DCU Alumni, now working in the education sector, share their storiesEpisode 8, Dearbháil Lawless and Kevin Shortall

DCU Alumni can be found around the globe and in this episode Louise is joined by two who remain deeply committed to education. They are Dearbháil Lawless, the CEO of AONTAS, Ireland’s National Adult Learning Organisation and Kevin Shortall, principal of St Aidan’s Community School in Tallaght.

They share their personal stories about accessing education and what, and where, education has brought them.

An access style programme meant Dearbháil was on the DCU campus for one day a week initially. The lecturers she saw there inspired her and a few years later she was teaching on a DCU degree programme. ‘My heart is in DCU,’ she tells Louise. Kevin left school at 16 and going to college then had never occurred to him. A meeting with a trainee teacher when he was 19, led him to begin the next stage of his journey in education which was to repeat his Leaving Certificate. ‘It set me on this kind of trajectory and put me on the path that I've been on for more than thirty years,’ he says. There is much laughter as they share their stories, including talking about the educators who inspired them, with Louise.

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Louise:
Hello, and welcome to the Teachers Inspire podcast. Organised and run by Dublin City University, Teachers Inspire is an Ireland wide initiative that seeks to celebrate teachers and to recognise the transformative role they play in our lives and in our communities.

My name is Louise O'Neill and I am delighted that I have been asked once again to curate, and share with you, the many uplifting stories about teachers who have made a difference in your life. Check out these stories and more on the website, Teachersinspire.ie

You won’t be surprised to hear that there are tens of thousands of DCU graduates living and working around the World.

When you arrive in a new country and have to do that thing that most of us hate – networking - it just makes sense to search for fellow graduates to make connections and friends with.

And a great example of this is RTÉ’s Catriona Perry, who has a degree in Journalism and a Master's in International Relations from DCU.

When she was appointed Washington correspondent, she set up an Alumni chapter to connect with other DCU graduates there and she's doing okay for herself.

Both of my guests today are Alumni members and are deeply committed to education. They are Dearbháil Lawless, the CEO of AONTAS, the national adult learning organisation and Kevin Shortall, Principal of St. Aidan’s Community School in Tallaght. You are both very welcome to the Teachers Inspire podcast. Dearbháil, if I can come to you first.

Dearbháil:
Yeah.

Louise:
Will you tell us a little bit about your history with DCU?

Dearbháil:
Yeah, yeah, of course. So, I started in DCU, kind of part- time initially, I was doing a further education and training course in Dun Laoghaire Institute of Further Education.

And then I got to go into DCU, one day a week, which was absolutely amazing. So, I got the chance to be both at adult Ed (education) and higher Ed (education) at the same time.

Louise:
the one day in DCU, like, what was that, what was the reason behind that?

Dearbháil:
it was, I guess, it's like an access programme. So, this way, they were trying to open the doors and include more students from different backgrounds, and quite often, they will be from disadvantaged backgrounds or different types of communities.

So, this course, was opening its doors to bring people in through further education training into DCU. And the way that they did it was really complimentary because you got to be in the really supportive structure that is further education training and kind of build your capacity there.

And then when you went into DCU, you got to enjoy, you know, the university campus and the amazing lectures. Ehm but I felt for me, like I was so terrified of going to college, I was really intimidated. And by the time that I did go after doing that one-day (a) week piece, I felt much more comfortable. And I knew my way around, I knew the staff, I knew some of the students, it was a completely different experience. It was absolutely fantastic.

Louise:
Yeah, yeah. So that was kind of how you started at DCU. And then after that?

Dearbháil:
I did the degree in Education and Training, which I think I finished in 2009. And then I actually went back and was teaching in DCU for I think, about five years on that program as well. So yeah, my heart is in DCU.

[laughter!]

Louise:
I love that, you’re like ‘I'm gonna get, I'm just going to take over the place and come back as a teacher!’

It's interesting what you said about I suppose about not being, or that sense of not being comfortable when you began, because I think, Kevin, that's something that you also experienced.

Kevin:
Yeah, and listening to Dearbháil there (and) I was going, wow, I've never met Dearbháil before, unlike, she said that she had met you before

Louise:
We were excluding Kevin at the beginning!

