Teachers Themselves

Shaping the Future: Patrick Kirwan's Drive for Ecological Literacy and Sustainability

• Dublin West Education Centre • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Meet Patrick Kirwan, the Waterford secondary school teacher who founded the Irish Schools Sustainability Network and is sparking a nationwide conversation about ecological literacy and sustainability. 

In this episode with Patrick, we explore the intriguing connection between nature, education, and inequality, delving into his current advocacy for climate literacy in our schools.  We discuss the weighty topic of personal and collective responsibility towards the environment. Patrick shares valuable insights on how educators can empower young people to affect positive social change. Hear about his experiences transforming educational spaces and promoting sustainability in schools.

Patrick's journey is a testament to the power of marrying awareness with action - a lesson we can all take to heart. Join us for this inspiring conversation and let's redefine what it means to care for our planet, together.

In this episode, Patrick provides his top 3 CPD tips for the academic year ahead. You can listen to his recommendations in a bite-size bonus episode. 

Patrick’s CPD recommendations for the year ahead, are to keep an eye on the ESCI website, to check out the Climate and Nature Days with Ardscoil na Mara and to attend the Climate and Nature Summit. You can book some of his CPD recommendations here:

  1. ESCI 
  2. CPD on Teaching Nature | Ardscoil na Mara 
  3. Climate and Nature Summit 

Patrick himself will be facilitating CPD for DWEC again this Autumn.  Book your place here: CLIMATE & NATURE SUMMIT 23/24: GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP & ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION RESOURCE BOOKLET (webinar taking place on September 19th).

You can follow Patrick on Instagram via @irishschsusty
In this episode, Patrick refers to the Climate Alarm Clock Podcast which you can access here: https://the-climate-alarm-clock.captivate.fm/

If you are interested in becoming a CPD facilitator for DWEC, please contact Zita at zrobinson@dwec.ie

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If you have any thoughts on our episodes, or suggestions for future topics, email Zita at zrobinson@dwec.ie
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Oh – and don’t forget to book that CPD – dwec.ie

Teachers Themselves is a DWEC original, produced and created by Dublin West Education Centre produced by Zita Robinson.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Welcome to the Teachers Themselves podcast. I'm your host, Ultan Mac Mathúna. This podcast is brought to you by Dublin West Education Centre. We're located in the grounds of TUD Tallaght, serving and supporting the school communities of West Dublin and beyond. In this podcast, I'll be speaking with some of the very talented, dedicated people who bring you your CPD Facilitators with a background in passion for education in Ireland. Educators whose commitment to students and colleagues shines through in their delivery of courses for Dublin West Ed Centre.

Patrick Kirwan:

Our best days could be ahead of us, but we have to make the choice to care

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Patrick is a secondary school science Ardscoil ,na Mara in Tramur County, Waterford. In March of 2021, Patrick founded the Irish Schools Sustainability Network, the ISSN. The network has run a series of national initiatives, including the Climate and Nature Summit, Five Minutes of Sustainability and Bite Sized Biodiversity. He brings together teachers and students from different schools to work together on joint initiatives and share best practice. Patrick runs place-based training in his own school on outdoor learning and an environmental leadership development programme. Today I'm speaking with Patrick about his passion for climate and ecological literacy and bringing biodiversity into Irish schools. Patrick, you're very welcome. Thanks a million for having me, Ultan, it's a pleasure.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

By way of intro, Patrick gave us a chat down in the Wexford Teacher Centre to all of the Centre Directors. I was so taken with Patrick's delivery but, more importantly, his message. It caused me to, I suppose, look at what we're doing in Dublin West, what I'm doing as an individual around these important issues. He gave a different spin on things, which spoke to the ethical duty we should have in all education institutions schools, education centres, departments, whatever you want to call it. So I immediately thought of Patrick when we were putting together a guest list for the Teachers Themselves podcast. So, Patrick, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Patrick, I know you weren't one of those who wanted to be a teacher from the minute they went into junior infant school. You were a look at the start. Could you tell us a little bit about how you came to teaching?

