What moves John is the quality of attention and respect the students bring to listening to their fellow-students, some of whom are as young as twelve years of age. The night takes place at the end of the year when the students know each other. In hearing someone recite in Russian, Swahili or Japanese, the students are seeing that person in their own right and in their own nationality as if for the first time. “It is a mindbroadening experience for the whole school.”
teaches English and music. The Department is close-knit and, in the Leaving Certificate year, students move between teachers. John explains that Liam, for example, loves teaching Sylvia Plath and will take John’s class while he teaches Liam’s class Hopkins. John has been Head of English in St Columba’s for more than twenty years. The three male members of the Department have known each other a very long time and, with their newest colleague, Deirdre, share the conviction that what they do is very important and must be done well. There are three or four formal meeting a year but there is constant ticktacking every day and, at Senior Cycle, all the members of the department teach the same course. There is strong negotiation about the choice of texts for the Comparative Study. Part of the intention is to encourage the students to exchange their own views and to discuss the different approaches taken by their teachers. The system also has the advantage that the teachers can take each other’s classes. In the last term, the LC students choose by topic rather than by teacher and move between one teacher and another.
His Own Writing John says that he was ruined as a writer by having to write political speeches when he worked as an advisor for his friend, Garret Fitzgerald. He adds, “I am genuinely fearful, having read so much good literature over the years of trying it myself. But, if I ever decide to have a go, it will be fiction.” Politics & Teaching John was very involved for about 20 years in politics, working closely with Garret FitzGerald, whom he greatly admires and of whom he is very fond. He took a break from teaching to work as a political advisor at the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) and was secretary of the Fine Gael delegation to the New Ireland Forum in 1983. John recalls this as a fascinating period in his life and he remembers many people said, “Oh you’ll never go back to teaching after this” but John insists, despite his abiding interest in current affairs, that “Teaching is much more important than politics” and he adds mischievously that he found more self-absorption and childishness in politics than he has ever found in teaching.
Homework Junior Certificate classes get frequent homework but only work which is short and relevant. Leaving Certificate classes get one major piece of writing per week. “Marking,” says John “is the great tyranny of being an English teacher. However, it has to be done and done properly but it is so time-coming.”
English Department
What his students might say about him.
The English Department in St Columba’s is small and numbers four teachers: John, Julian Girdham and Liam Canning (both former students of John’s) and Deirdre Gannon, who
“I hope the students might say I’m someone who loves my food and my cricket and I’m someone whose classes are fun.”
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