The Importance of Rugby

For his Work Portfolio in Transition Year, Luis Diaz Pines Cort wrote about the importance of rugby in his life (as a new pupil this year), an essay he read out at the TY English Evening last month:

Good morning everybody and welcome to “Luis On Air”. Today we’re going to talk about the importance of rugby in our own lives. Quite often people thinks that rugby is a hooligan’s sport and that rugby players are just big beasts without brains, but that’s completely wrong. Rugby is a very intellectual and complex sport that not everyone can play.

Rugby has taught me a lots of things, and not only things related to sport, but values and principles that are very useful for life. To be more precise, I have learned from rugby values like effort, humility and the desire to excel. 

To be honest I think that rugby has been more important in my education than various classes and teachers that I have had during the years. Once an Irish monk said: “Rugby is my main tool to teach the children a good way of life”. I strongly agree with this sentence because I think that if everyone has played rugby for a couple of years this world would be better.

Rugby plays a very important role in my daily life. My life is sometimes stressful, above all during exams time or when I have an especially important essay or whatever. Rugby helps me to relax and get out of my life for a couple of hours. When I’m down the pitch, whether playing a match or training I don’t need to think about my problems or responsibilities.  It’s just do my best and, after that, I feel really good and relaxed.

Actually the thing that makes me be more thankful is the friendships that I have made thanks to rugby. Almost all my friends play rugby and definitely all my best friends play rugby. This is not because I don’t like people who don't play it, it’s just because when you play rugby with someone that makes a kind of a brother relationship, you protect that person and you trust him completely, first on the pitch, and then off it. 

 

To keep playing rugby through the years is one of my goals for the future. In Spain the level is lower than here in Ireland so I think I will be able to join the Spanish Selection and play in a professional league to earn some money while I’m studying a career in the university, because I would also like to do so.

It’s pretty obvious listening to this speech that I think that rugby is a great sport that could help everyone and  make the world a better place to live. 

Thank you all for listening and I hope you enjoyed it! 

'The Submarine', summer edition

The latest edition of the Library magazine, 'The Submarine', is now out online just in time for some holiday reading, and you can read it below via Issuu (click for a closer look, again for the closest, and use the arrows for navigation). 

In his editorial, Librarian Tom McConville writes engagingly about the importance of 'doing nothing' and of school leavers - in particular - not letting themselves being commodified during their adult lives.These wise words are followed by a series of individual pupil voices (evidently still very much themselves), including poems by Tania Stokes, Poppy O'Malley, Andrew Pollock and Johnny Pollock, reviews by Harvey McCone and Douglas Boyd Crotty, and essays by Valentina Munoz Ascensio (on going home), and Nyla Jamieson (on that 'other' recent referendum, on Presidential age).

European Standards of Beauty

Transition Year are finishing their academic year today with the annual Actiontrack show. Some have already left, and they completed their academic work at the end of May. Coming up, some Work Portfolio pieces they did over the last two terms.

First, here is Seyilogo Braithwaite's 'European Standards of Beauty', which she read out at the TY English Evening:

As a child, I grew up thinking that my nose, lips and my tummy were too big, my hair too frizzy and ultimately, my skin too dark. I was exposed to television and media at a very young age and so were all the other children I knew.

All the television shows, cartoons, movies and even dollies depicted the same beauty standards: a slim woman or girl with long, straight hair, coloured eyes, a pointy nose and thin lips. As a young dark skinned girl, I obviously lacked all of those features and soon, I began to desire to resemble those beautiful women I saw on TV.

There was a point in my life when I aspired to be Caucasian. I was around the age of six. What I did first was convince my mother to let me relax the incredibly frizzy and curly mane of hair sitting atop my head. I remember thinking to myself that "no one on TV has curly hair so why should I?" I wasn't the only one who thought that. All my friends where perming their hair as well in our struggles to look more "beautiful". By the time I was eight, I knew just two people with unrelaxed hair. It was almost like a trend amongst us.