Patrick Kirwan:

I actually first had some experience in Dublin Zoo for a year working in the Education Department. It was a very different place then, not as organised and probably as well run and well oiled. The Education Centre operated out from a shed at the back and we had all mighty crack. But it was a really interesting experience to me. And then I worked in science for a long time as an epidemiologist and then I came to kind of a crossroads and I thought right, what do I do next? And I wanted something that was purposeful and meaningful. So I saw an advertisement for teacher training with a charity called Teach First and their mission was to tackle educational disadvantage. And when I watched the video my stomach was kind of in bits with nerves. And it's that kind of nerves, excitement and also kind of you know, it's a big responsibility. So I said look, I'll try it out. And first day on the job I thought this is the place I want to be and I think that was because of the incredible energy of the teachers and the students.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

So it was a light bulb moment going off. You said, this is for me.

Patrick Kirwan:

The thing is I was teaching in disadvantaged schools and my own background I'm from a working class family with parents who didn't have the education that I got. So I know how eroding of confidence a lack of education can be and my interest was in science but also tackling inequality. So you can do that with education and I, in the job I was in, I just felt it was kind of long term goals and I needed something that was gritty and where I knew that actually I had some sense of purpose, like there was a reason for me being there. And in the classes that I taught, you know when you're doing a good job, you know when you're doing a terrible job.

Patrick Kirwan:

And I remember one day working, there they rough London schools schools, and one of the deputy principals walked by and he saw me later and he said, well, they're all sitting in their seats and that was a, that was a win and it was just brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the kids were incredible and you had to work really, really hard to get them learning and to get their kind of get them on board. And I think actually because they were so difficult in terms of fostering those relationships and they really didn't have any confidence because there's kind of a revolving door. Teachers were, like one year, 50% of the staff left in the school and you really had to dig deep and be innovative in order to get them on board. So it was a great kind of learning experience and learning curve.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

I had the same experience myself. I gave a year in London in an area of greatest advantage and there is something about it I think to my experience a long time ago but there was a sensory overload nearly in. Everything was so different. But it definitely forms you when you come back to Ireland then and I suppose it gives you an appreciation for some of the stuff Certainly I had taken for granted before. I saw education in operation in schools in other jurisdictions. You came back to Ireland then but you are a Waterford man, I am a Waterford man indeed, and you're in Tramore, I'm in Tramore.

Patrick Kirwan:

So I came back to Ireland and, after 10 years of teaching in London, I'd been working there for 12 years and I was very lucky to get a job in Ard Scoil na Mara in Tramore and a maternity cover.

Patrick Kirwan:

And three years on I'm still there and I really wanted to set up what I set up in the UK, which was, from the get-go, I really wanted to engage students with nature, and it wasn't until three years into the job, when I'd moved school, that I actually had some time that I could do that, and so I set up a model for teaching nature in a secondary school, because teaching nature in secondary schools in particular is really, really hard because the system isn't built for it, and everything actually was a response to deficits and challenges that were presented to me.

Patrick Kirwan:

So I got some students out in the garden, had a small greenhouse and a raised bed started off with, and the students adopted into it During the middle of the day we had some time, and then the principal at the time challenged me to take 30 kids outside and I thought not a chance, how am I going to manage 30 students outside, because we've only got a greenhouse that you could fit five kids in. So it encouraged me to find a solution which was to have some chickens, an outdoor workshop area where kids with dismantled pallets get, another greenhouse, some raised beds, and I couldn't handle all of those students myself. So I trained a small group of kids to deliver workshops and poured a huge amount of time into this leadership program and investing heavily in this small group of students. So the leadership program part was for children.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

It was for children.

Patrick Kirwan:

And it was amazing because we had vertical tutor groups over there which meant that you'd have, like you know, first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth in the one class, the program. The students on the leadership program were from aged 12 up to 18. And what was really striking actually was, you know, when I bring a class downstairs, these kids are very vocal, so they'll tell you exactly what they think of your lesson or what they think of you. So they would complain and whinge them over. They're like why is he doing this to us, why is he bringing us downstairs? And then, once they were downstairs, they'd be paired with the student leader and it was just the quite kind of contentment of working.