Kevin:
I felt really left out you know!

[Laughter from all three]

Kevin:
We now have a lot in common in terms of our disposition about going to college. I never, when I left school going to college never occurred to me.

I think all the way through school, I didn't even know how college worked, it was just something like, I think I remember meeting people at the Central Bank and looking at Trinity College and saying that’s a college, and that's as much as I knew.

I mean, I heard the words UCD and DCU, and those letters, but I'd never felt it was something that I would ever do or place I'd ever go to.

Louise:
Can I ask you was that like, you know, from at home, was that let's say not an expectation from your parents, or was it at school, that wasn't like a conversation that was being had or?

Kevin:
Yeah, it was a bit of both really. I think I remember my mother saying when I was younger, oh yeah, I'd love you all to go to college, but we wouldn't have the money, as if it was a socio-economic thing. It was like a particular demographic went to college and you know, maybe it was that way, not that I'm that old but it was probably more that way.

Louise:
He looks great, viewers or listeners, he looks amazing!

Kevin:
I do, I don't look my age, I wear SPF you see it.

[laughter from all three].

Kevin:
But it was that, but it was also, maybe the school I went to and the friends I hung around with and things like that, nobody really went to college. Some of my pals who I hung around with, they did apprenticeships and, and they did really well for themselves. I didn't even do that. I just didn't know what I wanted to do.

Louise:
which is not uncommon

Kevin:
which is not uncommon, but I think people nowadays are more aware of their choices. But the school I went to, it was you know, will you get a job after school, maybe do this, career guidance wasn't as..and it was rigidly streamed as well. So, the class I was in, none of us were going to college.

And a few years after, I had been out working and doing a few different things and I met this guy, I was talking to this guy and he said, yeah, I'm training to be a teacher and I said, and how do you do that? How do you become a teacher? And he said, well, I'm, I'm, I'm in college doing it. And in fact, I'm going out doing my teaching practice in the next few weeks. And I just went to Oh I'd love to do that. How do you, how do you do that? And he set up a meeting with me with the admissions officer and then I realised I had to go back and repeat the Leaving Cert and do a few bits -

Dearbháil:
which you don’t have to do now, just to clarify –

Kevin:
At the time I did, because I was, I was still under a certain age or I wouldn't have qualified as mature student. I left school at 16, did the Leaving Cert at 16.

And I was just before my, I was probably 19, when, when I found out about going, so I went back and repeated Leaving Cert in one year and got the points and got in and just, and it was a happen, kind of just a very chance conversation with somebody that made all the difference.

It set me on this kind of trajectory and put me on the path that I've been on for thirty, more than thirty years.

Louise:
Yeah. I mean, you're a principal now.

Kevin:
I am a school principal now and it affects me in the way that I think, because I don't want anybody that I work with, to not have certain choices, or to not be aware of certain choices.

Every conversation I ever have with students is about what they can and can't do, what they would like to do. Not about what they should do. But just that they have everything in front of them.

And the same with parents and so on. I used the word disposition there, when I started, and the biggest barrier, I think, in education, and in terms of educational disadvantage, is a dispositional barrier.

It's a person saying, ‘I couldn't do that. We don't do that in this family, we're not able to do that, nobody from our community does this,’ and those barriers, that's a more difficult barrier to break down than, than any barrier, I think.

But it's, it's so possible. And the other thing, that there's a narrative sometimes, and we probably get to this when we talk later on, but you know, the narrative that you, you're out of the ordinary when you go from DEIS school to college, or you should be clapped on the back and that's so not the case.

So many people go now from disadvantaged schools, and from schools like the school I work in, with no fuss at all into third level and are so successful and succeed.

So, I think we're doing it we're breaking down those dispositional barriers, but there's a lot more to do.

Louise:
Yeah. Would you agree with that Dearbháil,about I suppose that being, you know, a huge barrier?

Dearbháil:
I, you know, it was interesting, because I was thinking we like, even though we have probably very similar values, in a sense, I actually would look at it a little bit differently.

