The strained looks on the faces of all the grown-ups made me fretful as I stood in the gloom of an autumn evening and waited my turn to pass through the doors from darkness into light. I’d arrived for an open night at a secondary school I’d like my daughter to attend in what I thought was good time and in good spirits but still found myself at the end of a long and anxious line.
Excited children peered through brightly illuminated windows and shouted what they saw to their waiting parents. They marvelled at Bunsen burners flaming in the science lab and cookers making cupcakes in the home economics room and a drum kit being mercilessly beaten in the music room. “They’re making volcanoes in art class,” one child said. “Can we go here, Dad? Can we?”
“Of course we can sweetheart,” the man responded brightly but as he surveyed the line of parents ahead of him, I could almost see him thinking: “I really hope we get in”. I was certainly thinking it.
When you ask someone from the city where they went to school, you're asking so much more than that. You're establishing their social standing
Thoughts of where my children might go to secondary school had been on my mind since my first daughter was born back in Bertie’s Boomtime Bonanza and she’s been on some waiting lists since she was in nappies. Even when I was adding her name to such lists I appreciated the absurdity of it all.
Absurd
But then so much of the capital’s school set-up seems absurd to an outsider and since I moved to Dublin from the west in the 1990s, I’ve been struck by the weirdness of its peculiar mix of fee-paying and free(ish) schools and the hoops some schools make the parents of would-be alumni jump through.
I’ve also been struck by the complexity of one question in a Dublin context. When you ask someone from the city where they went to school, you’re asking so much more than that.
You’re establishing their social standing, the aspirations of their parents, how much money they had, what their religion was and – sometimes – if they were any good at rugby.
In Galway there are no fee-paying schools. That’s not to say every school is considered equal. There are good schools and bad schools and schools with waiting lists full of fretful parents but, generally speaking, the money you earn or your profession are not determining factors.
I couldn't help recall my secondary school days in an institution run by humourless men who disliked independent thought
They are not determining factors in the school I found myself waiting to see either and from the research I’ve done, it seems both secular and egalitarian and academic without being oppressive.
Once I reached the front of my line, I was offered a tour by a bright and confident pupil. It had been more than 30 years since I walked a secondary school’s corridors and while I was interested in how the classrooms were kitted out and what the bright, young and driven teachers had to say, the posters on the walls spoke loudest to me.
They were positive and inclusive and life affirming and child-centric and warned against bullying and spoke out against discrimination based on gender, race or sexual orientation. The power and the potential of a well-rounded and progressive education was repeatedly stressed.
I couldn’t help recall my secondary school days in an institution run by humourless men who disliked independent thought. Bullying was – if not actively encouraged – then certainly not tackled and “faggot” was the acceptable insult of choice among the student body.
Frivolous subjects like music and art were eschewed in favour of Latin and Christian doctrine and teachers were allowed to smoke in the study hall between classes. The threat of mindless violence was never far away.
I wrote about my school days for a column several years ago and while I never identified the school, those who knew me knew what I was talking about. Weeks after the column appeared I got a letter from the principal – a man who’d been a junior teacher when I was there and one who had stood out as being more gentle and focused on imparting knowledge than his peers.
His letter was full of kindness and while he acknowledged the school’s sins of the past, he stressed that on his watch it had changed dramatically and the experiences I’d lived through had been confined to the dustbin of history. I don’t doubt that for a second.
Back in the school of today, I asked the student giving our tour what her favourite subject was. “Coding,” she said without hesitation. She said she also liked philosophy and expressed a hope that a teacher in the school would teach some extracurricular Mandarin in the term ahead.
"The only Mandarin we had in my day was orange," I said, delighted by my hilarity. She laughed sympathetically and started another tour with another group, leaving me standing in front of a notice board on which were pinned small scraps of paper with the ukulele chords for the school's song of the week – Hakuna Matata from The Lion King. I'm glad the kids are learning to play No Worries on such a pleasing instrument. It's their parents' job to do the worrying for them.