Patrick Kirwan:

And I remember having a group of. It was a group of teachers who were just coming to the school in June. They came in in June for their induction and they saw about 40 kids outside. So the class and the student leaders spread out over a kind of large area where I didn't have, you know, eyes on everybody, because I couldn't do, and they were just a gog by what they saw, because they knew that if you're in it like even if I was teaching these kids in science in a lab, I'd be like Hawkeyes looking at everybody, but actually it was a different. There was a different attitude out there and it just really relaxed them. So, coming back home to Ireland, that's what I wanted to set up and this is the year that finally kind of things came together and I could do that.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Brilliant and you know you made me smile there when you were talking about the children's voice. I smile right here. People who aren't now involved in education or gone long from the classroom and they ask them how do you get the children's voice? Well, when you have a good relationship with students or children in your class, there is no problem getting the children's voice. They have the most crystal clear and immediate feedback you could possibly want. In fairness to them, they're brilliant. So you're back on Waterford. You really have a burning drive to educate about nature. Why that? Was it something that you got grown up? Was it something you developed along the way? Was it a course you did? Was it somebody you met? What has you, Patrick Kirwan, so enthused about doing all that work that you do off your own back, for no extra money?

Patrick Kirwan:

Well, initially, you know, I just grew up in the countryside and you're surrounded by nature, your parents are gardeners and it's just I remember, you know, being a kid living in rural Waterford. I kind of would go into Dungarvan, or even thinking about Waterford, you think, how do people live in these places? You know the idea of being in a city or a town. And then I moved to Dublin and went to college there and you know you get used to city life and everything that it has to offer. But I really missed just nature and I saw that with these kids in London that they just don't have access to nature, or at least even if there's actually lots of parks in London but their parents might not bring them to the parks for a variety of different reasons.

Patrick Kirwan:

And actually what was really interesting is I did a baseline survey before we rolled out this whole school program and we had over 500 students in that survey and I asked them would they like more opportunities to garden? And 20% of them said they would. And then they go down for the three days and then, after the three days are up, we'd send them back upstairs again and go on to the next group. But we'd reissue that survey and that initially jumped to and I'd say this with the caveat because it was the early days and we weren't well-oiled but it jumped to 60% that wanted more opportunities to garden and what it told me was that they just didn't know what nature was because they had no experience of it and I wanted to kind of show them how amazing it is for our mental health.

Patrick Kirwan:

But then as I got further into it and there was climate change and ecological Armageddon was back in the forefront of my mind. This was a fantastic place to get students to value nature, because if we don't value it, how can we begin to understand what it's for or protect it? So that's kind of where I'm at now and I think it's really interesting because I think a lot of people we treat climate change or climate breakdown and biodiversity loss as two separate issues, when actually they're inextricably linked and so taking actions for nature, you're also taking actions for climate. It's just fundamental. It's really, I mean, it's kind of bonkers that nature isn't the center of what we do. So when we think about, like nature is the basis of our economy but it's not factored in, it's the basis of our health, like even down to and you can link it in so many ways. So it's health in terms of air quality, health in terms of getting our water supplies, health in terms of getting our medicine. So we get a lot of our kind of medicines coming from plants.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

So not even help but pure survival.

Patrick Kirwan:

