Teachers Themselves
"Teachers Themselves" is a new, engaging podcast designed specifically for educators in Ireland.
Whether you're a seasoned teacher looking to enhance your teaching practices, or a new educator seeking guidance and inspiration, "Teachers Themselves" provides a platform for professional growth and fosters a community of educators who are keen to learn. Join us as we explore the art and science of teaching, inspire each other, and shape the future of education, one episode at a time.
Hosted by DWESC Director, Ultan Mac Mathúna, and featuring insightful guest speakers, all educators themselves, this podcast offers conversational episodes focused on sharing teaching experiences, exploring shared values in education, and fostering a community of passionate educators.
Tune in to "Teachers Themselves" and unlock your full potential as an educator. Together, let's empower ourselves and our students for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.
“No written word, no spoken plea, can teach our youth what they should be, nor all the books on all the shelves, it’s what the teachers are themselves.” John Wooden
Teachers Themselves is a DWESC original, produced and created by Dublin West Education Support Centre and produced by Zita Robinson.
Teachers Themselves
Dr. Gerard McHugh: Reflecting on Education's Past, Present, and Future
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Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Gerard McHugh, the former Director of Dublin West Education Support Centre. A man who dedicated his career to transforming the landscape of education in Ireland.
Tune in as Gerard shares valuable insights from the evolution of his leadership, navigating the complexities of educational reform and pioneering European partnerships. Gerard's tenure at the Dublin West Education Support Centre stands out as a period of significant change and growth, where he played an instrumental role in the expansion of professional development opportunities for educators, not only in DWESC but throughout Ireland and beyond.
As this episode unfolds, Gerard offers a global perspective on education, drawing lessons from international systems like those in Nordic countries. He emphasises the critical role of trust between educators and governing bodies and reflects on the challenges posed by political influences and neoliberal policies. Through stories of adaptation and innovation, Gerard provides a thoughtful analysis of maintaining educational standards while embracing change, all the while enjoying the view from a new vantage point as a grandparent engaging with the education system's next generation.
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Teachers Themselves is a DWEC original, produced and created by Dublin West Education Centre produced by Zita Robinson.
Fáilte stach and welcome to the Teachers Themselves podcast. I'm your host, Alton MacMahona. This podcast is brought to you by Dublin West Education Support Centre. We're located on the grounds of TUD Talla, serving and supporting the school communities of West Dublin and beyond. Welcome to season three of Teachers Themselves. Episodes this season feature some great conversations with the passionate educators who contribute to your lives as educators and school leaders. These are people who have dedicated their careers to improving the educational outcomes of children and to enriching the education system.
Speaker 2I also sometimes quote a wonderful lady called Wangari Mathai, who was a Nobel Prize winner, and she said in the course of history, there comes a time where humanity is called upon to switch to a new level of consciousness and to reach a higher moral ground. She said almost 20 years ago now is the time, and I'm saying now, now is the time for us to aim towards going towards that higher moral ground.
Speaker 1So welcome to another episode of Teachers Themselves Joining us. This week we have Dr Gerard McHugh. Many of you will know Gerard McHugh, a native of Ballantyne County, Mayo, who's had many roles in education. Most recently, I suppose, was the role in which I find myself now. He was director of the Dublin West Education Centre for 17 years and saw the growth of the centre and its location onto the current site and development into all sorts in which we'll discuss in due course. Gerard, you're very, very welcome to Teach Themselves podcast. Thank you, Alton. Gerard, you're from ballantubber, county mayo. Tell me a little bit about what was like in ballantubber growing up and how that formed you as a person yes, well, uh, ballantubber, county mayo, is a rural area.
Speaker 2I usually then say ballantubber abbey, because there are many rural areas that people have never heard of. But actually, ballantubber, county mayo, they have heard of them. They have heard of it because of our Abbey, which is there now since 1216, which is 808 years I'm a bit older than you, alton so in 1966, it celebrated its 750th anniversary and Dev the President, and Seán Le Mas, the Taoiseach, kind of came. That's the kind of things that politicians used to do in the 60s. So when I went to St Charlotte's Tomb in 1967, I didn't need to explain to anyone because some people would have to say I'm from near Westport, I'm from near Tomb. I just said I'm from Ballantubber, and everybody knew where that was. I think one of our teachers used to describe me that just came into my head right now. So therefore, that is Ballantyne.
Speaker 2It was rural, a small Western farm, so therefore we weren't in the millionaire class, but, as they say, we were happy. I think that's what you say when you're not rich, and it was the case. I loved farm work, saving turf in the bog, corn and the hay and all of that kind of thing. Gaelic football has always been part of what Ballantubber is. I know a lot of people like yourself joke about the Mayo team of 1951 and the last surviving member was Paddy Prendergast, who would be a relative of mine. So we have supplied a lot of Gaelic footballers in the next generation Gervini of my own generation and then in the current era, the Dylans, the Horns, the O'Connors and so on and so forth. So that's basically what Ballantubber is and while I don't go there that often, it's still very much part of me and, I suppose, drives me in many respects.
Speaker 1But your parents must have taught enough of education to send you inside to Jarletts and Tune that you know. There was an emphasis there always.
Speaker 2I suppose, yes, I wanted to go to Jarletts and Tune. Jarletts would be the mecca of Gaelic football. I still believe that and I suppose I thought I was going to become an inter-county footballer. But there, you probably don't want to go down that particular rabbit hole. I didn't.
Speaker 2I was actually very young going there because in primary school I skipped a few classes that happened, I think, from time to time and then I was too young to go to second level. I'm old enough to have done the primary cert in 1966. But then I actually had to stay on to do seventh class because I was too young. It was deemed to go to second level and doing that primary cert I suppose it gave me certain notions in that I got 200 out of 200 in maths.
