Teachers Inspire awardee Gemma MaherEp 9, Gemma Maher & Kirsten FitzGerald

For the final time in this series we meet one of the 2022 Teachers Inspire awardees and the parent who nominated her.

Some of the most moving and powerful nominations are from parents and often it is because the teacher has noticed ‘something.’

Joining Louise is Gemma Maher, who is now the principal at Rathcoole Educate Together National School in county Dublin but, as you will hear, the nomination goes back a few years.

It was made by Kirsten FitzGerald who explains that Gemma played an important role in validating concerns about her daughter who at the time was one of Gemma’s first class pupils.

Gemma and Kirsten also recall teachers from their own school days.

Click here to listen to the podcast

Louise:
Hello, and welcome to the Teachers Inspire Podcast. I'm Louise O'Neill and I curate Teachers Inspire which is organised and run by Dublin City University.

We want to thank everyone who has nominated a teacher for our 2023 awards. Each one is so special, and I am really looking forward to sharing some of them with you in the coming weeks.

Some of the most powerful nominations for Teachers Inspire awards have come from parents. Those nominations have been for teachers at primary level and at secondary school level and so often, it's because the teacher has noticed something.

What's interesting is that afterwards, it often emerges that the parents or guardian also had a concern about the student and there are echoes of this with my guests for this episode.

One of our Teachers Inspire awardees for 2022 was Gemma Maher. Gemma is now the principal at Rathcoole Educate Together National School in county Dublin but this nomination actually goes back a few years.

The nomination was made by Kirsten FitzGerald and they both join me in studio today. I'm delighted to see both of you again.

So Kirsten, you nominated Gemma, because of the role that she played in validating concerns you had about your daughter, Olivia.

Kirsten:
Gemma had Olivia as her teacher in first class and we were first time parents and so we didn't really have a clue, as lots of first time parents.

And we didn't have a lot of experience with children in our families or anything, so we had a little bit of a hard time with some of the looking after Olivia and making sure she was happy.

She was often a bit unsettled as a baby and she would maybe cry a lot in the car and she cried going into creche and she'd cry when we picked her up from creche and there was just ongoing stuff that we weren't sure if we were doing things right…

And then she went into junior infants in a different school and again, difficulty settling, kind of acting out, getting upset, needing more help, needing a bit more support just to even get in the door to school every day.

And a spot came up in the school closer to us so we moved her and we were happier to move her, change of scene I suppose a little bit.

So, we moved to St. Catherine’s, which was where we met Gemma. And again, Olivia kind of continued to be unsettled so she went through senior infants, and we gave her the time to settle down, but it just really was ongoing.

And we had presented her to a few different professionals like occupational therapy and she'd had an educationalist or sort of psychology assessment and a few different things with the assessment of need process and nothing had really reached a threshold, you know.

They would say, oh, there's a few things, but overall kind of okay. And we did find her sort of very difficult to please and always wanting to move on to the next thing, like I remember we would go to the zoo and you'd say there is the lion and she’d say, okay, okay, next thing, and she'd be looking for the next thing, she'd never really be able to enjoy what was in front of her.

Louise:
Which must have been like, exhausting?

Kirsten:
Totally exhausting.

Louise:
And for her as well?

Kirsten:
Yeah. Yeah. Exhausting all round and exhausting I’d say for her teachers, probably as well.

[laughter from both]

Kirsten:
So, and in fact, I think at sort of Montessori level, they had said, oh, she's ready to go to junior infants. Probably she wasn't ready but she, she was kind of burning through everything.

Louise:
Okay, yes.

Kirsten:
So, um, so I remember the first time we went in to meet Gemma for the parent teacher meeting, and you know, we'd our list of worries and as usual, we're going along thinking, oh here's another person who's going to go and say, oh, no, she's great, she's great, you know, everything's fine.

And so when we came in Gemma said, how are you feeling about Olivia? What are your worries?

[Kirsten to Gemma] That was kind of the first thing that you said, I remembered it at the time.

And it was great because most people had just started off by saying, so Olivia is doing great and we're really happy. And we kind of knew that she would keep it together at school but Gemma was able to see that that was a lot of work for her.

Louise:
Okay.