Totally and utterly. Yeah, and this is kind of it's linked to every single facet of our lives, but we just don't teach kids about it and we don't have that knowledge ourselves. And I think, like, well, I was teaching some primary teachers the other day, last week, last Thursday, and I said in secondary school we have Irish classrooms, French and German and science and woodwork labs, but we don't have labs for nature and we don't have outdoor classrooms. When we say bring kids outside, there's nothing outside, there are no mature trees, there are no kind of hedgerows. There's like around my school from any schools and teachers, Irish teachers and French teachers and science teachers some of them have been in college from four to six years to teach their subject and we've got nobody with that experience teaching nature and it's just absolutely and utterly mind blowing that we're still attacking nature on to. You know the education system. So, for example, like if we're told to kind of teach nature through all different subjects and that's lovely and a great idea, if teachers had the knowledge and knew the importance of it, It'd be the same way as if we said like let's just abolish maths, let's teach maths through Irish and French and science, Like it's an absolute bonkers idea. You know, and I said to the kids do you think if we actually taught nature as a core subject in the same way as we do with maths and English, and we did that for 20 or 30 years, Do you think we'd be in the position we are in now? And kids actually generally are like no, we wouldn't be, Because we'd know what's happening around us.

Patrick Kirwan:

There's this idea of a shifting baseline syndrome where we've just gotten used to having no nature on a doorstep, Like we kind of think that's always been the case. So, you know, we haven't noticed that insect numbers are disappearing or bird numbers are on the decline. We just kind of accepted as normal. So there's some kids that are, you know, born into the world now or going to primary school and they haven't seen what I've seen in my own childhood. They've got different perceptions, which maybe we'll talk about in a second. But even my dad I remember driving, I don't know. We were driving home one day and he was telling me that down the road from where he was born there was a river that he used to go fishing with his own dad and he used to catch trout in that river and he said there are otters running along that bank and now there's nothing there. But he saw that decline when he was a child, which shows you how it's gone from our consciousness.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

If you think, even language, so the Irish language has references in nature interwoven into every expression in the language, or even something like a Bible. Nature is interwoven into everything, Something that's written now or language that's used now. We use metaphors, simileses. Nature doesn't feature. You're right, I've never thought about it like that. But you know, what used to feature very strongly in our everyday is absent now in so many ways without us even knowing it. When you spoke towards Patrick that day in the Wexford Education Centre, you made an interesting link between what's happening with our climate, what's happening with biodiversity, what's happening in the ecosystem and inequality, because, as you said before, these things aren't silos, they are all interlinked. Can you tell us a bit about you are heavily motivated to address the issues of inequality. As a young teacher, can you tell us where they link into now your concentration on matters ecological and climate and nature?

Patrick Kirwan:

So I was saying that I think the public at large are not aware of the magnitude of this emergency and the urgency at which we need to act, and because they haven't been given a proper education on that, it's very difficult for people to connect the dots on sustainability these terms we use them all the time but people actually find them to be very abstract concepts and certainly don't kind of link to them personally. So sustainability is about just having, for example, affordable housing. You know, I think back to my own university days and I remember vividly packing the car in the evening the eve before I went to university in Dublin and I packed the car because my mother said pack it tonight so your father's out working, he'll get emotional. You pack it in the morning and at that time, even though I was from a relatively poor background, housing didn't factor into my decision of what county I was going to go to university in and I went to Trinity in Dublin. But I speak to students now in the corridor and they are literally not deciding to go to Dublin because of housing and that's just awful Like that's not sustainable. They don't have opportunities that I had when I was growing up and that needs to change. Also, sustainability is about having no food banks because there's no need for them.

Patrick Kirwan:

We live in an inequitable society where everyone can afford to eat because there's a living wage. It's about having a value system, a system that values proper value systems, so something that we all cherish, like when our elderly or infirm go into care homes that they're actually taking care of properly and that's not a worry. That we've got people who are paid very well for the work that they're doing. That we're paying our health care workers, that we're paying our teachers taking care of them, and also, actually, probably the most important job on the planet even though I'm not one is being a parent. You know you've got two parent families in some cases, and even when you have two parent families, one of those parents can't necessarily afford to go to the hospital. They can't afford to go part time or take time off work, and that's just awful because that puts a huge pressure on the family, and that's a society that we live in and needs to change. It's also actually thinking about sustainability we're living in.

