Here's the proof that you can teach an old educator new tricks

PROFILE:IT WILL be a fraught Christmas in Cork this year, but at least two people will be celebrating. Mary and Frances Hurley, mother-and- daughter teachers from Christ King Secondary School, will graduate next week with first- class honours from the MEd programme in UCC. It's been quite a journey for Mary, from the death of her husband two years ago to the reinvention of her teaching life two years away from retirement, writes LOUISE HOLDEN

“I have taught in this school for 40 years and when I started there were only 100 students,” Mary Hurley recalls. “Now there are a thousand. I taught maths here for decades and then moved in to the role of deputy principal. It never occurred to me to go back and study. I didn’t think myself capable of it.”

However, the death of her husband shook up her life at a time when things should have been settling down. She was four years from retirement and everything was turned on its head.

“My daughter Frances is a teacher too. She had recently taken up a job teaching business studies and computing here at Christ King. Within a couple of years of starting she was studying already – a diploma is in school development planning. She suggested that I should give it a try.”

It wasn’t an easy start. “For weeks I kept asking myself: what am I doing here? But I started to get into it, I started to enjoy the feeling of being challenged and rewarded. When the year ended, I had to admit it was a very enjoyable experience.”

But Frances had already set her sights on the next challenge – a Master’s in Education at UCC, and was determined that her mother should come along for the ride.

“In my time a Master’s was for the elite. I genuinely didn’t believe I could cope,” Mary admits. “But I was talked into it and it turned out to be the most enjoyable, interesting and challenging experience of my life.”

Mary Hurley did her thesis on the subject of school leadership, and for the first time she engaged with computers. “Frances was doing her thesis on the use of ICT in learning and she helped me, but at the end of the day I had to get to grips with it myself. I learned to use databases, charts, advanced statistics, Excel. Now I use the computer regularly in school – I even produce the NAPD newsletter!”

ICT was only the beginning of Hurley’s learning. Her Master’s research gave her a bird’s-eye view of education in Ireland and the world.

“My working life has been hugely enriched by the Master’s. Two years ago I never connected my school and the European Union. Most people don’t make the connection between their working life and what happens on the global stage. I now understand that much of what happens in Irish schools is informed by Europe, especially in the areas of special needs and disadvantage. Without EU and OECD policy we would have little progress in these areas. The OECD forced Ireland to get its act together and include more people in education.”

On a macro level, Hurley has come to understand the importance of having a vision for a school, and sticking to it even if day-to-day events clutter the path.

“There’s been very little research on the role of vision in school management, but on the ground many principals and teachers know how much it matters. Students need it, now more than ever.

“Young people have become more adult in dealing with day-to-day issues,” she adds. “They know much more about the world. When I started teaching, secondary students were like children; they’d wait for you to tell them to turn the page. They knew nothing about the world of adults at all. Now students are more involved in family problems, financial problems and relationship breakdowns. They are more knowledgeable, but not more mature. They are suffering, I think. They seem more capable than they are.

“There’s a lot of pressure on students to push themselves beyond their own ability and stress themselves out striving for the impossible. There’s no joy in learning for its own sake.”

On the positive side, Mary Hurley feels that students and teachers now treat each other like real people instead of the hierarchical relationships that used to dominate. This is a good platform, she says, for schools and students to take on changed circumstances together.

“From the surveys I carried out across many schools, I discovered that a school has a much better chance of holding onto a solid, cohesive vision that serves everyone if each – principals, teachers and students – is given the chance to play a part.”

With two years to go until retirement, Mary hopes to develop her skills in iMovie

(a film-making software programme) and use it to help students learn more about media production. With her daughter, she is holding a series of ICT seminars for teachers in Christ King. Frances is applying her own MEd research to the process.

“Through my thesis surveys I discovered that there is a lot of enthusiasm among Irish teachers to learn to use computers and that many have already done so,” says Frances, who has taught at Christ King for six years. “However, I also learned that teachers are not being taught how to use IT in the classroom, to aid teaching and learning. As a result, many are not able to carry their training into their teaching.”

Mary and Frances Hurley are addressing this by organising classroom-tailored ICT training in the school. Frances enjoys having her mother by her side, and there’s little doubt that Mary will continue to play a part in the life of the school even after her retirement in two years.

However, she’ll be busy: “I’m thinking about doing a PhD now.”

Frances doesn’t know what she’s started.

A tale of two teachers

Frances Hurley (28) and Mary Hurley (63) may be a generation apart, but their CVs are very similar.

FRANCES HURLEY

Qualifications:BEd, DipEd, MEd (UCC)

Current position:maths teacher, Christ the King Secondary School, Cork

Extra-curricular activities:developing ICT skills infrastructure at Christ the King Secondary School Achievements: graduating with first-class honours from the UCC Master's in Education class 2009

MARY HURLEY

Qualifications:BEd, DipEd, MEd (UCC)

Current position:maths teacher and vice-principal, Christ the King Secondary School.

Extra-curricular activities:developing ICT skills infrastructure at Christ the King Secondary School Achievements: graduating with first-class honours from the UCC Master's in Education class 2009