Kirsten:
And then when she asked us if we had concerns, and we said we did and at the time we had worries about her concentration and her attention and some sensory things. And Gemma said, yeah, me too. I, I'm a bit worried.

And it was just like, ‘ah,’ it was like, it was like, ‘hallelujah,’ because, actually, you know, now we didn't feel like… we sort of felt we've been making it up or like, we were just really bad about parents or were our standards too high or….

Louise:
and I suppose especially when you said you were first time parents and had nothing to compare it to…

Kirsten:
Yeah, didn't have a clue. And so, so we knew that when she got into school, it would take her a while to settle and she would do okay but then she'd come home and she'd like totally decompensate, you know, again, we thought, Oh, God must be us. You know, she, she's okay at school, so it must be us…

But it was, I think Gemma recognised that Olivia was holding it together, just about, in school and that there was more to it.

Louise:
God, as you said it must have just been so incredibly validating.

Kirsten:
Yeah.

Louise:
to just have someone particularly, I suppose, like someone in a position of authority, you know, in a way in a position of authority, I think to just have that sense of like, okay, as you said, it's not, it's not just us.

Kirsten:
Yeah. Gemma has a lot of authority. Yeah.

[laughter from all]

Louise:
Sorry. It was just when I said it you (Gemma) were looked a bit like, almost looking behind you like ‘who is she talking about,’ and was like no you, over there!

Kirsten:
Yeah. But she was really young!

Gemma:
I was like about twenty five (years old) at the time and my question of ‘how do you feel’ was probably ‘tell me what’s going on.’

Louise:
Yeah, funny, I suppose in a way, that you (both) probably felt inexperienced and so it's like this kind of reflection that you're like, okay it's not just me and you're like, it’s not just me, that there is that kind of comfort…

And I suppose, yeah, like, you know, I suppose what was the significance of having a teacher and you know, who sees your daughter every day and, you know, who has the training, and, you know, I suppose maybe a little bit more knowledge of this kind of thing than you, like what difference did that make, like for both of you and for Olivia?

Kirsten:
Yeah, well, I mean, it was enormous because now here was a person who was agreeing that there was something up, we didn't know what it was, but there was something that was troubling Olivia, that was, she was not settling, you know.

So it allowed us then to take the next step because up to that point, everything that we had presented Olivia to various professionals with, was our report of her, there was nobody else kind of triangulating…

Louise:
Yeah.

Kirsten:
And so finally, there was somebody who was spending a lot of time with her who was able to provide an objective assessment and then for the type of assessment that Olivia needed, she needed… the difficulties that she had, had to be pervasive in various settings in her life to be able to meet criteria for moving on to the next step for her.

Louise:
Okay, so you needed….

Kirsten:
...so we, it wasn't that we needed her to have problems in different areas, but we needed those problems to be recognised and Gemma was able to do that.

Louise:
Yeah, yeah,

Kirsten:
So then we were able to take the next step with the right professionals, who were then able to send Gemma lots of paperwork to fill in and show what the difficulties might have been. And so that basically allowed us to stop thinking we were going bonkers, you know, to be honest.

We just really thought we were quite bad parents and (had) gone, you know, a bit crazy. So it was really, really important like for us as a family and we started to look at Olivia differently like.

Louise:
I mean, Olivia is a teenager now, she’s lovely, I met her at the, at the awards in May. And it was, obviously… it's a few years. I mean, presumably that was the first class… so quite a few years since you (Gemma) were her teacher..

[laughter from all]

Gemma:
We will not talk about how many years!

Kirsten:
Won’t be too specific!

[laughter again]

Louise:
But you (Kirsten) still took the time you know, to nominate Gemma for an award. So obviously, this has, I suppose, really remained with you and I suppose I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about like, what you think the role is that a teacher can play in the life of a school but particularly may be a child in primary school?

Kirsten:
Yeah, well, I just came across the, the social media post, I think on Twitter, for Teachers Inspire and it just kind of hit me and I thought, oh, gosh.

In the work that I do, you know, people are, are often awarded for different things that they do and it's so nice to be able to give someone recognition for the help that they made.

And I was able to do it, in a position to do it. I was, I had had a kind of a recent success with another aspect of Olivia’s education that I was really happy about. So I was kind of feeling on top of the world about it and yeah, I felt like it was a nice way to be able to recognise Gemma for the work she'd done for us as a family.