And I guess, like that and I didn't mean to interrupt you when I say about the Leaving Cert. One of the biggest things that we always talk about in AONTAS and (in) the adult learning sector, is that you don't have to do your Leaving Cert again. So obviously you did, but I'm always saying to people, ‘no, no, you can do an adult Ed course.’

Louise:
I mean, in fairness, the thought of doing my Leaving Cert again and I did very well in my Leaving Cert but I was like, I mean, every June, like those kind of nightmares around taking those exams always kind of reoccur!

Dearbháil:
Like, I appreciate where you're coming from with the dispositional, but I think in a sense, that's true. But in another sense, it's so complicated.

And I heard someone talking about this recently, and I can't remember the theory that they refer to, but basically, it was around that, like , I'm from a very working class socio-economic disadvantaged background as well, (I) grew up in a council estate, and I know exactly that many people in my school, which was DEIS school would have said the same thing ‘oh, no, that's not for me’ or ‘whatever, I'm not bothered,’ but I think connecting to this theory, it was around the fact that if you don't feel empowered to do something, or you don't feel that you'll really have the chance to do that, you're more likely to say ‘no,’ because you're so scared.

And there was a story, there was a guy who was in my year and I remember bumping into him a few months after we got the Leaving Cert results and I was like, how are you, and whatever, how did you do and it was just kind of that conversation piece. And he said, Oh, I didn't go up and get the results. And I was like, why? And he goes, well, I probably did crap anyway.

And it always stuck with me. So, I totally see where you're coming from and I know a lot of people do say that. And it's definitely massively improved than it had before.

But I think there still is a lot in there, where, if I walked out the door and talk to people in my estate now or people from different communities, I think they probably would say, in a dispositional sense, oh, it's not for me or whatever else.

But like, my heart believes that there's a deep-down layer to that, that they feel that well, ‘I wouldn't know what to do’ or ‘I wouldn't fit in’ or ‘I wouldn't cope’ or, or ‘I wouldn't be able to afford it.’ Do you know what I mean? So, I kind of think that there's always another layer to it.

Louise:
I suppose it is that why adult education is so important to you personally?

Dearbháil:
Yeah, completely, like, adult education changed my life and I've seen it change so many other peoples. It really is, in its truest sense, a form of social justice.

Like, to me education is a vehicle for creating social change. And I think very much so in a great school education or an adult education, it can transform someone's life and empower them on an individual level where they will, you know, become more conscious of the world around them and understand things and be able to have these amazing opportunities and engage in critical conversations.

But on the community sense, which really is so fantastic, is you can have things like change oriented adult learning programs, and Paulo Freire is a very famous theorist in this area where you go in and you work in partnership with a community and through a process of change together, their whole community is uplifted. So, it's really empowering, rather than just one person doing that.

Louise:
So, can you break that down in like, how would that work?

Dearbháil:
Yeah, so I guess, in the sense, if you were to do a programme like that, it wouldn't be like, say, an average education programme where we might be designed with the best intentions, going in and delivering this program. And you know, working with the learners, it would be where you come in and you talk with the group and you say, ‘okay, what do we want to do as a collective? What's our aims here? What are the issues we want to talk about? What do we need to address?’ and then talk through the different methods that you might use to do that, so it's completely done like a co-designed partnership piece,

Louise:
In the introduction there I referenced about, like, how graduates can use, or I suppose it was how they can benefit from being part of that kind of graduate community. And Kevin, I'd love to know, like, have you benefited from that or…

Kevin:
I'm actually reasonably connected with DCU now, again. So, there's a kind of a new partnership at the moment, a person who I went to college with, who's now working in DCU, who's reached out to me, and we're kind of partnering between the college and the school.

So, I mean, that's one kind of professional network, I suppose. I suppose, that kind of thing changes as you go through life and people you connect with and so on.

I did go back and do a post grad, a couple of years later in college, and did a Masters a few years later and I suppose I connections with the college that way. I don't know if that answers your question or not Louise?

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
there are kind of formal and informal contacts that you would have throughout your life.

