Sample As it Flows

As It Flows

As It Flows

As It Flows (2023)

Work produced by pupils from Knocknacarra Educate Together National School, Galway Teachers: Lisa Kennedy and Sarah Glynn Researchers: Julie Agu, Dr Sarah Corrigan, Michela Dianetti, Dr. Eavan O’Dochairtaigh and Dr. Lucy Elvis Undergraduate Intern: Meaghan Cooke Funded by the Research Development Grant from the College of Arts Social Sciences and Celtic Studies at the University of Galway Edited by Lucy Elvis and Michela Dianetti

Introduction How It Flowed

In a lot of ways, Galway is a true water county. It’s home to Ireland’s wettest weather station (in Leenan, Co.Galway), superabundant sea life. and Europe’s fastest-flowing river (the Corrib, of course — there are some lovely short stories from the river’s point of view in this book). In the Greenschools initiative, children are tasked with a different theme each year, and our local teachers found water conservation in a place so blue a bit of a challenge. Since water is everywhere in Galway (sometimes even in our way), it can be difficult to think about it as both ubiquitous and precious. It’s in these spaces of difficulty that thinking philosophically together can be the most useful. We call this kind of thinking together the Community of Philosophical Inquiry. When we inquire, we try to answer a conceptually rich question that matters to how we live together by thinking through our own knowledge and experience.

In this project, we asked, ‘Is inspiration or information more important in changing people’s behaviour?’, as a way of exploring how we might motivate people to conserve water. The information from researchers in the humanities and the experience of finding out about research acted as our evidence. Students gathered this by coming to campus for a day, and, acting like university students, they took their own notes of what was useful, interesting, or curious. They met five different researchers to think about water as a riddle, as sea monsters, as a friend and as a force, and we hoped that these perspectives might help them think about something so familiar in a new way.

Back at school, the students tried to answer our big question together. In fourth class, many of them talked about the ways in which our approach to new information matters if it is going to inspire us.

However, in third class the students outlined how the person delivering information was make or break. In both classes though, inspiration was thought to be most important in changing people’s behaviour.

In this book, you can explore their creative responses to their experience. Students worked together or in pairs to produce creative writing (poems, stories, riddles, and letters) based on the different themes they encountered, and with the help of artist and illustrator Lara Luxardi they created the illustrations that fill these pages.

Interspersed among their writing are some short pieces by the researchers who took part in the project so you can see the ideas that informed and inspired them.

Like us, and their teachers, we hope you’ll be surprised by the detail, humour, and beauty in their writing, just as we were impressed by the quality of their approach to epistemic matters (questions about how and what we can come to know). Unlike adults, who can find it hard to reach across different areas of thinking, these children were able to move between issues around the quality of information, to the quality of the person providing it, their effort, ethical character and charisma, as well as the interrelations between inspiring and informing others.

We’d like to thank the departments and funds that supported this project: the discipline of Philosophy at University of Galway, the College Research Office, the University of Galway Research Development Grant, the staff at Knocknacarra Educate Together School — especially Sarah, Lisa, Claire and Ger — as well as the students and researchers who gave their time to making this project work: Meghan Cook, Julie Agu, Dr. Sarah Corrigan, and Dr. Eavan O’Dochartaigh.

Lucy Elvis & Michela Dianetti

The Aspidochelone

This is it, I’m going to die, chopped into pieces to eat as fish food. Hook in my mouth, net pinching on my body, oh wait, never mind. The net is overpowered by my weight, the entire fishing dock collapses. My bones rattle as I hit the water. Fishermen plunge down along with arrows, knives and swords. There are explosions and fire while ships turn and clash into each other. This is probably a good time to go.

I am the Aspodocholone, a sea creature. The most powerful being in the.......

OH! What is that thing on my back?!

It might just be some of the wood from that last incident. But no, it’s something else. Something I can’t put my fin on. I raise my head. My blowhole bursts with water as I breathe. I see sailors, lots of sailors.

“You’re not getting away this time!” says a sailor, this must be captain. The others are holding lots of weapons.

This is it, I’m going to die, stabbed to my.....

“What? No! We’re sinking!” .............and that’s the last I heard of them I’m the Aspidochelone, the most powerful being in the world!