And I'd had a really nice teacher in primary school myself, in fifth and sixth class, and you know, I never would have got the opportunity to maybe tell her how great she was. And she was great, so that was Mrs. Benson, if she's listening.

[laugher from all]

She was super, you know, like, she was amazing and I had a really good connection with her and Olivia had that with Gemma as well. So yeah, I mean, you asked me about the role a teacher has in the family, that, that was kind of…I suppose taking the time to nominate her wasn't too difficult.

So it was easy to just get started on that process and then I got a call back and few calls in different directions and I would encourage people to do it because it was an easy process. Like, it was nice.

Louise:
Yeah. Yeah,

Kirsten:
I think that was my main thing. We were really sad when Gemma was leaving, the school, that was the other aspect I suppose, because we didn't get to see her all the time.

[laughter from all]

Louise:
Oh, yeah. So this was your way of hanging out with her…Yeah I’d get a restraining order….!!

[more laughter from all]

Kirsten:
So, so yeah, it was like it was no surprise that she had got a principal’s roll, no better, no better situation than a new school to really put her mark on it. But yeah, we weren't going to get to see her, so it was a nice way to be able to thank her.

Louise:
Yeah, I loved what you said about your, your own teacher.

Kirsten:
Yes.

Louise:
I think that it is true that sometimes it's like the thanks that you don't get to give someone, it kind of almost haunts you in a way.

Kirsten:
Yeah, yeah,

Louise:
so it's really trying to give someone their flowers when you actually have the opportunity, like while you still can I think is a really good point,

Kirsten
yeah, that's a nice way to look at it. Yeah.

Louise:
Okay, so now we're going to move to you Gemma – I was gonna to say looking very sort of accusingly –

[laughter from all]

I mean, I'm not a teacher but like, I think it must be amazing to like, you know, hear someone speak about you in that way. Like, how did you feel when you heard from Kirsten about how important a role that you had played in Olivia's life?

Gemma:
Well, one was shock. I couldn't figure out who had done this, so it was trying to figure out like… I’d heard about the nomination but didn't know where it came from. So then I sat with my husband going ‘right which kid is it’ and then realised through that process, how many kids I felt I had touched their lives, and eventually got, not very long down the line, got to Kirsten. I knew I'd made an effect on Olivia’s life, I don't think that was in question, I knew what I'd done for that child.

Louise:
Yeah,

Gemma:
but she'd done so much for me as well and there are kids that stay with you and she's one of them.

Louise:
in what way, when you say how much she had done for you, sort of (is it) in terms of because you were a young teacher, in terms of confidence…?

Gemma:
I was a young teacher who didn't know an awful lot... So I’d grown up with the idea that I always wanted to be part of additional needs in some way, this is why I became a teacher.

I started off in Baggot Street in the dyslexia school where I absolutely adored all nine of those children. And then I came to St. Catherine’s and I walked in the door to the special class to six children who needed me and all of them have little place in your heart as well.

Then you go to mainstream and you kind of think God am I doing the same job at mainstream because there's now 25 of them and I can't always spot what's going on in a room of 25 or 30, or whatever your room is.

Olivia come into my room and like she's very academically able, she was socially, had friends.

Louise:
Yeah.

Gemma:
So to spot what was going on took a lot of teamwork between me and the family because I knew that something was going on… a kid goes home and the coke bottle effect happens where they're managing school no problem and then the burst comes when they come home. That's not okay.

Louise:
Yeah.

Gemma:
In my school, my new school, we talk to parents a lot and we make sure that we're checking in with them because if a child is doing okay in school, but not at home, that's not okay.

And having that conversation - I was told when I was doing teacher training, whatever you do, one be called but your first name, you're not your granny,

[laughter] so I am called Gemma all the time.

And two when you have meetings, make sure that the first question you ask is, ‘have you anything to say?’ And every single time you do that, you're gonna get an answer you're not expecting.

But parents come in expecting to spend those seven valuable minutes, when it's only seven or eight minutes, hearing well she's doing great at maths and she's doing wonderful in literacy. And she's… oh her science, we could work a little bit on that …I don't care about that stuff. I care whether is she happy, has she made friends? Are you happy that she's here? When she goes home what does she talk about? What are her favourite things that we do here in school.