Speaker 2So I kind of reckoned oh, I got first in Ireland in maths and I wandered around in seventh class for a year with this crown on my head and then I went to Jarlett's and I met somebody else who got 100% in maths and I calculated in my head because well, I won't say I'm a mathematician, but number comes fairly easily. I calculated if there are over 700 second level schools in Ireland and there are two or three who got a full marks in the primary search in maths. Well, that kind of puts me maybe in the top thousand or two thousand or three thousand. So that took off a little. A little bit of the halo.
Speaker 1Your first lesson in Garlits was in humility, so yes, so my parents, yes.
Speaker 2I suppose there are many people who kind of come to teaching and say, oh, I was born a teacher, I woke up in the womb and decided I'd be a teacher and I can't say that. But I think my mother believed that it was her vocation. She passed on to me. My mother was a wonderful woman, as indeed was my father, but she was born in 1916. Her mother died when she was six. She fell and she had injuries and in the early 1930s and 40s when you had an injury you didn't get better, they got worse. But when it came to go to second level school, her father said he needed her to run the house and she was an extraordinarily intelligent woman. I believe she had all those attributes of what I would call a teacher of her day. And I know when I got the famous call to training, I know she actually probably felt that was her vocation going on to me Also, of course, in Western countries there would be some tradition of getting the call and going to teaching. But yes, my parents obviously did want me to have that education and while I say I loved my time in primary, I really loved primary school and actually that seventh class was great because there were only two of us in it and I thought I was running the school and that was okay.
Speaker 2One day the principal was out and there was a sub teacher in and no, it was no, it was the lady who was then in charge of the school.
Speaker 2I went out on the road to retrieve a ball because I felt I had that. I was the senior person in the school and I got four slaps for doing that, which again was maybe trying to ground me. I did forgive her but I didn't forget it because I wasn't slapped all that often in primary school and I probably haven't great empathy for those who were slapped, because a few years ago the first Mayo person who climbed Mount Everest, ciarán Laddy, wrote a book and I've seen some of it and he went to the same school as me about four or five years later and his experiences were extraordinarily different. So that did get me to reflect at this age in my life. I loved primary school. I wasn't slapped that often, but so many people were slapped. I can still see the lines around the classroom for missing spellings and tables and that kind of thing. So Ciarán Laddy's book did get me to reflect a little bit on that.
Speaker 1You know, it's funny how experiences even within a family can differ, so it's no wonder, within a school experience, that the same location can differ.
Speaker 2But, anyway.
Speaker 1Your education then took you to Pat's, and when you left pats, you taught in dublin for some years. How did you find that, as a male man, coming up to the big smoke and getting your hands dirty, teaching the great unwashed of the big?
Speaker 2smoke, okay, I suppose. Well, first of all, the pats experience. My, I suppose everybody life changes so hot, but mine changed very, I suppose, fundamentally, in that I met Bernd at my wife there, both aged 18. I sometimes say, you know, when I say, did I want to be a teacher? Maybe one of the reasons I became a teacher is that so many people doubled. Some of them had a political career with a teaching career, some had sporting career and some had a literary career, and I was interested in all three things. But all three of them kind of died a little bit in St Pat's, in that Bernadette wasn't as sporty as I was so kind of, you know. The athletics career died there. It's very unfair to blame her for that, presumably my own laziness. Similarly, the political career. I rose to the dizzy heights of vice or deputy president of the SRC, now Students Union, but the political career ended there. And well, the literary career? No.
Speaker 2I presented a 48-line poem once, I remember, to one of the lecturers in the English department and I expected him to say publish it. He said, could you reduce it to a sonnet? So I think they'd. I think maybe the literary career ended there, maybe the resilience wasn't strong enough for me to go back and start doing that. I feel I wrote it once. I don't need to kind of to rewrite it. But your question was how did I find it?
Speaker 2Yes, my first teaching position was in in in Chikor, and just the principles of a man called George Brown who started there in 1932, the the week of the Eucharistic Congress. So that takes this back a very long time. But interestingly, his son, gerry Brown, was in my year in St Pat's and is very well known, possibly to people listening to this podcast, and is still actually turning up to school every day. I remember the INTO CEC, yes indeed. And also there was a chap called Jim Ahern who did work with us in Dublin West and sadly is no longer with us.
Speaker 2George Brown himself was a big Gaelic football man, being a male man in Inchicore, no problem at all. I was there for that great era of Dublin Kerry where a lot of talk went on about that. And to say to you as a dub, I actually went to Lantacrow Park to some of those finals when you're neutral but you're never really neutral because there's some, I know. I went into some of those great games, maybe slightly favouring the dubs. And then when I heard the abuse being dished at some of the Kerry bog men and being told to go back to their pigs, et cetera, et cetera, by the end of the game, I wasn't supporting Dublin, but I think every county might have a few of those jobs, so I won't attach it to the dubs, but they probably have a few more. Very cheeky.
Speaker 1So, football aside, then you weren't, I suppose, too long before your eyes were set on a bit of leadership. Leadership was always in you, I guess.
Speaker 2Yes, it was.
Speaker 1Leadership and education came as no surprise, then, and tell us a little bit about what was in you that made you strive for a leadership role in education.
Educational Leadership and Innovation
Speaker 2I suppose first of all in 1972-74, it was a two-year course in St Pat's. So people from my generation, some of them, just took that, the NT, and they went back to their places and stayed in it a majority I think went and did a an evening BA in UCD again. I was too young when I left Pat's to do that straight away. I had to wait three years for the site to come around again. So I did a BA in UCD, hdip, where actually I am coming to the leadership, where the first time I encountered John Coulahan who was lecturing in history of education there and I wouldn't have talked to him from a hall of 400, but it was the first time I encountered him and I thought somebody who can make a subject with the title history of education so interesting has got a lot going for it.