Brendan Vance

As It Flows

To the Mountain To The Sea I Believe You will Be a Thing in The River That Would Move That Would Change Because of The River.

Denas Medinis

Somewhere in the Mare Oceanum Dear Sailors’ Union,

To whom it may concern, you landed on my back when I was trying to fall asleep!

You lit a fire on my back which was very disturbing (and my scales are very sensitive!)

I am disgusted that you think you can do that! I would have done more than dived but I would have killed you and I wanted an apology!

I will be seeing you in court or else ……… you get the teeth!

The worst wishes, Fastitocalon

Suan Cannon-Doran and Afnan Jazah

From Longest Day to Longest Night

My brother Aodhon would not like to live in an igloo because it would be too confined, he also doesn’t like cold places. He would be cold and sad.

He would probably find something fun to do after that he would probably make some food and then play with the snow for about one hour and then after that if he had technology, he would play cult of the lamb. And do lots of stuff in the Artic he would probably see stuff.

In the morning he would find a polar bear, he would start running away the polar bear would chase him to the igloo and my brother would hide in the igloo and wait till it’s gone, he would go to bed and then come back to Ireland.

Max Kenny

Beware of the Aspidochelone!

Or, as other people call it, the Jasconius.

Just underneath the ocean Aspidochelone is searching and searching for a cosy spot Sleeping and sleeping and suddenly “thud” Cosy then itchy, it thought “There’s sailors on me!” it cried Over the waves were sailors. They sank and sank!

No one ever saw them again!

Into the water Unicorns will sink

Sink and die!

Yasmin Abd Elwahab

To Mr Sailor, Stop going on my back. It is not an island. I don’t like it. Next time I will eat you. If you run, you will be dead. I am big, strong and smart. And I don’t like to play games. I have sharp teeth for killing.

From, The Fish.

Andrei Ciornei and Daniel O’Halloran

Sea Monster Story

Uh! I despise these brainless humans they’re so annoying.

Every month on their weird wooden thing they come with lots of people and camp on me and they even cook food on me.

One day I got so sick of them.

So, I took a big deep breath and I… dived up and down and all around. I swayed back and forward. I spun in circles and just as I started to slow down I heard a big scream.

“AH!” said the man as he jumped up off my back and onto his weird wooden thing. He turned around and sailed back to his land and never came back again.

Aoife Lally

Winter is Magical

Winter is cold snow is fun without snow it would be bad white bears are soft so is snow winter is cold winter is cool so are you without snow it would be bad oh look it’s a penguin I love penguins Winter is cold Snow is soft Soft is snow Without snow it would be bad Oh how I love snow Because its soft Winter is cold Without snow it would be bad

Gabriele Lengviniate

RED

“On this stormy, dewy night…” I said softly with hope he would stay. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I didn’t want him to leave so I said this: “I…wish you farewell,” I said to my husband, who had already let go of my hands; my cold, pale hands. As he started to disappear into midnight fog and mist, clouds formed. I could tell it started to drizzle. He waved as I waved back.

It was only then that I realized he was gone.

On his boat, I hoped to see him but he was already further than the eye can see. Lightning struck. I thought that he might be dead already.

I gasped as I saw his boat return. Except his boat was red, it used to be brown, a dark shade at that. It was steaming towards me. Instead of jumping out of the way I simply stood there. I don’t know why. As it crashed into me I saw a word written on the side. It read one word ‘red’. And that was the last word I thought I saw.

But instead I woke up many years later.

Thankfully I am safe on the shore. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know why…

The end…right?

Delia Ille

Forever it Flows

The river Always flows, Through the Reeds on it Goes, over The hills, Until it fills, The huge open Ocean

Robbie Butler

Water as a Frozen Friend

“It’s like an ICE-RINK out there!” “It’s like GLASS!” It’s TREACHEROUS!” These are the phrases that my panic-stricken father would say on any (rare) icy day that came along when I was growing up in Galway. In my research now I spend a lot of time reading books, letters, diaries, even newspapers, written in and about the Arctic in the 1800s. As you can imagine, this involves a lot of writing about snow and ice! Ice is of course water in its frozen form and snow is just a type of ice. In my talk ‘Water as a Frozen Surprise!’ I wanted to think about the idea of Ice as a Friend that helps us, instead of an Enemy that makes life difficult. I also wanted to get across the differences between the Arctic (North Pole) and Antarctica (South Pole). In the Arctic, Sea is surrounded by Land but in Antarctica, Land is surrounded by Sea. The Arctic has polar bears and Antarctica has penguins and the two never meet!