Louise:
And I know that one aspect of your time with Olivia has actually led you to create a programme that you use now in your own school, so I'd love to maybe hear a little bit more about…

Gemma:
I didn’t create the programme firstly!

Louise:
Now it is yours! We are giving you full credit!

[laughter]

Gemma:
Susan Gibney is going to give out to me! So Susan Gibney from Nurture Ireland saw this in England and has brought it across to Ireland and then Educate Together…. I got my job in May in the middle of the pandemic, all on Zoom and set up a school via Zoom and set up a bank account with like digital signatures and all this new stuff, had no building had to get a building during the summer.

And in the middle of all that chaos and teaching fifth class at the same time, in the middle of all that chaos, Educate Together came out with an announcement that they were going together with Salesforce and they were going to train schools in Nurture, Nurture is the programme.

Louise:
A great name.

Gemma:
And I was bringing an SNA with me, we call them ANAs, I was bringing an SNA with me from St. Catherine’s, and I rang her and I said, Educate Together do nurture, this is what we've been trying to do for 10 years.

Louise:
Yeah.

Gemma:
Like, this is the thing, this is the label that's on the thing that we want to do. And we both got very excited. They weren't accepting ANAs on the course and then I rang and they said absolutely, we'll take your ANA, so myself and my ANA did the training on Zoom.

Louise:
When you think about the programme, when you were saying this is what we were trying to do, like what is the, what is nurture? Like what's in the programme?

Gemma:
Educate Together assessed Nurture and what we've done in the past two years, and the point of that assessment was to tell the government and to tell NEP psychology and the Department of Education, what Nurture is. And the title of it was, ‘It's Not Just Toast.’

Louise:
[laughter] okay… you’re going to have to explain that to me now!

Gemma:
So the children come in in the morning. Now, ours is more than this, but it started out just this, they came in in the morning and those who weren't ready to learn, went to the staff room with me, and we had tea and toast. And we sit around a table, and we chat, and we get ready to learn.

So from that, we now have four Nurture sessions, I think in my school, we're now going to make them bigger because more children need it and we see the value of it and if I can get the staff to make it happen…

They come in, we're going to have three stations, so we're gonna have the eating station where you can have tea and toast if you want or the croissants, depends how flush we are at the time, we might even have orange juice!

[laughter]

There's going to be the chilling station where there's a sofa and beanbags and yoga and mindfulness and then there'll be a Game Station where you can play snakes and ladders or something like that.

Louise:
sounds amazing.

Gemma:
So there's an assessment called the Boxall and on that Boxall we assess each child and you are given a rating, it's kind of yellow, orange, green, on the areas that you need to work on you'll be red.

So a lot of the children, especially junior infants, need to work on listening skills. So that's what all junior infants will be doing naturally in junior infants.

So everybody's like, I can't do this at my school - you can do this, it fits in so beautifully if you choose to do it. So, we don't have a Nurture session, we have a Nurture school, because every classroom is working on something.

Louise:
Yeah.

Gemma:
But then these children are taken out to work specifically in a smaller group. So they might… a lot of them up to second class in particular are working on turn taking and losing, because lots of children don't know how to lose.

And then they go what we call the red zone, and they blow up because they've lost or it wasn't fair, or this shouldn't have happened...

Louise:
I feel like I should take this, I am terrible at losing! You do not want to play board games with me like I'm actually lethal! So okay, I need to start the Nurture program to be in the Nurture program.

[laughter from both]

Gemma:
You need to be in the Nurture programme and you can have the toast as well!

So Nurture kind of came from an old Irish families, you would come home at the end of the day and have your dinner or you wouldn't go to work without having tea and also granny in the morning.

Louise: Yeah.

Gemma: And we want to kind of get back to that a little bit and nurture our kids, and school isn't a place just to learn numeracy, maths, it’s a place to learn how to have friends and how to be in the world.…

Louise:
Yeah.

Gemma:
And if you're not in that space… you don't know what home they're coming from in the morning. And that can be a home with addiction. It can be a home with divorce in it, but it can also be a home that's just like my home some mornings. It's just hectic, and we're trying to get out the door and it wasn't the best start to the day.

So it's trying to recognise that and give them a space to be ready to learn.