Speaker 2I suppose I did teach in a number of schools Agecore, bayside, rush, ladies, well and as I was going around there I did think of the role of principal. I can't put my finger on anything that drew me towards it, but during some of those courses I would have taken modules which might have to do with the leadership and I found myself in 1985 as principal of the kind of school I would want to be. It was a senior primary school. It was a brand new school in Confey, leekslip County, kildare, where I evidently had a role. Thanks be to goodness, I didn't have a role in building the building, because I'm not an architect. It was built, I walked into it, but I had a role in choosing the staff, which was, I think, a great advantage starting.
Speaker 1It's a rare thing that a principal gets to choose staff like that.
Speaker 2Yes, there might have been one or two restraints. There was a junior school on site and some of the teachers in the junior school might have to be in the senior school or else the junior school would lose teachers, so we have to take that into consideration. But basically, appointment of six staff in first year I chose them as part of a panel and in similar years it was great building a school from the ground like that, in that each year you went out to the market and you were getting bright young teachers and experienced teachers. I wasn't going for all the bright young ones. In fact I kept myself on the younger half of the staff for actually quite quite a number of years.
Speaker 2Our challenge at that time was the panel, is that each summer there would be a panel from which you were expected to take teachers, and a phrase emerged at that time called panel beating, which was you chose your teachers but you kind of kept them aside until the panel cleared. I think we have different days now. Well, I'm not too much in tune exactly with what it is.
Speaker 1I hope you are thriving to this very day. Yeah, yeah indeed, and did you enjoy your leadership role?
Speaker 2I loved it. I suppose it seems I must have a happy life because I'm saying I like all these places. But there were challenges. But I love the role of principal and I found it at that time to be quite autonomous and I spent 33 years in educational leadership, 16 as principal and 17 as director of Dublin West, and in each of those roles I felt autonomy at the time and I do know in each of those roles that that autonomy I think has been eroded in the meantime and I think it was having that autonomy. I worked closely with parents. We chose the staff a very good balance on staff. I suppose we did a lot of innovations. Stephen Murgatroyd who was writing kind of in the 80s. He talked about the innovators, followers, resistors and deadwood. Now I had a lot of innovators and I loved working with them.
Speaker 2I'll just maybe take one example. I call it the flying colours myself. Flying colours was the textbook for third class. We were a senior school, so we had four or five classes in each cohort. It was very large Actually. Again, like many principals, I used to want to know the name of every pupil and I was surviving until one year. There were five sets of identical twins. I think I had to throw my hat at that particular year and say that this task is becoming undoable. But back to flying colours.
Speaker 2A wonderful teacher, regina Murphy, who in time has a career in what I still call St Pat's St Patrick's campus in Drumcondra. She had been in New Zealand. She wanted to get rid of the textbook, as I did myself. So we had kind of a literature approach to reading. But it was the way you. You introduced that with great meeting with the parents and we did it in one class in year one, an interesting thing that we discovered the parents all bought into it. But we discovered, around Easter actually, that one mother had bought the flying colours for her boy at home just in case this newfangled thing didn't work. She had the backup. But by the way, of the innovators and the followers and the resistors, I apply there In year one we had one teacher doing this. In year two there were four. In year three there were 13. In year four there were 19 out of the 21 teachers. So I saw that as a kind of as the way of introducing an innovation.
Speaker 2And Murgatroyd talked about the innovators. They're the people who have the innovation. Then there are the followers. They'll just stand back a little bit for a while and they'll see how is this going and if it's going well they'll be on board fairly quickly. Then there's the resistors, and actually we need the resistors. The resistors give us a pain in the rear end, I suppose, for a lot of the time, but they ask all the questions and they ask the awkward questions and sometimes they ask mischievous questions. But again, if they can be convinced they will be on board and it will be good to have them on board. I have to say here, hand in heart, I didn't encounter Deadwood, so I didn't have to, not in San Carlo anyway, but I know people who have had to encounter that. So anyway, I don't know if that summarises.
Speaker 1I suppose that's as good a summary as any, and that brings me nicely actually onto the next part of your life as much as your career. It's when you moved to Dublin West Education Centre. As the director there you took over from Don Heron yeah, the centre was at the time in Llandóchan in the old VC building there, if I'm not mistaken, and you in Clondalkin in the OVC building there, if I'm not mistaken and you spearheaded the move then over to the current campus on TUD Tallaght. Tell us, I suppose, about how you saw the building of I don't mean the physical building the creation of this education centre that's well known throughout the country amongst teachers and educators. You know, when you came on board, did you have a vision? Did you have a way to, you know, build that vision, or did you just arrive and say let's see how this goes?
Speaker 2I don't want to take any credit for the building because actually Don Hearn is the one who suffered through, I suppose, the design and all that kind of thing.
Professional Development and Capacity Building
Speaker 2I did have suffering for about 13 months, in that the building that you're sitting in at the moment was built. It was ready in May 2001. I became director in September 2001 and we didn't get into the new building until October 2002. And that again highlights something that had to do with bureaucracy, with kind of awkward people in places, but so therefore, I had a role in getting into the building and that meant talking to an awful lot of people, departments, ministers, even Attorney General I know Mithishek had a note in his pocket about it also, and it also highlighted to me the kind of things that can go on in the state system and I am pro-state system, but sometimes things are. I think somebody described, I suppose, the way large organisation works as a leviathan, a slow-turning leviathan. We shouldn't have had to do that. Okay, did I come to Dublin West with a vision? I don't know where you were in 1994, alton, but you're a young fella.