People have also lived and thrived in the Arctic for thousands of years.

Preparing for the talk made me see examples from my research as well as from my own experiences living in, and visiting, places in the Arctic. A polar bear uses sea ice as a pathway in order to hunt food; snow acts as an insulator when it lies on rooftops and around houses; animals build homes in the snow for hibernation. Traditionally, in communities in the Arctic, winter was a time when it became easier to visit friends in other places by travelling quickly by dog-sled over the sea ice, connecting people.

The photograph (below) that made the biggest impression on the children was one I included as an afterthought. It shows an activity we did almost every winter weekend when I lived in northern Sweden: cooking over a fire in the snow. We started with a shallow hole in the snow but as the fire burned the hole got deeper, providing a natural windbreak. The snow even acts as a support for the sticks used to hold the wire basket of sausages! Barbecuing in the snow with friends and family is a very cosy activity.

To make the point that ice is more fun when you wear the right gear, I had also brought my favourite snow boots just in case anyone wanted to try them on. It was really fun for me to watch the enthusiastic reactions to this. It turned out that everyone wanted to wear them.

“Aaaah, they’re so warm!” said someone. I must also recommend them for cold and rainy Galway days!

My only regret is that I think I forgot to say that even the Arctic has summer! Then some of the snow and ice melts, creating huge volumes of water that help plants to grow quickly in the long and sunny days.

But at least I did remember to say “There are no penguins in the Arctic!”

Dr Eavan O’Dochartaigh is an Honorary Research Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Galway. Her research focuses on how the Arctic was represented in the nineteenth century. She works with archival materials from that time to investigate the people, places and ways of seeing that still matter today for the way we think about the Arctic as a remote, romantic, fascinating place.

Her research is funded by a Science Foundation Ireland-Irish Research Council Pathway Programme Award.

21/06/2023

Dear Nettie, How long it has been? You would love it here in Greenland.

Yesterday I travelled long distances to get to the beautiful place of Svalbard where I am currently writing this! I have been having a great time so far but tonight is what I came here for …...THE LONGEST DAY OF THE ENTIRE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight will not get dark, not once.

The whole village is out making igloos for the long light evening ahead. All the children in the village are making toffee apples to toast over the fire, two of those children are mine.

Astrid and Ingrid have really settled into life in Norway. Astrid has found a lovely friend in her school called Linnea and Ingrid found two lovely friends called Maja and Agnes. Astrid just turned eleven six days ago and Ingrid will turn eight in July. Astrid is in art classes which she loves and Ingrid goes to basketball! I know, strange!

How are Olivia and Emma? Astrid says it’s strange at school without Olivia and she also misses Ida as well. Norwegian is not an easy language to learn but we are starting to get the hang of it: Hei, hvordan har du det? Translates to Hello, how are you? We are planning to come back to Oxford sometime this summer so hope to see you soon.

Lots of love Ella xxxx ☺

Ella Donald

The Arctic

Ice is in the artic ice is in sea ice can also freeze me hehehehehehe French people say oui oui.

The artic is a snowy place, to wash things on your face.

The artic Isn’t warm and sometimes there is storms .

Oscar Mullin

The T-O Map

Dear sailor, This is about the T--O Map. The places you could visit with a T--O map are: Africa Europe, Asia. And the rest are ocean in the T--Omap. You might need to sail to see your friends. The people who made the T--O map did not know the rest, they thought all the rest were ocean. The places in the T--O map are the places where their family and friends live. The places where their family and friends do not live are the places not on the T--O map.

Nevin Bibin

Review of the Aspidochelone I would give the Aspidochelone a 3-star review because the Island on its back looks great. But I would not recommend to stay for longer than 20 years because the Aspidochelone might dive down to the bottom of the ocean and you will drown.