Louise:
Yeah

Kevin:
and they can open up doors and possibilities, and just kind of new ways of thinking about things… and it's, it's more in a kind of developmental way than anything. I don't mean it in any kind of, you know, secret society way

[laughter from everyone]

Louise:
Come on, were their oaths taken! I want to know the details!

Kevin:
You know, you connect with someone and you'd say, why don't we do this?

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
Why don't we try this? Would you come and speak in this way? So, and there's a willingness in DCU to do that.

Louise: Yeah.

Kevin:
And there's an energy about that. There's an excitement to do that.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And there's a real kind of connection with the real world. It's not this kind of distant academic place. It's, there's very, there's a real praxis side to the college as well.

Louise:
Yeah. But I suppose you know, I mean, the joke about like, secret societies aside, I suppose so often, when we talk about the idea of like, old boys clubs, or, you know, those kind of those kind of networks, like that really does so often exclude women or people from marginalised communities, or people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and I suppose, you know, that there are opportunities in those education settings, to make those connections that can, I suppose, you know, help your career in the future, which I think should be accessible to more people. So that was kind of maybe more the point, even though I do love talking about secret societies, so we will we can go back to that!

Kevin:
I have a lot of experience in that area, we can do that in another podcast!

Louise:
He will roll up his sleeve and there will be a tattoo!

[laughter from all]

Kevin:
you know, do you know the demographic in college and university now is different from even when I went to college, and then that was different from thirty or forty years before.

And you will notice that huge diversity, and there's a much broader spectrum of people from different demographic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, Dearbháil was saying that there, and it's so true, and the later in life bit of learning that people do it, would you say, maybe (to Dearbháil) you'd know this better, (that) as people grow older, there's, I find in my experience that people from non-traditional college backgrounds do go into further education very successfully.

Dearbháil:
very successfully, I completely agree.

Kevin:
I think there's a kind of a realisation after a few years that I can access to this too. I can get there too. I can go there too, because, I worked for a good few years, and I still do, but formerly with parents, and one of the things that we were really involved in was helping parents get back to education.

And you know, even though you were saying there was no need to do the Leaving Cert –

Louise:
He is never going to forgive you enough for correcting him –

[laughter]

Kevin:
There were people who, for them, it was the most important thing

Dearbháil:
of course, yeah,

Kevin:
and I remember talking to a parent, it was a lovely conversation, and she said, when I was in school, I was tall. So, the teacher just asked me to get things off the high shelf. And that was what I was good for, but she said I've gone back now and done my Junior (certificate) and Leaving Cert and said, and I can say to my kids, ‘I've done it, you can do it.’

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And that was really powerful.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And I do have strong opinions about, you know, measuring people nationally. And you know, I wouldn't be, I think we need, we do need to revisit the Leaving Cert, and I think we've successfully enough re-visited the junior cycle. But there's also a sense of achievement and worthwhileness about formal education and getting formal education that people do value.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And for me at the time, I felt really good seeing how good I could do compared to the rest of the country. It just made me feel, it just made me feel better about myself.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And maybe that's wrong and maybe we shouldn't, I think we test people too much. And the problem with a test is that somebody, you know, there's always somebody that fails that test, or doesn’t come up to that level

Louise:
it’s on a curve I suppose in a way..

Kevin:
And that's not right. I think everybody should come out of out of school feeling, experiencing success and reaching their potential.

Louise:
Yeah. And I suppose that is different, you know, for every student, you know…I suppose that's the point that, as you said, like that, even if you're talking about marking on that curve, that everyone has reached their potential and those might look entirely different, and that's okay.

Dearbháil:
Exactly. Success is different for different people. And I think that's one of the biggest things that I found as an educator, if I had someone in my program, who was terrified of formal education, and then slowly but surely, bit by bit, they came in for maybe two days a week, then three days a week, then four days a week, or they had the confidence to speak up in class, which I'm sure is similar to school education, those things are massive successes. And I think it's about recognising that and maybe more explicitly talking about it, that people face different challenges and success is their own.

Louise:
Yeah, it must have been very tough for parents, who maybe had a difficult time in formal education, or maybe, you know, I'm not sure what their literary skills or whatever, during the pandemic, and then trying to help children with homeschooling, like, I just can't imagine how difficult that must be..