Patrick Kirwan:

There's multiple crises, and we're in an energy crisis, and some families are thinking like can I afford to eat or am I going to pay my electricity bill and the backdrop. We've got companies earning billions a day in profit in the fossil fuel industry and they're rubbing their hands together thinking there's some money to be made here and it's just pure greed, and they've actually cut their greenhouse gas emissions because there's so much money to make. So we live in a really awful society where our values are skewed to money and greed. That's the kind of driver of society, and so if you're interested in helping students with special educational needs or helping people with disabilities, or working with minority groups or refugees, they're not going to be the priority that they should be made by society. But as we go further into the climate and biodiversity emergency, that further exacerbates every single ill that we have in society. So all those groups that I've mentioned are not going to get the resources that they need because resources would be constrained, and so if you look at it like, actually it's quite interesting.

Patrick Kirwan:

Covid was a very clear example of how society is quite weak. So we saw that in the healthcare system and take much pressure and we saw in. I was living in the UK at the time when COVID started and we they had to build shelters to cope with the overload in the system and I had friends who had delays in their cancer treatment because of that and that's because of underfunding. We saw that when people thought resources were constrained in the beginning in England and Ireland there was a run on shops for toilet paper and tin food and and that kind of survival instinct and greed took over and shelves emptied. So it doesn't take a genius to work out what will happen when people realise that actually these resources will continue to be constrained.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

That's the big challenge right across, I suppose, and the one word that's right across that is sustainability and how we you know how we address issues of sustainability right across the many facets of civilization. So that leads me on to the young people in your school, and the young people in schools right across Ireland and their teachers have an idea of as you've described as an impending issue for us all, and that the clock is ticking. What do you say then, Patrick, to the person who says, yeah, but, what's the point to me? You know, recycle the cardboard when they're opening up a coal burning factory in China, the usual of the people will spin out. So what do you say to that person who genuinely looks at things logically and says, well, look at you, look at the maths. What's the point of me recycling my jam jar when there's a new coal burning plant after being opened up in China? What difference does it make? What do you say to that person on a logical basis?

Patrick Kirwan:

Well, do you know What's interesting is I find there's a whole psychology around this. All of us anyone who's ever been a human being we weave narratives for ourselves and stories to explain away our actions or good and our bad actions and justify the decisions that we make to ourselves. So blaming other countries or looking to your neighbor who's doing this or that, or they don't recycle, or they're spraying pesticide beside us, and what does the matter? What I do, that's just a way of absolving yourself of responsibility. So that's basically kind of what you're doing. So I think this is about modeling good behavior, whether that's as an individual or whether that's as a country.

Patrick Kirwan:

We all know that there's a copycat culture that we have. Whereas if years ago, when I was growing up, one person got a nice car, as the Celtic Tiger came in, everyone basically got their nice car, and we see that now with you know, solar panels on wheels for those that can afford it, you know there's all my neighbors got that and I'm going to get that. Or, in the case it could be, if you're letting your grass grow for wildlife and if it's someone on the street that you don't expect to be doing that, they're not kind of in your head as some kind of environmentalist hippie, but they're actually maybe a banker or a solicitor or a lawyer with a very kind of serious job. A focused position, yes.

Patrick Kirwan:

Doing that Then you actually are kind of like got this knee-jerk reaction? Jesus, things must be bad if they're doing that. And so really we have to focus on ourselves. And also we talk about the Amazon rainforest and we talk about what's happening in other countries and what they're doing wrong. My God, we are shocking in Ireland, like we are the scum of Europe when it comes to nature. We've got a very.

Patrick Kirwan:

If you look at ecological indices, we're right at the very bottom. There are some countries that have got over 60% tree cover in Europe and we've got 11% tree cover and actually, if you dissect that 11%, only 1% of that is native woodland, 10% of it is plantation, and it's really interesting. Words matter and, as somebody's corrected me on my words recently, I thought it was brilliant and I've adopted it. So I was calling a plantation, which I usually take and walk in up the road, a forest, and someone said to me that's not a forest because there's no life in it. It's a monoculture One tree that we grow a lot of sika spruce that we use for timber, but it's a complete and utter dead zone for wildlife because there's only one species there and actually if you walk past one of those forests, all you have to do is look in. There's nothing on the forest floor.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Yeah, you're right, and it's not a forest, it's a monoculture.