Can you imagine six year olds hating themselves and their skin purely because of what the television shows them? It's awful. Women of colour are so underrepresented by the media and it is so unfair. Whitewashing was so common that even the dollies that we were supposed to have fun with imposed European standards of beauty on us forcing us to feel inferior. All the Barbies I owned were white with blonde hair and blue eyes and I too wanted to look like them. I remember the first black doll I had. I thought it was incredibly ugly and wanted to throw it away. When my mother asked me why, I told her I thought it was ugly. The only reason I didn't want the doll was because of its colour. If the doll was white, I would have taken it with open arms because the only reason it disgusted me was because it was black. A doll the same colour as me disgusted me.

Thinking back, I am horrified by those actions and how much I wished to wake up white and beautiful. It wasn't my fault though. It's what the media depicts as beauty. It is unfair to subject black children to just those standards of beauty. The lack of black actresses, models and dolls in my childhood taught me to hate my skin. Not everyone is like me. I was able to get back up from that there is nothing wrong with me but some girls aren't so lucky. I have friends that bleach their dark, beautiful skin in an attempt to be lightskinned. People don't really understand the psychological damage these beauty standards can do to young, black children. They grow up hating the skin they're in because they aren't taught to love themselves. The media etches images into our heads of what we should aspire to look like instead of teaching us how to love ourselves.

It took me years to accept myself and I am finally at that point where I love myself. My skin is dark, my hair is curly, my lips are big, my eyes are a dark brown, and I love it. I am sick of subjecting myself to the European standards of beauty because I am not European. I am black and I am beautiful.

---

English Leaving Certificate Paper 2 2015

Candidates across the country have now staggered out of their exam centres after their 3 hour 20 minutes marathon. At Higher Level they should have found their paper fair, with one or two trickier elements. Our pupils did The Great Gatsby as their single text, and aas in 2013 the questions were ones they were well prepared for - Nick and Gatsby's friendship (it is really a friendship? They meet only a few times in a short period) in one question, and in the other the matter of idealism and corruption. Most of the country will have done the Othello question (Desdemona and Emilia being weak, and a mushy question about 'values' which may have puzzled some).

In the comparative section there was a real difference between quite challenging theme questions and very straightforward genre ones (the sort of undefined questions common in the early years of this course and which we thought had fallen by the wayside). In particular A1 was probably one to avoid: 'Some texts leave readers with a largely idealistic impression of a theme or issue, while others leave readers with a more realistic or believable impression of the same theme or issue' - very wordy and unclear (an 'idealistic impression of an issue'?).

The attractive unseen poem was by the fine contemporary Irish poet Peter Sirr, 'Peter Street' (listen to him reading it here). The four prescribed poetry questions (Montague, Hardy, Frost, Ni Chuilleanain) had a sameness to them and were quite dull.

At Ordinary Level (only a handful of our candidates too this) Nick's 'friendship' with Gatsby was again asked on, and as usual the comparative questions (Relationships, Hero/Heroine/Villain) were straightforward. Vivienne McKechnie's Today as the unseen poem might have stretched some candidates. The prescribed poems were Montague's 'The Locket', Liz Lochhead's 'Revelation', William Wall's 'Ghost Estate' and Ni Chuilleanain's 'The Bend in the Road', overlapping with two Higher Level Irish poets.

Leaving Certificate English Paper 1 2015

As has become the case in recent years, there was nothing to frighten any candidates in this morning's language Paper 1 in the Leaving Certificate, at either Higher or Ordinary Level.

Higher Level candidates had the topic 'Challenges', and the three comprehension texts were: Bono's graduation speech to students from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (above), followed by a good B task (disagreeing with a school Principal's decision not to hold a graduation ceremony); novelist Joanna Briscoe writing about ghost literature 'in an age of reason'; an extract from Penelope Lively's memoir Ammonites and Leaping Fish: a life in time. So, no fiction extract this year.

Fiction did of course feature in the Composition titles, with a short story 'in which the main character is transformed when faced with a daunting challenge' (quite defined, and giving a clear narrative structure to the candidates) and another 'in which a closely guarded secret is gradually revealed' (one wonders how often that 'gradually' was ignored). Issues to be discussed included the importance of privacy in the modern age (Edward Snowden, Facebook...?), the importance of romance and the 'defining struggles of our age' (zzzz). And a fairly straighforward option to lots of candidates would have been the personal essay about 'ending/s' in life, which presumably drew out a lot of essays on ending school.