Speaker 2But in 1994, there was a great excitement about continuing professional development in Ireland and two Kerry fellows were at the middle of it. John Dennehy was at that time would have been assistant secretary general. He later became the secretary general and Joe Toole was the general secretary of the INTO and they got a lump of European money between them and how they carved it up. But Catherine Byrne and the INTO started a massive, continuing CPD development and I got the call, knock on the door would I come on board with other great people and design school planning? They were also doing learning support, literacy. That year they went on to other things the following year and similarly the department started an initiative in CPD and would you believe it? They also knocked on my door and asked me would I become involved as an Elchor this is a word that came into the system at the time, elchory Would I become an Elchor in the area of parent-teacher relations? And that was something I had written something on previously, so that suited also. But Catherine Byrne again, when you talk about it was a wonderful innovator. And each year the INTO added to that bank and the next year they did literacy, math, they did learning support, maths and they did classroom management and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2But I had my eye on the day they were going to go into CPT for principals and in 1997 the INTO had a summer school now I was a principal at the time a summer school in UCG, as it was called at the time where 100 principals came from around the country a summer school in UCG, as it was called at the time where 100 principals came from around the country for a week and they stayed in UCG and I was with some great people designing that and I enjoyed it and maybe I saw a calling there towards the CPD thing. And actually one thing at the end of that I know I went to the microphone at the end doing the summary and one of the participants stood up and he said I'm 33 years a principal and this is the first week that I've ever had anything like this. Now nowadays principals they have their CPD from the education centre, they have it from EDGE, they have it from so so, so many places. But actually before that there was nothing other than odd education centres and Drunkondra in particular, maybe Black Rock, dublin West, were doing small bits with principals. So maybe that's a long way is it of kind of coming around to?
Speaker 2I had some ideas, a vision I suppose, for some aspects of CPD and the way Dublin West might run. Now Don Hearn was a great director and a lot of things were in place. Of course, everybody wants to make their own mark, but also of the things you've got. You have your vision and I wanted to do things with principalship and that INTO summer school. They did run it some other years, but I actually amalgamated it with a course that we designed in Dublin West and I think I spent a week in August for 26 or 27 years kind of addressing principles, sometimes for the whole five days, sometimes for maybe just part of a day, and that was a great learning experience. But apart from that vision, when I was leaving San Carlo we're having the first SNAs. So the SNA notion was kind of growing in 99, 2000, 2001.
Speaker 2I came to Donan West in 2001. And I remember calling a meeting. We didn't have our building open. I called a meeting, a session for SNAs and teachers in the Lucan Spa for one evening, I don't know, in the spring of 2002. And have you any idea how many people turned up? 163 people turned up. I'm not sure what our agenda was, but our agenda was to do something with this new role of SNA. So I suppose it's great to be. You might be you like it when you have a group of 25, but a group of 163, you just have to stand out in the middle of them and make the best of it. But education centres then did design with the department a very interesting course on SNAs and I think I know I think we're now back full circle again and as far as I know there is other work going on with SNAs. So therefore you deal with things that come to you at the time and you also have that vision for other things.
Speaker 2One of the visions I would have had was for in-school management. Circular 697 was the one that kind of used in school management. It was loosening up the posts of responsibility, but there was no notion at that time that people who had posts of responsibility or didn't have posts of responsibility would kind of do anything in the area of leadership and therefore that was something else that we wanted to do and we did always give options in Dublin West from then on in school management people and I know you've done great things in a new generation in that area also. The other thing I suppose I will say is we were in a Jesh area Again. Don had some very good people working what was called in the area of learning support and we've had marvellous facilitators through several generations in Dublin West in that area and then when EAL kind of came on board. I worked out a statistic myself that we had 21,. There were 21 education centres, so we're about 5% in terms of being an education centre, but we had 21% ourselves of the EAL teachers in the whole country. So there's a responsibility there. There would be some education centres who might have had 1% of the EAL teachers in the country, so we did a lead there in developing courses in EAL. I might mention something in capacity building. I believe very, very, very strongly in that area of capacity building and I'll also link it with the support services.
Speaker 2When Don was director, pcsp came to Dublin West. Now I use the word that Dublin West manages with the department. The department don't like that word, they like to say host. But when somebody wants to kind of take you to court or someplace like that, where's the department? So therefore, unashamedly, dublin West managed these support services in conjunction with the department.
Speaker 2Pcsp was there before me.
Speaker 2It was led by a good friend, áine Lawler.
Speaker 2So therefore I got to know.
Speaker 2I think in my lifetime I've interviewed about 4,000 people, probably 3,000 as principal and then 3,000 in Dublin West.
Speaker 2So I got to meet and I got to know all these bright people leaving the classroom going on secondment. But also then there was a gap between those who were in the support services and those who were in the classroom and we needed an interim group. So I did persuade a civil servant and I just want to say that relations between education centres and the department and myself and the department for most of the 17 years were very good and were very cooperative and I did persuade a civil servant to give us an amount of money to do capacity building and we did it in 10 subject areas over a period of three or four years where we were bringing people who if they came to interview for PCSP they wouldn't quite have made it but give them a course for a number of sessions. And they were there. So therefore I think I was there kind of holding the hand of a very large number of people who kind of came into the system and have been in the system since into the system and have been in the system since.
Speaker 1Brings me nicely to when you talk about capacity. You're a man who did an awful lot of building your own capacity through your career. Because you say you had your NT from Pax, your Bachelor of Arts. You had a higher diploma in education from UCD.