Patrick Kirwan:

And it's really interesting. When you think about these things, it changes your perception. So we have this kind of the idea of Ireland being really green. We're so not green and we have to deal with what's in our own hands first, before we kind of looked at anybody else.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Yes, it's about doing the right thing and it doesn't matter if four fellows are robbing out of the shop. You don't rob out of the shop. It's not the right thing to do. So you have the Irish schools sustainability network up and running and you're doing great work and I know an awful lot of teachers are connecting in there and it is having an impact in classrooms throughout the country. So the young people in those classrooms I know for a lot of them. I know from dealing with teenagers myself in a small way. Climate anxiety, eco anxiety can be a thing, particularly for impressionable young people who can absorb stuff quite personally. How do you tackle that? Because I know Mary Robinson actually came out with a quote that always gives you a cheer, patrick. What do you say to the young person who's maybe getting a bit down about all this?

Patrick Kirwan:

Well, I love this quote action, I think it was. It came from one of the women that she used to work with, and it was basically our best days could be ahead of us, and the other one I think I'm not sure if this one again from her lips or coming from Kofi Annan that you're never too old to learn and you're never too young to lead, and it's two fantastic phrases Our best days could be ahead of us, but we have to make the choice to care, and I say to the students that I'm teaching is that one? I'm not teaching them for them to fix this. I'm an adult. The adults need to address this. That's not on their shoulders, I'm not putting that on their shoulders, but there are some adults in our community that are and that's really, really selfish. I am doing my job, and I absolutely and utterly love my job, and that's basically to make sure that they know how to shape a better community and they can have the best chance of success in life, but they have a huge amount of power, and that's to hold us to account and also to actually spark social change, because of that kind of copycat culture that we talked about.

Patrick Kirwan:

What I would say, though, which is really, really important is there are students who have really severe anxiety, and those are, I would say, in the minority, because not everybody knows what the future actually looks like. But for those kids that know better than adults, they're sitting in classrooms, you know, or in their homes, and they're seeing this emergency in their mind and these kind of awful videos on Instagram and Twitter, and, yes, they don't see that adults are taking it seriously. They don't see that they care enough to even talk about it and they don't see them modeling, and that must be incredibly frightening, especially when they've seen what an emergency response looks like. With COVID, the whole the structure of the school day changed. There was gels outside the doors, there was different seating arrangements in classes, and they haven't seen that emergency response for the climate or biodiversity crisis. So for them, it's kind of like, well, this is it, we're just driving off a cliff and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Patrick Kirwan:

Now I think there's some adults who, well, we all have kind of helped build this culture of apathy and acceptance, but actually you can build a culture of empowerment and, as I said, our best days could be ahead of us, and the lovely thing is all of these actions that you can take with your kids.

Patrick Kirwan:

They're brilliant for fostering like leadership skills, confidence, getting them to socialize, have fun, but you're also bringing a community together. So with Ardscoil na Mara and the outdoor learning program that we have, we are very lucky to have a permaculturist who's in there over the summer and he's working with the kids over the summer and on Friday he's got basically plant sales and veg sales where parents come in and they buy the produce that the kids have made and it's amazing because it starts to build that sense of community. But I'm hoping that, like 10 years down the line, the school looks very different, that it's actually an incredible community hub where people are coming from more than just their veg and fruit and plants. They're getting an awful lot more from it and actually school becomes a really integrated part of the community and not just kind of set aside for that.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

I think you hit the nail on the head there when you use the word community in fairness there Patrick, because in community there is strength and it's with strength things will change and develop for the good. So I actually love the phrase. We have to make the choice to care. We have to make the choice to care. I think that might get that painted up on the wall here in front of me in the office. But, Patrick, I'm going to ask you a few things now. I'm asking a lot of our guests If you had a magic wand and Patrick Kirwan could change one thing about the Irish education system. Only the one. Now, Patrick, what would it be? One roll of the dice to change one thing in the Irish education system?

