and the Child Protection Policy is just one of many policies which struck my eye:
St. Mary’s N.S. Castlerahan seeks to help the children to grow and develop into healthy, confident, mature adults, capable of realising their full potential as human beings. We strive to create a happy, safe environment for the children where they feel secure, knowing that if they have concerns, they will be listened to with understanding and respect and their concerns will be addressed.How these are achieved in practice is an eternal vigilance, which is to the teachers' credit if properly implemented, but the sad fact is there are so many regulations today the job has become impossible, the policy words swimming around in an individual's head as he looks to the next pressing concern.
The problem is the low skilled jobs have disappeared, being shipped off to China, heaping the pressure on those charged with assisting young people to perform, and as you say one has to ask oneself ultimately if it's all worth it.
https://youtu.be/KVw8WzceF6g