Speaker 1You had a first class honours master's in education from UCG and you went on to do your doctorate in DCU. So obviously building your own capacity was very, very important for you and I suppose you developed that to an extent where you moved Dublin West into an area where it had that responsibility for managing the support services nationally and you were very, very involved in PCSP and PDST and NIPT, among others. Could you tell us a little bit about, I suppose, how you perceive and you're touching it there how you worked with the department over those years? So you had 17 years and you still have your finger on the pulse, gerard, in fairness to what changes have you seen in how the department think and act in relation to innovation or change in education?
Speaker 2There have been different eras and different zones, and sometimes you're trying to prompt the department to do something, sometimes you're trying to prompt the department or, with you, trying to prompt a minister. Actually, back in the early days, a principal officer actually asked Áine Láir and myself would we go to Monaghan and doorstep a minister to persuade him to make a decision about something that, emily, the civil service themselves were finding it very slow to do, because I do some work with Nordic countries and you're familiar with that also, and in Nordic countries now in 2024, they'll know what they're doing in 2027. Whereas sometimes we found ourselves in May, june of a particular year, not having a clue what was going to be happening in the support services in September of that year, with implications for people who thought they were going to be on succumbent for their schools, and so on and so forth. So that's from one end.
Speaker 1So that relationship with the department yeah the department.
Speaker 2as each piece of new in-service was coming up, the department had a tendency to set up a new support service, and they set them up to the extent that at one stage there were 35 support services. And just one little anecdote on that particular one each support service had a steering committee and Dublin.
Speaker 2West we had a whole lot of the small ones as well as the big ones, and these steering committees would meet three times a year and I remember on one occasion saying to department personnel could we have four of these meetings on the same day? Because it could have been State Safe, it could have been SMPP maths recovery and reading recovery, and about four of the six people in each of these committees would be the same people. There'd be myself, there'd be a department inspector, a department official and there would be somebody else and then there would be the leader of that particular group and there might be somebody from the Department of Health and so on and so forth. So therefore, let's save time, let's save travelling expenses and the department response. Well, gerard, you couldn't have four meetings in the same day, so you know you kind of threw your hat at that. We failed to get that one, but there was a very innovative civil servant and he basically reduced from 35 to about four the number of support services over a period. So that was good. But also what happened in those years then is you had smaller support services being dragged screaming into a larger support services each year with tears and gnashing of teeth and all of that kind of thing, and it was a very interesting place to be.
Speaker 2I worked with some very innovative principal officers where the model was somebody would come and say now we have something coming out and it'll be nipt. Uh, you know, it'll be induction for for teachers. Now, a lot of these innovations and it's the same with curriculum. They're're kind of in the system Individuals are doing something. Let's say, for instance, dublin West was doing some induction. Even before I went there the lady called Frances Leahy and Maureen Yackelker were doing kind of induction. So innovative schools were doing the 71 curriculum before the 71 curriculum came. Innovative schools were doing the 99 curriculum before the 99 curriculum came. So in the same way, civil servants would come and say we want to do something on induction now and we just want you to work on us with this. They would have the plan, they would explain it to myself on many occasions and then to all of the directors, and we were all very willing to do this and I thought that was a really wonderful model.
Speaker 2The department would meet with education centre directors, perhaps in Athlone Education Centre for convenience, or it might be anywhere else. Also, the principal officer would come to directors meetings, maybe twice, three times a year or if it was a busy year, maybe four times a year. There was actually one principal officer who wanted to come to all the meetings. But that would have been a little bit much and there might have been. We might be getting towards kind of a control there. That mightn't have suited, but I found that that was a wonderful model and really good things happened there. We went from the transition from PCSP to PPDS to PDST in the large support services and we dealt with the smaller support services there also. But there were times then the department kind of would retrench and wouldn't tell us as much. But in most of my time that's the way it operated and I don't know if I've got to answer your question yet or not, but you can put it to me again if I haven't.
Speaker 1No, no, that's fine. Yeah, that element of cooperation with the department seems to be the way of innovating and bringing around change. Yes, you touched on a thing there and I'd like to bring you back to it, please, about your experience with Nordic countries. Yeah, and about your experience with Nordic countries?
Speaker 1Yeah, and I have a very, very small bit of experience there also, as you know yourself, and I was on a recent trip to Finland. Yeah, I was interested in their take on international cooperations and you know the importance of international engagement and the learnings that can be made. For them it's seen as very, very important and they should all be involved in it, whereas I don't know is there the same enthusiasm from the department for it here in Ireland, and there is great learning and merit and richness to be brought to our system from engaging internationally. Could you tell me about? You know how you got into that and is what I'm saying true? You know, is it worthwhile? Because it's expensive and it takes up time and is it worth it?
Speaker 2Right, ok, and the short question is I believe it is very much worth it and the whole. We are an island. Now, I know, in the digital era your one is less than an island. But if I also want another aspect of international experiences, there was a great director in Drum Condor Education Centre, pat Diggins. I considered him the grandfather of education centres and back in the early 80s he was bringing international speakers to Ireland. Now it happens all the time nowadays, but there would have been the Andy Hargreaves, the Fulhams, gerry Starrett I don't know if you might be too young to have heard of him Dean Fink and all of these people were coming to Drumcondor Education Centre and as a principal, I was meeting these people and I remember dealing with a teacher on one occasion who was doing a degree and I wasn't name dropping, but I said I had lunch with Starrett last year. He said you had lunch with Starrett and I drove Andy Hargreaves from Navan to Kildare. But because of pat diggins, we were exposed to these people coming here. Now my only beef is that we should have had um people going in the other direction. But again, we're the small, open economy and um people here weren't free free to do that. We had our own people who were helping the world, like john cool, and if I have time I might come and pay tribute to to him. But I got into that because, uh, we had.