The scenery on the island on the back of the Aspidochelone looks beautiful and it looks straight from a movie or detailed cartoon.

If I was to stay for as long as I wanted, I would stay for no longer than twenty years. Then I would leave the Aspidochelone island because I would not want to risk drowning while I am sleeping.

My opinion of the Aspidochelone is that it is very beautiful and looks like a movie scene, but the only thing that would make the island better is that if the Aspidochelone would not dive down and drown whoever is on it. The natural fruits and berries that grow on the Aspidochelone taste very sweet like a very sweet apple made with sugar or chocolate. I would recommend anyone to come here and enjoy the ocean and the view from the Aspidochelone, but be careful so you don’t drown.

I give it three stars out of five,

Igor Juskewycz

Imare oceanum 987 a.d.

To whom it may concern, 20 sailors landed on my back yesterday and therefore I have produced a list of complaints: 1. My skin is nearly all gone because of all this fire.

2. I almost drowned because of how heavy your boat was.

3. Once I moved the smallest bit everyone started screaming.

4. You really have no respect for sea life.

So next time your sailors land on my back, there will be very serious consequences.

Not so kind regards, Jasconius

Connell Quinlan and Sean McGuirk

The River Monster The monster Is big and it Is strong And it is Gigantic.

The monster Has a big tail It has a good smell To attract the fish His mouth has large Sharp teeth To eat The fish and capture Them when they come When people catch The monster He releases a odour To make them hungry .

Roberta Masiulyte

A trip to Antarctica

One cold night I was travelling in my plane to Antarctica. I needed a place to stay so I took residence in a nearby (abandoned) igloo. Luckily there was some food in a barrel I was so hungry and had no food there were four salmons sadly they were raw so I had to cook them after they were cooked I ate one and left the rest for later I put down my sleeping bag and turned on a lamp I made myself a nice hot chocolate and sat down beside the fire (I also roasted some marshmallow’s) after that I went to bed. ……. After a while I woke up I heard a noise coming from outside it was probably just the wind LOL but it didn’t sound like the wind it sounded like a growl…… I put my super fuzzy coat on and three layers of socks before I went outside.

Could I discover some type of new creature? Or maybe a new variant of an already discovered animal? Or would this just be a penguin asking for food and shelter actually I would love to have a pet penguin but I wouldn’t get any money out of it so I opened the door and I was expecting to see a penguin or something but I saw something different it had two horns on its head and tow adorable little eyes I took it inside and gave it one salmon then I went to bed.

DAY 2 The next day was partly sunny I took my fishin’ rod and went to the sea side which was mostly ice but there were a few holes I saw a polar bear I didn’t approach it just in case.

[FUN FACT] Polar bears are believed to be the most hostile bear species.

.

I caught 5 and a half fish cause I gave half of my fish to a penguin and named him Rob. When I went home I noticed that Rob followed me.

I took him inside and noticed the weird creature got bigger I need to make a cage I thought….. I went back outside and made a rough snow cage big enough for the creature even if it gets larger and I gave Rob and the creature some salmon. After a few days I had to go back to Ireland so I took a few pics of the creature said goodbye to the creature that I named Zombo and Rob and went back to Ireland. .

Nereas Kalamoutsos

Why the the River goes to the Sea and Dries up

Once upon a time there was a river. He was lonely and wanted a friend. And the fish in the river were not very chatty.

One day a tortoise walked by. He started drinking straight from the river.

“STOP”, yelled the river.

“Oh”, said tortoise. “I was just getting a drink”, he added.

“Well drink someone else”, said the river in a cross voice.

“Well”, said the tortoise “I have to drink… so would you make a deal?” The river wanted to hear more.

“What if I only have a drink a day and bring back a bucket of water for you?”, asked the tortoise.

The river thought and thought and then finally agreed to the tortoise’s deal. And every day the tortoise came and left and came back again with a bucket of water for the river. But soon it was getting pretty crowded by the river. The river came up with a plan.

It went to the sea and asked him for a favour. Even still, the animals came back with a bucket of water for the day. He wanted them to leave so he asked the sea if the sea could wash him away.

