The power of teachers to lay the foundations for life

Outside of parents, nobody can influence the path your life takes as much as an inspiring teacher, whether they’re the ones who coax you through those early multiplication tables in primary school or try to steer you through the pluperfect tense for the Leaving Cert.

And then again, the biggest impression they leave is often because of something that isn’t on the curriculum at all – a love of sport or reading or writing or music or travel or drama…anything that they have a passion for which is so infectious that it inspires others to follow by osmosis.

Sometimes it’s a passion that, in the student, doesn’t stay the course, because life gets in the way – but still, and for the rest of their years, they remember fondly that teacher who took the time to colour outside the lines and make you realise that all learning doesn’t come out of a textbook.

Two of those people who influenced me died within a few days of each other, on either side of the New Year.

Tessie Moloney, who passed away on December 29, was our first teacher when we made the move from the co-ed Convent in Oughterard to the all-boys St Cummin’s National School in Oughterard.

The first three years on the education ladder were spent with the nuns at the top of the village, but the sure sign you were getting older was when you had to make the trek across the narrow bridge over the Owenriff River and up to the school in Claremount.

Even better, when our turn came in the early seventies, the original school was on its last legs and a lovely new, three-teacher, state-of-the-art building was nearing completion.

When it opened, it was so special that we had to bring runners to wear indoors – no outdoor shoes were allowed to scuff the tiles.

But what made the new school special was the same as defined the old school; three wonderful teachers who cherished their charges and loved their work.

Frankie Kyne was the Principal, Sheila Gibney took the middle classes and Tessie Moloney looked after the spring lambs, just finding their feet.

They were great teachers but more than that, they were kind and inspiring – and whenever you bumped into any of them in the years that followed, they were as interested in you as they were on the first day you walked into their classroom.