Louise:
Oh my God, that sounds amazing. I wish that had been like… I feel like I say that quite a lot on this podcast, when I'm, particularly when I'm talking to people who are, I suppose spearheading these kinds of programmes and hoping to roll them out... And I really wish that had been in my school...yeah it just sounds like, you know, pardon the pun, but so nurturing and nourishing.

Now I loved what you said at the beginning about when you had heard about the nomination, and you weren't sure, who it was from. I felt like it was like you got like a Valentine's Day card and it was like from your secret admirer and who could it be and like the list of people!!

[laughter]

What does it mean, like to be a teacher to be nominated, because, I mean, so many people in my family are teachers, but my sister teaches senior infants and like, she obviously she loves her job but you know it is very tiring, you know, there's some really good days, and then there are some days where it's very challenging.

And, and I really see how much she puts of herself into it and I'm sure that you're the same, where there are tough days or tough weeks.

Like, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but it must be nice to feel like that is seen or that is acknowledged by you know, like with something like the Teachers Inspire awards?

Gemma:
I think for teachers, especially in the last few years, especially over Covid, there's been so much teacher bashing. And like, ‘oh, you get your summers off,’ ‘Oh, you do this...’

That when somebody takes the time, like Kirsten did, to validate that oh I actually did a good thing there.

Louise:
Yeah,

Gemma:
it makes you want to do more. And it didn't just affect me. It affected my mom, who was so proud. My sister who was like, ‘Oh, she's nominated for something.’

Louise:
Yeah,

Gemma:
It affected my full school community who are doing Nurture, which this is all about, and it validated them in what they are doing and hope that more parents will come back in 10 years time and say I'm so glad Nurture was there for my kid, I'm so glad you took that approach with my child. So, it will have ripple effects.

Louise:
Yeah,

Gemma:
it's not just me. It's not just Kirsten, it's not just Olivia, it's a whole host of other people, that also feel it.

Louise:
Yeah. I find the teacher bashing, I mean, funny just before I came in, I was chatting with a friend of mine who's an author and she had just gotten into…she writes middle grade books…so she just went to do a school event. And she was like, ‘I need to sleep for 24 hours.’

She was like, it is so intense. And I was like I know I know. I think it's always I think when you hear people talk about the short hours and the holidays, I'm like, I'm so tempted to suggest they go in to a classroom for like one hour and just to see how they get on!

Gemma:
Anybody is welcome, come in for a day and then tell me..

Louise:
And I suppose if you were going to like, if you were going to nominate a teacher, is there anyone that you had in school that you know, like if you were going to nominate one for an award, was there any teacher that was particularly inspiring to you or one that made you think, actually, I would love to go into education?

Gemma:
Oh, Ms O’ Donnell, absolutely. Ms O’ Donnell was my third class teacher. She was the epitome of a nurturing person.

Louise:
Yeah.

Gemma:
In an era when teachers weren't like that, you know, I just remember she had a starfish down the back of her classroom, and just she had this whole table full of nature stuff and you go there anytime you wanted, you know, and Mrs. Verdon, who was then my fourth class teacher was, also ,she was older, but she did yoga with us.

And at the time, we were like ‘oh yoga’ but looking back, she was nurturing us in her own way. You know we came from the countryside where everybody knew everybody, and everybody knew everybody's business.

So you were never too far away from somebody knowing that you weren't.

But yet you had these teachers…I met Ms O’Donnell when I was about 11 or 12 at an event at home, and still, even as a teenager, I was like, looking up to her you know, if that's the person you wanted to be when you became a teacher…I wanted to be gentle, but firm and fair and fun and all those things that she was.

Louise:
Yeah, well, I'm sure in 10 years time that it'll be Olivia, talking about you in that way because I do think we all have that one teacher, which is what this entire initiative is sort of based on…and I had loads of incredible teachers, but I think there's always one that just stands out, because maybe they were just what you needed at a particular time

Gemma:
at the right time.

Louise:
Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, thank you both so much for coming in today. It was just really wonderful seeing ye again, and just being able to have this conversation. So, thank you both.

Gemma and Kirsten:
Thank you.

Louise:
Now remember, you can find out more about Teachers Inspire and you can keep up to date on the awards at Teachersinspire.ie and while you're there, you'll find links to other episodes of the podcast, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time….