The Ordinary Level paper (only 6 of our 75 candidated took this) was on 'parents/guardians' and the comprehension texts were an extract from Roddy Doyle's story 'Animals', one from a biography of Brendan O'Carroll and an extract from Christine Dwyer Hickey's novel Tatty. So, plenty of Irishness and plenty of fiction. The Composition titles provided plenty of scope (though even at Ordinary level they have also become more defined in recent years).

Poetry Prize

Oisin Large was awarded a Commendation for his entries for the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry.  The judge, Mr Canning, said that they were 'impressive in terms of the feeling and thought behind them. I especially liked Father and Son.' 

Here are two of his poems, 'The Ash Tree' and 'Father and Son'.



The Ash Tree
 
I remember, the ash tree growing on the meadow.
I remember, watching his shadow,
Always the same – always happy, filling light into those who need it.
 
I remember, the keys that he would grow.
I remember, the doors he would know to open.
Opening his last, he met his fate.
 
I remember when winter came everything changed.
We tried to open his doors, but he stayed estranged.
When winter came I knew it was his last.
 
I remember when spring sprang, seeing him peel away.
Drifting further from the meadow, watching him turn gray.
Then the splinter became deep, I who remember his last cast.
 
He left behind his notion on the meadow,
I will give my devotion to follow that through.


 
Father and Son
 
With two strong shoulders he stands before me.
His short gray hair always sitting on his head.
Every day I watched him go to work.
Never knowing when he would come home
 
Waiting till he tucked me in to bed.
I loved his stories of the worldly knowledge that he taught our family
Leaving me was the worst he could have done to me.
Learning more and more as I travelled around the night with him.
 
I am my father’s son and his work.
 
Being young and foolish, I saw myself become like him at home.
Either way, we are father and son. No one can change that.
 
My mind works differently to those of my family.
Year after year he was before me
 
Fearing that I would never catch up,
Aiding the man that aided me,
Taking care of our home and family,
Hearing his travels from his work,
Either way, we changed. That’s the truth,
Rearing close behind me, he looks for me; he follows me, I am my father.

Voices of Poetry 2015

The annual Voices of Poetry evening in the BSR last Saturday night was again lovely: 50 minutes of listening to excellent language in many tongues, expertly marshalled by Mr Ronan Swift.

He opened proceedings himself (fresh off the cricket pitch) by reading Simon Armitage's 'The Catch' (a former Poem of the Week). He was followed by Johnny Pollock, reading his own piece 'Sensing', and among the succeeding poems were ones in Polish (Heinrich zu Rantzau), French (John Clarke), Spanish (Nadia Al-Lahiq), German (Klara Schuster), Latin (Nikolaus Eggers), Portguese (Bethany Shiell), Romanian (Arantcha Giolgau), Catalan (Javier Ferrer), Italian (Gordian Fuchs), Ukrainian (Iryna Byshenko), Korean (Suji Frankel), Arabic (Robbie McDonald), Urdu (Hussein Khan), Irish (Ally Boyd Crotty) and Japanese (Sun Woo Park).

Interspersed with all these were poems in English: Samuel Clarke read Francis Ledwidge's 'The Lost Ones'. Tania Stokes read 'Tarzan's Pool', part of her recent Junior Poetry Prize-winning portfolio. The Sub-Warden read Michael Longley's moving 'Ceasefire', Blanaid Sheeran her Poetry Aloud entry 'Business Girls' by John Betjeman, Senior Prefect Arthur Moffitt 'Sea Fever' by John Masefield and finally Eliza Hancock read Clive James's lovely 'Japanese Maple' (recently on the Mock English paper) from his new collection Sentenced to Life.

Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry, 2015

Congratulations to Iyobosa Bello-Asemota, winner of this year's Senior Poetry Prize, named after Old Columban Peter Dix (trophy by Joseph Sloan pictured above), who earlier this term also won the Shakespeare Prize.  

The judge, Mr Canning, comments:

"The entrants had to write between two to five poems inspired by Place, People, Promises.
Iyobosa's collection of poems was written in a very mature style that belies her years. Her poems were marked by carefully weighted language, maturely crafted shape and subtle shifts in tone and nuance."