. “You have to answer a riddle first”, answered the sea. “What is the riddle?”, asked the river. “What goes forwards and backwards while it goes backwards and forwards?” asked the sea.

“Give me a clue”, said the river.

The sea replied “It is something to do with me”.

“Is it the tide?” guessed the river.

“Yes!” exclaimed the sea.

Then the river went to the sun to ask him to dry him out. “First you will have to do something for me”, the sun explained. “what can I do for you?”

“Can you water my friend the tree? He lives near your banks.”

The river completed the task the sun requested. The sea and the sun both did as they were told. The next day, all the animals came to the river to see that the river was gone.

All that was left was a few dead fish lying on the banks on either side of the river.

The clouds did not like what was happening to the animals. They cried enough tears to fill up the empty space where the river once was. The animals could all drink again. They lived happily in the forest.

Jude Eric McEllistrim

When Water is a Puzzle

Julie and I had fun going to the roots of philosophy through the means of water. Like salmon we swam against the current towards the source of philosophy: the sense of wonder and puzzlement in front of the amazing world we live in which philosophical questions originate.

We wanted the children, who hold that sense of wonder, to become accustomed to the idea of philosophical questions, and to prepare the ground for the philosophical inquiry that we then did at their school. For this journey, we thought that our old friends and philosophers from Ancient Greece would be perfect for the job, so we decided to pick the Ancient philosopher from the Greek island Ephesus: Heraclitus. We spoke about his image of the river as a metaphor for the constant changing of things in the world, which lays at the foundation of Western philosophy.

Before getting into Heraclitus’ famous riddle (“No man ever steps into the same river twice”) and addressing the idea of change, we introduced ourselves as PhD students. Most of them didn’t know what a PhD student does, so we introduced our work, which is not fully a job and doesn’t make us exactly students; we are in a transitional moment within the current of our career. We also talked about how, to do our PhDs, we travelled from far away, from our original source (from Rome and from Marseilles respectively), found a temporary home in Galway, and that we didn’t know yet in what kind of sea we will eventually flow into. Finally, we added to our introduction that this uncertainty in the constant changing of our work path didn’t scare us too much because in the messy and confusing flowing of things we’ve had many valuable experiences, learnt many great things, found many friends along the way at our University and, especially, found in each other a life friend.

When we read the riddle of the river and asked the children whether they thought it was possible to step into the river a second time, we were amazed by how their reasoning happened so quickly and, without any aid from us, how they casually observed that a river which flows is always changing, and therefore is never the exact same. At this point we tried to question Heraclitus’ idea of pantha rei (everything flows), asking together if it is really the case that everything in the world is constantly changing, flowing like a stream, and so we tried to think of something that never changes. We asked them to mime in pairs, something that never changes. At this point, their abstract and theoretical thinking blew our minds. Some of them came up with the idea of nothingness, miming a zero, others with the end of the constant changing represented by death, and others said pieces of art that once are made can’t be changed. Their capacity for abstract thinking made it very easy for us to shift the focus of the question from the river to the identity of the person stepping into it. “We said that the water of the river always changes, but what about the person stepping into its water?” we asked. The examples of things that constitute what we call our Self that are constantly changing came down like a waterfall. From hair and nails always growing, to different thoughts always flowing in one’s head, someone (great insight, Jude!) even took the conversation on a moral level, saying how everything that we do has an impact on other people’s days, and that in that way we always change, and we are always changed by, other people all the time.

We then ended our collective stream of consciousness and stepped outside the classroom together a little changed from the moment we stepped into it, at least Julie and I definitely did, filled with a renewed puzzlement and a refreshed sense of wonder for this always-spinning planet we live in.

Michela Dianetti graduated with a BA and MA in Philosophy from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She is now an IRC-funded PhD candidate in the Italian Department at the University of Galway, with a thesis titled ‘Literature Against Unreality’ in which she discusses the role of literature in attending to suffering through the works of Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, and Elsa Morante. Additionally, she is especially interested in the role of attention in public philosophy and education.

Julie Agu is a PhD Student and Coordinator of the Canada Hub for the Institut des Amériques (IdA) at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Centre for International Studies and Research (CERIUM) of the Université de Montréal (UdeM). Her research is on queer life-writing and lesbian metaphors in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.