Dearbháil:
Huge and I have to say, to be fair to the poor teachers, like, you have children in an environment, and adults who are trying to engage in education programmes. And I can't even imagine how much pressure it was for a parent whose child was getting their education sitting at home.

And it could have been, unfortunately for some, a very chaotic environment, they might not have had WiFi access, they might not have had technology. And then they had this additional pressure of trying to be a support system on top of, you know, the initial, there already and then the poor teachers who were then trying to engage with them through a screen to do that as well. It was really, it was the biggest disruption the OECD said, to education that has ever existed, like it's absolutely massive.

Kevin:
Yeah, and I remember I've had conversations with parents, and they're actually saying to me, they're scared when the homework comes home, (of) being exposed.

Louise:
that is heart-breaking

Kevin:
Yeah. I probably have enough confidence to say to my children now, ‘I just don't know that.’

Louise:
Yeah,

Kevin:
I don't know that maths thing. Or I can't do it through Irish. Or, you know, ask your sister or brother and it doesn't make me feel bad. But imagine, yeah, imagine the feeling of a parent going ‘I don't know this, I can't do this. I can't help you.’

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And, and, you know, children are very, very protective of their parents… and there's plenty of children out there that won't ask that because they don't want to make their parents feel that way.

Louise:
.. feel bad, Yeah

Kevin:
… we seem to be steering into a whole conversation about how divisive education can be and how empowering it can be as well, and I think if we can take the fear out of it.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
you know, we spend our lives frightening people in education at times or frightening people about what education constitutes, or what it actually means. And one time the word ‘school’, the etymology of the word, meant leisure, like only the most privileged people got to do this wonderful thing.

Louise:
I didn't know that about that

Kevin:
like, only like, the lucky people got, this going back to ancient Greece now, when the lucky people experienced education. And everybody else was jealous that they could get it.

Now it's like,’ Oh, my God, I have to go to school.’ We need to turn it around and make education something that we're all really excited and proud of and you know, that's a challenge.

Louise:
I think it would be really important to have teachers who are so passionate as, you know, as you clearly are, and I know that you said that you didn't, I suppose that you didn't enjoy school, or that it didn't really feel maybe that it was for you, but was….again, you said that I suppose that your path into education was sort of, I don't know, shaped by this person that you kind of randomly met. But was there any teacher in school that you know that you felt, was inspiring or sort of took a..

Kevin:
you see part of it was my fault as well, you know..

Louise:
this is the educator now..

[laughter]

Kevin:
There were days where I've probably should have done more, or could have done more, and, you know, we can go back to the whole nature/nurture thing of why I am, where I am, and why, you know, why I got where I got, and so on.

So, but my overwhelming feeling in school all the time, was that I was, I didn't, I was an imposter, I didn't fit… I still have that, right, that’s no harm, I can rationalise it now.

But I never met a teacher that said, ‘hold on a second, you're not achieving the way you could achieve, (that) you're not reaching your potential, you could do so much better, let's have a look at this, let's make small steps, let's just take this bit.’

So, I didn't know that, I was I just thought that I either couldn't do it or I wasn't any good. That was it.

But then I met one teacher and one college lecturer. I remember college lecturer, Bill Reilly is his name, he's passed away a long time ago. And he was, to my mind, before I knew him, I thought he was a scary guy because you high standards, and he was really bright.

And people would get it, you know, feel really privileged if he stopped and talked. And he took me aside and he said, I looked at your first year exams and I've looked at your second year exams, what has happened? He said, you are so much better than what you've written.

And that wasn't just a conversation, we had about five or six sessions where he on his own time mentored me, and in his hospital bed, before he died, he died of cancer when I was in third year. And in his hospital bed, he called me to his hospital bed, and gave me five or six more little pieces of advice.

Louise:
Now, I mean, that is dedication.