Speaker 2One of the other great things in Dublin West is that there were many projects and if I just talk about the creativity of teachers, there are thousands of teachers out there who have ideas and I see their education centre is a place where they can bring those ideas and they can talk to the director or talk to other people there and bring them to fruition. Robbie O'Leary was a wonderful principal in Cailin Arden. He had great ideas in the digital area and, cutting to to the chase, we had a Digital Schools of Distinction Award, which we worked very closely with the department and that worked very well. Then we had Digital Schools of Europe, where we led a major international project in eight countries and I found myself chairing meetings on digital education with eight countries where I was the least technically qualified person in the room. But that says something else about leadership is that you know you don't need to be the Minister of Health doesn't need to be a doctor. Minister of Education doesn't necessarily need to be a top class teacher. It might be good if they were. But in those projects and there were a number of them I did encounter people from Nordic countries and they had this forum principles forum in the Nordic country called CURS21NORD, and with a bit of push and pull, they pulled because they knew some of the good things that we were doing in Dublin West and I pushed because I wanted to get into it and I said, well, you left DNA here a thousand years ago, so we have a certain element of Nordic blood in us. So therefore, ireland has been part of that Nordic Principles Forum, of course 21 Nord, since 2015. And I have found it something that's very valuable.
Speaker 2Now. You said we have Lirgas here, who is the funding mechanism for European projects. I used to understand the mechanisms very, very well until a few years ago. I don't understand them as well now. Somebody said they were simplified, but for me they've got more complicated. But now Dublin West is an accredited centre, so I'm told it's going to be easier in the future.
Speaker 2The department has the international section and I'm a bit disappointed there because the international section my main dealings with the international section is. You get a call from them sometimes and say will you take a group of teachers from Croatia or a group of teachers from someplace and will you tell them about our system and so on and so forth, and then they go away and maybe they're on the steering committee of one or two of those projects. But I think the international section and Lirgas should be talking to education centres on a very regular basis. I'm disappointed that that wasn't the case, that they have to go chasing it Now. I know Lirgas have talked to directors meetings in my time and in your time probably also, but I would like to be on a kind of more daily or weekly communication with them and with the international section so that we could discuss rather than having to fill in a very complicated form and kind of, you know, tick various boxes that we should have that collaboration With Digital Schools of Europe.
Speaker 2I found myself in the company of Robbie O'Leary on the corridors of power in Brussels. Now, I won't say we made a huge difference, but there were little things we got into the corridors of power in Brussels with. Now, I won't say we made a huge difference, but there were little things we got into the cards of power in Brussels with our digital schools of Europe, and we can say that Dublin West and Ireland did effect a little bit of change in the way that some things were done digitally there. The other reason is, I think that we need to be involved with education systems in other countries, for instance, I suppose 10, 15 years ago, so many people in education were saying, oh, finland is great, it's this most wonderful education system.
Reflections on Educational Change and Values
Speaker 2And I know one civil servant said to me I'm fed up hearing about how good Finland are. Now the Finns they're not boasting themselves about that, but I'll tell you what the Finns said to me and the other Nordics when we hosted them here in 2017 as part of that Project, curs 21 Nord, the Nordic Principals Forum. They said the primary schools you've brought us to, the second level schools you've brought us to, and your education centre that's the best that we have seen in the 15 years that we have been involved in this here. Now, okay, they were happy at the end of the conference and they might have overstated it, but we have no doubt when we go to these other countries, that what we have here is something that is very valuable and that is an affirmation that you're doing a lot of right things with an awful lot less resources, and I don't want to be complaining about the resources all the time, but you have to state it when it's the reality, and today is budget day and maybe it'll all change today.
Speaker 2Also, we do learn other things as well, because while we're doing some things and there was a minister there a number of years ago he said, oh, we're going to set a target and in 10 years time we're going to be in the top few in Europe I wanted to say to him and I did say to him you know, we're up there already. Stop the nonsense and let's get down to real brass tacks. We are up there, but support us and sustain us to stay up there. But we do learn things from the Finns and from the other countries, and one of the things I mentioned earlier on is the way their structures work so that they know exactly what they will be doing next year. They're not waiting as we are so often in May and June, and I know you had this experience with support services in recent times. What is going to happen? I had the experience and I say this because I've said it also times what is going to happen. I had the experience and I say this because I've said it also of being in the Department of Education in Helsinki back around 2016 at a meeting where our people from Olu brought me in there with others and they were talking about a new curriculum that they had and everybody was talking very positively.
Speaker 2Now I'm very quiet and retiring at meetings and sometimes I don't want to say anything. But I thought, sure, we'll ask a question here and I said this is kind of lovely love in here. I said what is the reality? And they were shocked and they said, yes, this is the reality. We trust the department, trusts the teachers, the teachers trust the department, the unions trust the department. And it comes back to this trust thing and every time one is in Finland, one hears about trust and in other Nordic countries also. A great lady, louise Brinkselius in Sweden, has trust-based management is her theme In Finland. They don't have an inspectorate and that's part of the trust thing, so we'd like to imbibe a little bit of that. We also do need and you probably don't want me straying into politics and I won't but when you see the way the world is going and you know when anti-democratic forces kind of rise anywhere, what are the first things they do. In Hungary, orban closed a university in his early years. We should have seen what was going to come later. If the presidency in the United States goes what I will say the wrong way, we're told the education department may be closed when these kinds of forces, journalists and educators, are banished. So I think it is the responsibility of those with a kind of a liberal, social democratic approach to life and to education not to indoctrinate although education is never neutral but to construct an education system whereby moderation will continue into the next generation.
