Last weeks papers carried the news that the Department of Education is to ask Boards of Management to sack under-performing teachers. While listening to a discussion on Newstalk 106 it struck me that more and more any reaction or focus on education seems to be anchored firmly in negative connotations.
Of course, bad news sells and there is a reason for papers and radio stations to lead with news that creates discussion and provokes opinion and comment. Couple this with the fact that a huge majority of people have passed through the education system and feel that this gives them an insight into how it works. I’m not a trained carpenter, plumber or doctor, so I’d feel at a disadvantage to begin criticising their work practices, but there seems to be an open-season when it comes to assessing the performance of teachers.
It led me to think of the work that so many teachers do that is appreciated by students and their parents, but can get lost when it comes to the opinions of the mass general public.
It lead me to think of Mr. O’ Connor, my History and Geography teacher, a man that always had an encouraging word to say. I remember usually being the last to leave his class when the bell rang and he’d stay and chat for a few minutes about the latest goings on at Liverpool or some other sporting discussion. For the sake of a couple of minutes you always walked away from him feeling two feet taller. Surely that’s the measure of the skill of any person, let alone a teacher.
I though of Ms. Murray, my English teacher. The day in class she approached me, took my English essay copy and read the beginning of an essay to the class as an example of good writing. Now believe me, Roddy Doyle and Stephen King can rest easy in Literary Towers, but of course I walked away from the class thinking that I was destined for the Nobel Prize For Great Beginnings to Secondary School Essays.
I thought of Mr. Kelly, a man who never thought me, but took the football teams. I still remember vividly the morning I stood in the main hall in the school at break-time and the windows were full of the condensation of a cold winters morning. He began to work out the formation and tactics on the window using the condensation as his ink. Bizarre, but memorable and indicative of his enthusiasm for the game and for young people. He’d often give a few of the players a lift home from training at the school, and when playing for your club at the weekend it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him on the sideline watching and come Monday there’d be a discussion on what you did well, but what you needed to improve.
There was Mr. O’ Drisceoil, a man born speaking Gaeilge. Not just content with organising a wonderful weekend trip to Cape Clear for the 4th Year group, his strength and courage when faced with the death of a student in our year in tragic circumstances was incredible. I remember the sense of discomfort and numbness as the class sat for the first class after our friends death, Mr. O’ Drisceoil standing before the class. He took a deep breath, looked as if he were to speak and then sat on top of a table in the class.
He just scanned us all and told us he had gone into his garden the day before, sat there and thought of what he could say to us, but nothing had come to him and he had sat there and cried. Somehow, in a moment of stunning vulnerability and honesty, his words made it possible for the rest of us to feel and manage our grief.
There was Mr. Moynihan, a Maths teacher who found the way to negotiate solutions to mathematical problems from a mind I was convinced was completely devoid of all understanding of numbers. Yet it was his words of advice, delivered in a soft easy voice that helped us settle into secondary school. Tragically, he was taken from the students too soon, dying suddenly at home.
Mr. Ring jogged with us when training the soccer team, Mr. Gaffy was straight talking in his advice, Mr. Halbert always had a quip ready, usually based on local GAA rivalry too. Mr. Murphy summoned reams of notes from the back of his library mind that seemed to cover every word written since time began, and with a sublime wit as sharp as Stanley knife.
Thinking back now it strikes me that they weren’t just great teachers, but primarily great people. You walked away from them feeling you were a person of value, and without sounding too Disney about the situation, at a time in your life when your mind isn’t renowned for thinking things through in a calm and assured way, their advice and encouragement was crucial.
I think many people carry similar experiences with them. Many times when people learn of what I do for a living you are met by a story or a memory of a teacher that went out of their way to do something to help them.
And it isn’t in a razzmatazz lights and action way. When I think of the fantastic bunch of teachers I work with in TCS, I think of a lot of people going about their work in a very quiet, subtle way, work that has an extremely relevant effect on the people they not only teach, but help. It isn’t only the students that learn from them.
There are a lot of people waking to the sound of an alarm clock and a fulfilling career every morning, there because good people in teaching demanded the best of them, or lent a subtle helping hand.
Even away from the career and the job, there are a lot of people in their adult lives that know the value of a good teacher.
