The importance of teachers on life’s journey

All over Mayo, all the kids are back to school by the time you read this.

Our youngest started national school yesterday, Monday, September 1. His older two siblings joined him to great excitement. There is something almost, pardon the pun, ‘old school’ about waiting until September to return. Many children returned to secondary school not the week before that but two weeks beforehand.

In the list of things we should complain about, returning to school in August is the definition of a first-world problem but it’s an argument I am willing to make! Wait until September!

We’re blessed to have our kids in a school with great, committed and caring teachers. Such things are not a given, but so important.

When you are in school yourself, you don’t appreciate the importance of it, but in time it becomes clearer. 

We all know the bad teachers we’ve had. Some may have anger issues, some may just not care enough about their job or their students.

But the caring teacher who can help guide you, see your strengths and passions, contextualise your weaknesses, take time out to speak to you one on one … They are people who can make a profoundly positive contribution to your life’s journey.

I was fortunate enough to be back in my alma mater, Davitt College in Castlebar, last May. I was asked to speak at the end-of-year awards ceremony about my own time in the school and my experiences since.

Quite apart from feeling very daunted that the students would have any interest at all in what I had to say, it was a really immersive trip into my teenage years and reaffirmed for me the importance of good teachers. Not all of them were brilliant – no such school exists – but there were certainly enough great teachers in my time there to guide me... and, trust me, I needed guidance.

The teacher who had the biggest influence on me was the late Brendan Munnelly. He was my English teacher every year I was in school and also my class tutor throughout.

He was a son of Josie Munnelly, one of Mayo’s finest ever Gaelic footballers who won an All-Ireland senior title, Mayo’s first, in 1936 and, incredibly, 21 years later, won an All-Ireland junior title in 1957.

So sport discussions were commonplace in Room 18 in Davitt College. We worked out quickly enough in First Year that if we engaged and quizzed enough, our first class of the week, English on Monday morning, could be completely taken up by chats about the weekend’s results!

I vividly recall his amazement, bordering on disgust, when one student, with no background to suggest it, told Brendan he supported Rangers. Brendan was a regular visitor to Parkhead and could not get his head around it!

While we talked sport a lot, Brendan covered the English syllabus brilliantly and had a huge impact in the development of my love for writing and the ability to turn my love for sport into something I could build a career around.

By the time I came into the school, I was beginning to realise my childhood dream of playing upfront for Manchester United might just be a pipe dream! So this was not a bad fall back.

Brendan, Tony O’Connor (father of Cillian and Diarmuid and a brilliant Maths teacher) and Ioseph McGowan (a superb Economics teacher) all played a role in getting me to write match reports for school games in Transition Year for the local papers, which were the first steps for me towards a career in journalism.

That first game was one in which a young Alan Dillon scored 12 points for Davitt College. As I told the students back in May, it was easy to predict a future Mayo footballer in him that day, but less so a future Mayo TD! Life will always take unexpected twists and turns.

The return visit to the school sure was a way to make me feel old. Only three teachers who were there in my time were still there, as well as Tina Joyce, the magnificent canteen lady, keeping kids fed in the school since 1982, the year I was born.

Of those three, only one, Maria Carey, taught me. She is an exceptional German teacher and somehow guided me towards a B in honours German. That I haven’t used the language at all since is a source of regret but also a reminder of how life may just get in the way of your plans.

As I walked the corridors, I recalled all who have retired, but sadly, those who have passed away too. Included in that cohort are some of my classmates who left this earth long before their time.

It’s a much bigger school now, and as the award winners in various academic, cultural and sporting categories were announced, it was great to hear so many non-Irish names called up to receive awards, demonstrating the hugely positive contributions that the new Irish are making in school communities.

The awards were hosted in the impressive Joe Langan Sports Hall. When we were in on an open day from Breaffy to Davitt College in 1995, we were told by then principal Patsy Noone that by the time we were second years, the school would have a state-of-the-art sports hall. It was a big draw for me.

My time in the school came and went, and it was not until 2011 that it was built and opened. Our own National Children’s Hospital!

But the Sportlann at Castlebar Mitchels wasn’t far away. We whiled away countless hours on the football field above the school and I made great, lifelong friendships in the school.

I was also fortunate in Breaffy NS to have some really good teachers and school principal Tom Higgins had a significant impact in fostering a love for local history in me which I have been fortunate enough to be able to put into practice in the course of my working life.

The sense of the layers and layers of history that exist in every townland, often unbeknownst to us, is something Tom made me appreciate in Breaffy during our wonderful nature walks where he would explore with us the flora and fauna of the village with immersive histories as well, particularly with regard to the Brownes, landlords at Breaffy House.

One of the most worn-out clichés is ‘school days are the best days of your life’. I have so many brilliant memories in school but many more after it. College, travelling, finding your way in the world, marriage, children … All bring great joy.

I am keenly aware that school is not something that will be for everyone. Now, more than ever, there are greater supports for those who may have learning challenges.

In every school in every country in the world, there are people who find it challenging for many different reasons. That’s where great teachers really come into their own.

As children and teenagers all over Mayo get back into the swing of things this week, you hope that they find the teachers along the way who will positively guide them on their journey. The impact teachers can have is profound.