Speaker 2Quote Yeats, who talked about the centre cannot hold and talked about innocence being damned. He was talking about that in 1919. Now again, we kind of have to look at that kind of thing. And I also sometimes quote a wonderful lady called Wangari Mathai, who was a Nobel Prize winner and she said in the course of history there comes a time where humanity is called upon to switch to a new level of consciousness and to reach a higher moral ground. She said almost 20 years ago now is the time and I'm saying now, now is the time for us to aim towards going towards that higher moral ground.
Speaker 2Now that seems a lot in this conversation, but that's what I hope we will achieve by talking to people in other countries and to help develop our school systems in whatever way we can. Now we're not the ministers. We would hope that the ministers would be meeting and would be doing something similar, and remember meeting Pazzy Salberg in Finland, in his home country, some years ago, with ideas like this as well. And he says you know, some of you are in countries where I talk to chief inspectors and I talk to ministers and they're not fraterning and that's not. We're not talking about the current chief inspector in Ireland, who's a lady who's doing a very good job in case anybody is worried.
Speaker 1Do you think in Ireland that we have to be vigilant around those kind of forces affecting how our schools are managed or how our curriculum is managed? Are there? I suppose, now that we're tops in literacy and not far off tops in mathematics and science, do we have to be very, very careful Because, a bit like when Paul McCartney changed his grip after he won the Masters, are we in danger of changing for change's sake and losing where we're performing right now.
Speaker 2For what reason? You're saying because we're doing very well, we might just kind of keep on changing, just for the sake of change, correct?
Speaker 1And when you haven't clearly identified your own values on which you base your education system, are you open to the vagaries of the winds of change as they blow across Europe?
Education and International Perspective
Speaker 2Yeah, and also part one is worry there and I don't want to be using another political phrase, but kind of the winds of neoliberalism, which is something quite different to the kind of liberalism I was talking about earlier on, who kind of see every opportunity to take funds out and if you're seen to be OK to be doing well, well, maybe we can steer funds away. Post-covid, a lot of things can be done online. We might save money there. Online is great. But, um, we might mention that point that cpd real cpd still needs face-to-face and real teacher education still needs face-to-face. So therefore, yes, also change.
Speaker 2We shouldn't just change. Uh, we should observe what's happening in other countries, but we always need to customize it to ourselves. We don't have to follow every fad, because I know somebody I talked to quite some time ago and it was about handwriting and she followed. You know, new Zealand went a certain direction in handwriting and then the rest of the world started following that direction and by the time we were coming around to adopt what they were having in New Zealand, they had moved back the other way. But that's like fashion. That's fashion in all respects. If you stay wearing the same clothes for half a generation, you'll be fashionable again, but not necessarily encouraging that. That's why we need to be and I say educated in a broad sense, so that we can be discerning and we can make the right decisions. Is this the right way to go, or is it not?
Speaker 1or is it not? Perhaps international engagement allows us to see beyond ourselves and can identify what we're doing well, rather than having to see well, they're doing that better, which is fair enough, and if they are well and good, and bring it in, but also to see well, hold on a small minute. We're doing very well with this aspect here. You know we should be exporting that rather than importing alternatives. That's inferior.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that's why I think when we are dealing with other countries, when we're working with other countries, we will see things that they've done there and maybe that they're pulling back from. They see what we're doing as well, and I know that there are Nordic countries who wanted to take on some of the things that we're doing here. I'm not confining myself to Nordic countries. We've had projects with other countries also and if we had time we would do more. But I suppose there is time and also there is that, I think, reluctance on the part of forces in departments and so on to engage in international cooperation.
Speaker 1Indeed, indeed, gerard. You have, I suppose, seen an awful lot of change, yeah, but as we're coming towards the end of our conversation, I would ask you to think and maybe give me an insight into what are the positive changes in the broad spectrum that you've seen in education, in in your time, uh, in leadership, in in your various different roles just a number of things.
Speaker 2I suppose maybe slightly come to mind that quote I had from a teacher in 1997 who said I'm 33 years a principal and this is the first time that I've had a session like that and that is standard for principals now, whether it's coming from the education centres, whether it's coming from the support services, and there is a consciousness that you just don't. In my doctorate I interviewed quite a number of principals. Some of them makes kind of very, very interesting readings. Somebody turning up on the 1st of September and being given seven bunches of keys and few bank account numbers and checkbooks and said off you go, we're not there at all. So that is one very major change there is. Obviously we have the class size thing, even in my.
Speaker 2I suppose some people consider me old. I don't think I'm that old, but I know when I started out in 1974 I think I had 42 pupils in the first and second class. When bernadette started off in 75 she had 49 in a class and I know george brown, who I mentioned earlier on, had 89. Back in 1932, in the same classroom that I, they had to put in a floor so that there'd be two floors. Think about health and safety. Um, it's long, that's the problem. But yeah, well, you do see photographs back in some of John Coultham's things you would see. I remember a photograph of St Pat's National School back around 1905 when the monitor system was in place and you would have maybe 100 in a class.
Speaker 2So also, I suppose, innovation. We've come through a period where there has been. We always have to have innovation and that's why I say there are creative teachers, but we need an openness to innovation. Induction, of course, I talked about induction of principles there and this was my own doctorate was, I suppose, about principles, where there was the initiation phase and the development phase and the autonomy phase and you know what comes after that is the disenchantment phase. And of course the skill there is, which I suppose you are doing in Dublin West and the other services are doing, is when principals are getting into the disenchantment phase, you give them a boost and they start off what I call Charles Handy's sigmoid curve again and they start off with another development phase and another autonomous phase. But that's not confined to principalship, it's confined to your own role there.
Speaker 1So you're obviously very clearly in the autonomous phase at this stage of your existence, with the disenchantment phase a long way away. I hope for the manager committee's sake, it's a very long way away, justin. Finishing up, gerard, yeah, as you say, you've got a lot of living to do, yet. What brings you joy now? What brings Gerard McHugh?