Patrick Kirwan:

I would have qualified teachers of nature in every school in the country, just as we do for science or any other subject, and I'd have that resourced as they have their outdoor classrooms. They've got their kits. That would be an absolute, a game changer.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

And if you could change one thing to the practice of teaching or teachers, the practice of teachers in schools throughout the country? If you could get teachers to do one thing, what would it be?

Patrick Kirwan:

I would say, really look to improving your own knowledge about biodiversity and climate and sustainability. And one fantastic thing that you could do it's just amazing is the Climate Alarm Clock podcast, and I'd invite you to go back to season one. They're quite short and you can listen on the way to work or out in your walk. And in season two I just absolutely love it because they got this lovely woman who's in marketing, I think called Ciara Daly, onto the podcast and she's just if she heard me say this, I don't think she'd mind.

Patrick Kirwan:

She's just a normal Joe soap like the rest of us. She's not really switched onto climate but she's heard Dara Wynne, who's started this podcast, talk about climate. He's a friend of hers and she's like Jesus, he's very heavy going and so he gets onto the podcast and she's kind of like the rest of us. She's kind of sitting there and she gets them to translate what they're saying for the rest of us so we can actually understand, and she puts in a huge dollop of humor and fun. But you actually get to be the fly in the wall for Ciara's journey in this and you can actually hear how she changes her perceptions and her attitude and she went through a journey that I've gone through and I think everybody will go through at some stage when they get more knowledge, and it's just for me it was a real tonic, because it's kind of like you know that you're not your own.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

That's an Irish podcast, Patrick? yeah, the Climate Alarm podcast, and that's an episode of the series two with Ciara Daly Is that right, I would definitely tune into series two beyond. And Patrick back to the magic wand. If you could change one thing about education centers, what would you change? So if you have some familiar with education centers and you're doing some great work through several of them, what one thing would you change to education centers?

Patrick Kirwan:

That's a real, that's an interesting one. I think what I would do is and you kind of already do this which is to work in partnership around kind of sustainability issues, and I think there needs to be more and more and more of that, because sustainability bleeds into absolutely every facet of life and I think by working together, partnerships are just key. You know they're just like communities. If you break down the word partnership, what it basically means is, you know it's a relationship and society is built on relationships. So I think it's just having a combined approach that makes things more accessible for teachers, because this is really complicated and there's lots of resources out there. So I think, building partnerships not just with each other, which others said you do already, but also with other organizations trying to Externally, as well.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Excellent advice, Patrick. Excellent advice. Come here, Patrick, and tell me what advice would you give to educators about biodiversity and sustainability in schools.

Patrick Kirwan:

I would say that you should marry awareness and action together. So it's not like you know, you can have the uncomfortable conversations, but you can also lean into action and it doesn't have to be one or the other. But what I would say is that we've got a schedule of CPD coming out with ESCI this year and I'd like teachers to kind of like look at that with their whole school and think, ok, what are the offers on and, as a staff, what are we actually going to tap into? So it's not actually just coming from one place in the school, but it's coming from a number of places, and that's one of the jobs that the ESCI Climate Action Group are trying to do to make this more accessible. I would also say I'm going to put an unashamedly plug here.

Patrick Kirwan:

We have these place-based training days in Ardscoil na Mara. We started them last year. What are they called? A place-based training sessions? Ok, it's maybe, perhaps a silly term. It's just basically training on site.

Patrick Kirwan:

So in a school it's really interesting because I in the UK, when I had this model, I talked about it a lot and I have lovely pictures and data and people were always kind of impressed when you talk to them on Zoom or, you know, in conferences or whatever, but when people saw it on site in person, saw the kids in action, it is just an absolute game changer because you can see one. You can see the impact, but you also feel it and you see the logistics of how it actually works. So in Ardscoil we started that this year and teachers went into the outdoor classroom to observe a lesson there and they were just kind of a gog by what they saw. You know they couldn't believe what these students were doing and how they're running the program. And then they went back into the outdoor classroom and they were the students and the TYs were the teachers.