Kevin:
I'll tell you something, though. And anybody who, who is from Mater Dei where I went, will know at the time I was, will know the kind he was. And it wasn't the advice he gave me. It was the fact that he took the time to give me the advice.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And we need in education to spend time talking to people and encouraging people and going ‘yes, you can’. Or maybe you can't, but maybe you'll try ‘this’ and steering people because it's.. it's education has been for so long, you know, this throwing information and whoever can catch it and remember it, great. But the best education and, and, I think adult education is so full of this, is about a conversation.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kevin:
And it's very much two-way and teachers learning as much from students as students are learning from teachers, and that interaction needs to happen much more.

Louise:
Yeah. God, that's beautifully put. [To Dearbháil] No pressure now, but you have to follow that.

[laughter]

Kevin:
She invented it!

Dearbháil:
what a lovely man. That is so nice.

Louise:
I mean, if every teacher was like that, do you know what I mean, and took that time…

Kevin:
We think ‘teacher’ you think of, you know, secondary school cross person throwing chalk. Like that's not the case anymore, teachers are so dedicated and human and fantastic.

But there is, there's, there's systems and baggage but college professors and lecturers, the human side to those people, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how great they were. How into you they were and how much time they spent. I don't know did you feel the same Dearbháil, I bet you did.

Dearbháil:
Yeah, it was probably, you know, like, pretty mixed the whole way up. Like there was really good teachers in school and (in) my further Ed course, in higher education.

There was one teacher, Paul Connolly, and he was my year head and he was so nice, he was really kind man, I think he's still there. And he was very gentle and understanding.

There was a lady named Susan Burke in Dun Laoghaire when I was doing the course there, and loads in higher Ed. But I think one of the things that stuck out to me, as a woman, I remember when I was in DCU and I was sitting in the lecture hall, which is this big, huge hall, with all these people. And thinking, wow, like.

And there was a number of different women who worked on the staff there, there was Majella McSharry, Trudy Corrrigan, Jane O’Kelly and others.

And I remember being like, ‘Oh my God’, like they stood at the top of this lecture hall and when they talked about something, and I thought they were so intelligent, and so passionate, and so kind, as you say, but I remember thinking, I want to do that, can I do that?

And it was really uplifting and it was that kind of role model piece where you think there's female representation in this place that I thought was massively intimidating (like) only for the really fancy people at the top of life, you know what I mean, go to university and then thinking, oh yeah, I am going to do that.

And it gave me such drive like, but there's so many amazing teachers on the way who I do think, go above and beyond and even in AONTAS, like, we do research with the National Further Education and Training Learner Forum, long one, sorry, and but we met over 3000 learners in the last year in adult Ed.

And the biggest thing in terms of positive kind of best practice examples was teachers. That they said the tutors on the ground go above and beyond and were incredibly helpful.

And like, that's a huge reflection on how difficult it was not only during the pandemic, but that they continued to support them no matter what. It's amazing. Like, they really do care so much.

Louise:
Well, that was very inspiring. From both of you. Thank you so much for coming in today and for talking to the Teachers Inspire podcast.

Dearbháil:
Thank you for having us.

Kevin:
You’re welcome. Thank you

Louise:DCU Alumni can be found around the globe and in this episode Louise is joined by two who remain deeply committed to education. They are Dearbháil Lawless, the CEO of AONTAS, Ireland’s National Adult Learning Organisation and Kevin Shortall, principal of St Aidan’s Community School in Tallaght. They share their personal stories about accessing education and what, and where, education has brought them.An access style programme meant Dearbháil was on the DCU campus for one day a week initially. The lecturers she saw there inspired her and a few years later she was teaching on a DCU degree programme. ‘My heart is in DCU,’ she tells Louise. Kevin left school at 16 and going to college then had never occurred to him. A meeting with a trainee teacher when he was 19, led him to begin the next stage of his journey in education which was to repeat his Leaving Certificate. ‘It set me on this kind of trajectory and put me on the path that I've been on for more than thirty years,’ he says. There is much laughter as they share their stories, including talking about the educators who inspired them, with Louise.
I'm Louise O'Neill and thank you for joining me for this episode of the Teachers Inspire Ireland podcast. You can hear all of the episodes wherever you get your podcasts and you can find out more at teachersinspire.ie.

Until the next time.