Here are two of Iyobosa's entries:-



The Man Called Hope
 
Slowly, he rises
unsteady on his new feet
but still, he rises
—former bedmate of defeat.
His chariot of change lights up the horizon

And so it grows
—the dream he dared not share
but still it grows.
Flags wave everywhere
as the giant awakens. The wind of change blows

More than a man,
is the man called hope.
More than one man,
is the Change he invoked.
The man called hope is the hope of the land.


My People Esau
 
My people Esau,
you sell your tomorrow for today’s gain.
This is your fatal flaw.
Pleasures fade when faced with far-flung pain.
While mother bleeds tears
In vain, the salty sweat of many years:
She the giant no more,
She the eagle unable to soar.
Let this day bring death or resurrection
But, if the wages of resurrection be death,
Let death beget redemption.
 

TY English Evening 2015

The 21st annual TY English Evening was held last night in the Big Schoolroom, finishing off another productive year. Nine pupils read pieces from their recently-completed Work Portfolios, introduced by the Head of Department Mr Girdham, and the guest was Ms Emma Duggan, who was a member of the Department for part of last year and the early part of this.

Ms Duggan commented on how these young people are the ones right now 're-making' and 're-imagining Ireland', a new Ireland in which they may have had over 10 jobs in their early adulthood, and in which thinking and communicating skills will be even more important, skills which are fostered at the College. The English Department here encourages them to be ambitious, to be creative, to try out things. In Transition Year here they have the opportunities to following their curiosity and grow in confidence. In the words of Hannah Arendt,

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” 

She went on then to comment on the work of readers Seyilogo Braithwaite, whose essay on 'European standards of beauty' showed her strong ability to communicate and to analyse the impact of the media on young people; Alex Malone, whose personal piece on early childhood memories showed how indelibly these mark young people; Luis Diaz-Pines Cort, who showed in his essay on the importance of rugby and convincingly made the case for sport teaching life skills; Ciara Dempsey, with her evocative and imaginative short story 'Villains'; Ella Ejase-Tobrise, a very capable speaker who evoked the sights and smells of a Nigerian childhood; Blanaid Sheeran, whose recollection of her grandfather was finely-crafted; Aniko Szekendy's forensic description of her own bedroom as seen from the perspective of a stranger; Robyn Brady's well-written piece about the oldest person she knows; and finally, appropriately, 'The Final' by Max Hillery, a dramatic recreation of the 2013 All-Ireland hurling final replay between Cork and his county, Clare.

Finally, Ms Duggan announced the Premier Award winners for this academic year: Douglas Boyd Crotty, Robyn Brady, Seyilogo Braithwaite, Ciara Dempsey, Ella Ejase-Tobrise, Antonia Mortsch, Blanaid Sheeran, Aniko Szekendy.

'The Great Gatsby' revision

Another shout-out for our 15 video/audio analysis of key moments in The Great Gatsby as our VI formers prepare the novel as their single text for the Leaving Certificate.

Shakespeare Prize 2015

Congratulations to the winner of the Willis Memorial Prize for Shakespeare 2015, Iyobosa Bello-Asemota, and to John Clarke, who was awarded a Commendation for his entry. 

One of the tasks the candidates had to complete was an analysis of the tricky and interesting Sonnet 71:


No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
   Lest the wise world should look into your moan
   And mock you with me after I am gone.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Maria Popova's Brain Pickings has a useful article on the eleven stages of the hero's life as seen by Joseph Campbell. Food for thought for pupils studying texts. Below, Matthew Winkler's animation.

My Grandmother's Hands

Another entry from the recent Junior Poetry Prize. This is by Rowan Sweeney of Second Form:

My Grandmother’s Hands

These were the hands that held

Me when I cried.

These were the hands that wiped

Away the tears while in pain.

These were the hands that gave

me money, sweets and love.

These were my Grandmother’s hands.

These were the hands that protected

Me when Mummy wasn’t there.

These were the hands whose hugs

could stop tears.

These were the hands that read me

Stories when I was afraid

To go to sleep.

These were my Grandmother’s hands.

These are the hands that are now

So cold.

These are the hands that have

grown old.

These are the hands that I will never

Hold.

These are my Grandmother’s hands.