Crochet doilies square circles

Staffroom: It's my third year of career break and I'm beginning to miss the buzz. The buzz of the staffroom. The buzz of the classroom. Not the buzz of the yard. Definitely not that. (Not even at £27 an hour!)

I began to reminisce on my many years teaching in a large Dublin primary school. I've always liked the openness of children and how, unlike their adult counterparts, they say exactly what they mean. I recall being in my second year of teaching, aged about 21, when I considered myself a mere fledgling in the profession. I had got a new pupil in my class and, when she mentioned her former school and teacher by name, I thought she might have been taught by a friend of mine, of about my own age, teaching in that other school.

In my curiosity, I asked the child, "Was your last teacher young?" The reply, given in wide-eyed innocence, put me in my place: "No, teacher, she was just like you." I had learned a valuable lesson: age is a relative concept and to a 10-year-old, even a 21-year-old is ancient.

I once invented a new educational concept: my colleague Eithne and I, both teaching the same level, were informally planning our yearly art and craft programme in the staffroom. We decided to teach our charges how to crochet little doilies or cushion covers.

Now, those readers endowed with crochet skills will no doubt be familiar with those little squares that can be increased by adding another line of crochet around the perimeter of the square. For less knowledgeable readers, let me explain that these doilies begin their lives as circles of wool into which stitches are made, with strategic gaps between them, in such a pattern that they take on a square shape.

At the end of the meeting, I remarked, "Right, that's settled so - we'll make the round squares!" Eithne suggested that it might not be wise to give them that actual title in our formal Scéim Bliana: The conservative Roinn Oideachais might not quite be ready for the concept of "the round square".