My first teacher is retired now and I often want to
tell her she was the person responsible for showing me how to
decipher those weird, squiggly hieroglyphics into proper words that made
brilliant, exciting sense.
My next teacher was a tiny nun who
spoke so quietly I found it difficult to understand her. Especially the day she hit me on the hand
with one of those old fashioned butter paddles.
I still have no idea why.
When I made my First Holy Communion
my teacher was a dark haired lady called Miss Lundy. She would set me extra homework each evening
with some picture cards. I had to write
the story according to what was happening in each scene. I loved it.
In second class I had two
teachers. My “real” teacher was heavily
involved with music and spent most of her time teaching it. The stand in nun had us learn off ridiculous
and pointless religious paragraphs and then she would test us on it. We
didn’t do anything else.
I remember each and every one of my
primary school teachers and one or two from secondary school. Each and every one of them made an impact on
me in some shape or form. Some good,
some bad, some indifferent.
Now I am sending my own kids to
school. Into the hands of people who
will teach them things I cannot and possibly by means I won’t necessarily agree
with.
I have no bad stories to tell of my
time in school. I enjoyed primary
tremendously whereas secondary came as a bit of a shock to me and pretty soon I
learned that if I kept my head down and didn’t draw attention to myself, I would
be ignored. By the teachers.
This effectively meant that when I struggled
with things, it went unnoticed and I was very much the type of person who liked
to stick her head in the sand hoping it would all go away if I didn’t think
about it.
I consider my kids to be fortunate
to go to school in an age where this doesn’t have to be the case anymore.
One of our boys didn’t settle into
school as seamlessly as his brothers. He
struggled for a while and in turn, I did too, wondering how to help him.
Thanks to the fantastic help,
forward thinking and pro-active steps of not one but two teachers, our boy is
on top of things now and much happier as a result.
Last week my phone pinged with the
usual reminder text that school is back.
There was an additional piece of information included. One of those teachers, the school principal, had
resigned.
This lady was with the school when
it started out with just 21 children in 2004 using a prefabricated building as their
place of education. In 2007 she saw it
granted permanent recognition from the Department of Education and
Science. She was there in 2009 when the
students moved into the new school where it has continued to develop and grow.
I can only hope that our boys’
education continues to be as positive as it has been so far, they are
surrounded by people outside of family who care about their emotional and
social development believing this is just as important as academia.
Múinteoir Sinead, go n-éiri an bother
leat. You will be missed.