Speaker 2joy in your life. I say I left the formal system after 44 years in 2018. And I consider myself now to be a grandparent is the thing that brings me most joy. There are seven wonderful grandchildren in two different counties and I suppose I talk a lot about them and I meet them, and also I see the education system from a different perspective. I am at the school gate with the young mummies and daddies in Kelly County, offaly, and in Lontarf in Dublin, and I also look on something that maybe for a long part of the career homework took it as granted.
Speaker 2I look at homework from a different perspective and President Higgins came out on homework over a year ago. We have to really examine the purpose of homework. Also. Something else I do and I'll link of homework also something. Something else I do and I'll link the homework to this is I do supervision of theses for people who are coming into their 10 000 word word theses, and I had a post-primary lady, uh, last year who was had a passion anti homework and she wanted to do this and I knew why she wanted to do it. She had teenage children, some of them had special needs and homework was, was, and all I did say to her is please do your thesis on homework, but, of course, your own passion it's good, but you have to leave your biases to the side, and she did that, and that was so. My grandchildren, that is a passion.
Speaker 2I also, I suppose, do enjoy that engagement. I don't go out looking for gigs. I don't do school placement. I made a vow in my 20s I wasn't going to become a schools inspector and I'm still kind of holding to it. I only blipped once. I'm not likely to blip again.
Speaker 2One of the things I suppose when I was in Dublin was sitting in your place. I probably addressed groups I don't know 80 to 100 times a year. Some of them might be for just one minute, some of them might have been for an hour, and I suppose I got to enjoy elements of that. And in the years since, since 2018, well, if it was 100 times, I was doing it in 2017, it was kind of down to 20 fairly quickly and 10 and five, because when you're yesterday's person, you're yesterday's person. But thanks to the very occasional opportunity given by yourself on one or two occasions, I do get back and it's nice to be back and to be standing out there on a floor.
Speaker 2Maybe you're talking nonsense, but, um, engaging with, with teachers and sometimes on occasion and ask to kind of speak to student teachers. But in many cases nowadays student teachers are, in some cases are, mature people. That that does inspire me also. So I've mentioned grandchildren, I mentioned that I won't call it lecturing, but that kind of engagement or speaking, the thesis thing is OK and lots more I suppose. I frequently say about the energy levels at 69 aren't what they were at 29 or 39. So therefore, when I spend a full week with grandchildren, I kind of feel that I need the weekend, whereas when I was 29, I didn't need the weekend and didn't choose it for recovery purposes at all.
Speaker 2Just one other thing, I suppose, between the system that we work in, which is very good, and also I've had a few examples of, let's say, working with the INTO back in 1994 and so on and so forth. And also I was asked to do some work with Hibernia College. But first of all I suppose I was on the panel that kind of gave them some approval back in 2003. And then I was asked to bring education that constructed the four education centres initially, would work with Hibernia College where they hired rooms, et cetera, et cetera. But I was at some meetings with a private organisation and, by the way, I'm still very fully pro-state and that's where I met the most wonderful Siobhan Kerr, whom you know and didn't. I do very well to take her out of the private sector and bring her over to.
Speaker 2Dublin West is that you had a meeting in that organization, or indeed with Catherine Burns, into, and tomorrow morning the change that you plan will be happening, whereas sometimes, in the other system, you have a meeting on the 1st of October 2024, you have the same meeting on the 1st of October 2025, and nothing has happened in the meantime, and that's something that I would like to see change as well. It's that mixture of what has to happen in other sectors. We need, maybe, the comfort zone, and when we talked about department earlier on and all the support services and taking it down from 35 to four, which was a good move, and the fact that you couldn't have four meetings in the same day, there are things we can learn from the way other organisations do their work, so that you make a decision and then you act on the decision and you have outcomes fairly quickly.
Speaker 1Well, gerard, I think that's very well put and it's a lovely place to finish our chat. I thank you so much for sharing with me your experience and your thoughts and your wisdom on the Irish education system and further afield, and I wish you the very, very best in all that you do, including, and most importantly, your grandchildren, and I thank you again. Go raibh míle maith agus tat air teachers themselves podcast, gerry.
Speaker 2Okay, galton, it's great to talk to you. I'm probably going to think of all the things that I didn't say. Actually, I did mention John Coultham there, because I always want to mention him. I also, concepta Connachty is another person that I'd like to kind of put out there in the record, because any time we're talking in Tala, any time we're talking in Jesh or disadvantaged areas, I want the name Concepta Connachty to be out there. I'm very proud. She spent the last six months of her life working in an office in Dublin West also.
Speaker 1So sorry for going beyond your ending, no, no, sorry for going beyond your ending, but I would like to go back. I'm worthy of mention for sure. Conceptuality. Okay, gerard, go raibh míle naíoch Long a fóill Tune in next week for another episode of Teachers Themselves. If you're enjoying this season, you can go back and find episodes from season one or two. All well worth a listen. Please don't forget to subscribe, share with colleagues and friends, leave us a review or send us a message. Your feedback informs the show. You can follow us across our social media channels Instagram, twitter, linkedin. Facebook Links are in the show. You can follow us across our social media channels Instagram, twitter, linkedin. Facebook Links are in the show notes. If you have any thoughts on today's episode or suggestions for future topics, you can email Zita here at zrobinson at dwecie. That's zrobinson at dwecie. That's zrobinson at dwecie. Oh, and, as always, don't forget to book your CPD at dwecie. Hop online at dwecie to book your CPD. Míle maith agaibh aríisd. Have a great week. Slán tamall.
Speaker 2Teachers Themselves is a DWEC original Produced and created by Dublin West Education Centre.