Patrick Kirwan:

So we're basically running these days this year. Every month We've got a climate day and we've got a nature day and you can book onto it and it's just basically creating a space for a meaningful conversation. It's not just about the what and the how, but really it's about the why. Why are we here? Why are we doing this? And getting people up to speed with climate nature, not delving into the depths of so much to know, but giving them a little bit of a taster so that they can go away and actually think about what they're doing in the schools and they've got some model that they could operate when they get there back.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

That's brilliant part of it and you're doing some stuff with us here in Dublin West this autumn. Can you tell me a little bit about what you're doing for us here in Dublin West?

Patrick Kirwan:

For the last two years we've been running a climate and nature summit during COP26 first actually, then COP27. And this basically just is a lever to foster a whole school conversation and it's about stopping in the last two years it's been stopping for five points in the week to actually have a whole school conversation so that everybody is walking out of their classrooms teachers and students having a conversation about what they've just heard and interacted with. So we've gone through topics of climate, psychology why are we all weirdos that Ireland actually has a rainforest Soil don't treat me like dirt and it helps people to get up to speed. This year we're doing it slightly differently. We're going to look at some environmental awareness days throughout the year and we probably have four talks for secondary and four workshops for primary.

Patrick Kirwan:

There'll be a workshop video, so it's kind of all there for the teachers. It's. You know, you don't have to worry about your knowledge. They're purposely designed to help anybody. So it's kind of training for teachers and students at the same time. But there'll be walking debates and worksheets and also teachers will have the PowerPoints in case they're like you know what? I want to have a stab at this myself. I don't want to look at the video. So we'll let them know in that session what the plan is for the year.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

That's a brilliant resource and that can be booked on www. dwec. ie. So, Patrick, could you give us three top tips for CPD?

Patrick Kirwan:

OK, so three top tips. If you're looking for CPD this year, I would say look out for the schedule that's coming out from ESCI, which will have all of the sustainability CPD on it. I also look out for climate and nature days in Ardscoil na Mara, where it's all about kind of place-based training. There's the climate and nature summit this year, and I'm going to be very, very, very, very cheeky here and I'm going to put one more squeeze on and this is actually just to any teachers who are listening you guys are the experts you know on the ground. I've talked to teachers who are doing some amazing stuff. So, please, please, in your subject areas because it's actually very difficult to find subject-specific sustainability CPD get in touch with your local Education Support Centre and try out delivering CPD, because I think sometimes teachers don't realise that they are in the best place to deliver that. So, please, please, do that, because we'll all massively benefit from it.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

if I had paid you to do that, I couldn't have paid enough money. It's a drum we're always beating here. Yes, all Education Centres will be delighted to hear from any teacher who wants to come in and deliver a bit of CPD. It's what we're here for. It's our raison d'etre. We are here to serve schools and for the greater good. So, patrick, that has us finishing up nicely.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

I'd like to thank you very sincerely for joining us today. It is great to hook up with teachers with such passion. It's great to meet people who believe in something, strong enough to take their belief and put it into action, but then take that action and transform it into a leadership that has people across Ireland responding and buying in. It's a genuine honour to be part of that, patrick, and I thank you for that sincerely. I think your quote we have to make the choice to care is my takeaway from this chat, and I know that we in DWEC are doing our bit to support everything that you and your colleagues are doing in the ISSN. So thank you very much for that, go raibh mile Patrick.

Patrick Kirwan:

Thank you so much, Ultan, I really appreciate it. Take care.

Ultan Mac Mathúna:

Tune in next week for another episode of Teachers Themselves. Don't forget to like and subscribe, leave us a review and share it with colleagues and friends. Your feedback informs the show. You can follow us across our social media channels Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook. Links are in the show notes. If you have any thoughts on today's episode or suggestions for future topics, email Zita here at zrobinson@ dwec. ie. Oh, and don't forget to book that CPD dwec. ie. Thanks again. Have a great week. Slán Tamail. Teachers Themselves is a DWEC original produced and created by Dublin West Education Centre.

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Ultan Mac Mathúna

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