ASIDE: Of Loafers & Teachers

Ask any teacher what the normal response is of those around them to their vocation and, undoubtedly, a very large percentage would use something descriptive of resentment.  What seems to be at the seething core of public negativity is the allotted vacation time enjoyed by teachers; the visually observable and envy inspiring amount of time that one in the educational profession is allowed to spend at home or at their own leisure; in fact, one could argue that in the cultural modern mind set, the professional title of “teacher” is synonymous with the derogative “loafer.”

         
Therefore, to the controversial point of Christmas weeks off, March breaks enjoyed in the company of one’s own children and late summer nights spent contemplating the freedoms of the next morning, I cannot and will not tell a lie: it is marvelous!!  So as a counter point, I will not try to convince of what percentage teachers spend their summers professionally engaged, or deny the irrefutable fact of the many unique and irreplaceable perks that come with the profession.  In fact, when I was deciding on what career to pursue I had a list of pros and cons attached to the option of teaching:  On the one side, there was a relatively low salary and, for someone with talent, an appalling lack of professional advancement; while, on the opposite side of the page, there was, among many other positives, the opportunity of time off for myself, my family, and loved ones. Such lists often help navigate professional crossroads and while my final decision led me into the field of education, the double-edged sword of free will led many more away from it.  So where does all the resentment come from?  My own suspicion is that at some point, later in life, regardless of how much money one makes, even those in upper management eventually realize that they will never make enough money to buy them time; so while their teacher neighbour may live in the smallest house at the end of their own magnificent side of the street, that teacher is still in their neighbourhood and  that teacher can still be seen walking a beloved dog or relaxing with contented offspring, while the more or less affluent hustle off in Beamers or crowded trains to offices all over the city.

I will not try to argue the fact; quite the contrary, I will even add to that seething pot of bitterness by elaborating on another unique reward in the instruction of young people, a satisfaction that few outside the teaching profession will ever experience: the genuine gratitude of the student who recognizes the positive and life changing force you have been in their life.  In some cases, this gift of gratitude arrives many years after the fact, from the most unexpected places and its impact on even the darkest of professional days can be monumental.  A suitable case in point is this fragment of an article written about my great grand uncle, Timothy Kelleher of Ireland, in the early 1930s and saved by my grandmother for over forty years:

From the more cynical of my readers, a concession to the above might be the acknowledgement that there are, in fact, some teachers of value amongst the unworthy.  Yet, is this not also a reality for many professions in any sector, either public or private?  Has the cynical reader never heard friends or neighbours complain of how little their manager does or how often those in the upper offices “work from home” on the eve of long weekends? 

The logical conclusion to the matter, then, must rest in the most parsimonious reasoning: There are good teachers and there are bad teachers; there are teachers who work hard and to the best of their abilities and there are those who take advantage of the system they manipulate; this, of course, is no different from any other profession whose employees are distinguished, good or bad, by the exact same criteria. 

Without a doubt, the positive contribution of a good teacher is immensely important, not only to the students themselves, or to the parents who love them, but also to the world those students will one day steward.  Is the salary a good teacher makes too high or too low for this service?  Is the time off given to a good teacher a fair exchange for the benefits of good teaching?  All are entitled to their own opinions… 

Therefore, as a qualified teacher and a devout loafer, on the eve of a long summer holiday, I will end this Aside by adjusting and, in the process, correcting a popular saying:

Those who cannot teach, work!

"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit..."

Photograph of Peter O’Toole in Goodbye Mr. Chips from, www.allposters.co.uk

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Irish Heroine, Lady Eleanor FitzGerald

Considered one of the great heroines of Ireland and the saviour of the ancient house of Kildare, Lady Eleanor FitzGerald was, by Alison Eustace, the eldest daughter of Gerald “the Great” 8^th Earl of Kildare.

Eleanor’s father, given the essential rulership of Ireland by King Henry VII, created a fitting match for his family with his daughter’s marriage to Donough MacCarthy Reagh, the head of a powerful MacCarthy sept situated in Carbery.  Both the influence of the house of Kildare and Eleanor herself is reflected in the fact that the marriage arrangement insured co-rule for Lady Eleanor over the MacCarthy Reagh, a native Irish house whose origins stemmed back to the Eoghanacht Kings of Ireland (Nicholls, 190).  In fact, the desire to please Eleanor was so great that the question of whether or not the traditional bodyguard of the MacCarthy Reagh, the famed MacSweeney gallowglass, would continue in their ancient service was entirely left to her approval (Nicholls, 101).  To the great relief of the MacSweeney warriors and their clan, she did approve and they stayed.  Along with co-ruling her husband’s house through one of the most turbulent periods in Irish history, she mothered at least four sons, one daughter and was grandmother to the famed Florence MacCarthy the last MacCarthy Mor.  However, her prominent place in Irish history occurs in the aftermath of her nephew Silken Thomas’ rebellion against the English crown, when the very existence of her late father’s great house stood on the verge of extinction.

After hearing of the erroneous news of his father’s execution, Gerald “Oge” the 9^th Earl of Kildare, in the Tower of London, Silken Thomas laid siege to Dublin, repudiated his allegiance to England and began open communications with the Pope and Emperor Charles V.  Terrified by the revolt, the English crown sued for peace and upon hearing that his father had not been killed, Thomas surrendered on the condition that his life would be spared and he would continue his career as vice-deputy unmolested.  These terms were violated and both he and his five uncles were arrested then hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in February, 1537.  In the meantime, Thomas’ father, the 9^th Earl, died of natural causes while still held captive in the Tower of London and suddenly one of the greatest houses of Ireland had no chieftain other than Thomas’ eldest son and 12 year old heir, Gerald.  All those who opposed English rule in Ireland now rallied behind the boy earl and after being protected by the O’Brien’s of Thomond for a brief time, young Gerald was conveyed to the protection of his great aunt, the Lady Eleanor. 

Now a widow, Lady Eleanor’s son was MacCarthy Reagh and the English were tentative about pursuing the boy Earl into the country of a man who was still considered a royal Prince to the Irish people.  Consequently, they put pressure on the earl of Desmond to help, peaceably, procure young Gerald.  Buying time for his kinsmen, the earl of Desmond began negotiations with no intention of trusting royal promises and, in conference with Lady Eleanor and her advisors, it was decided by all that the young earl should make his way to the security of the North.  The task of this difficult and dangerous journey fell to Lady Eleanor, who had now become a surrogate mother to her great nephew.   

The first step in the planned journey became a political marriage with Manus O’Donnell, Lord of Tirconnell, who had long desired the widow’s hand in marriage.  Providing he would insure the protection of her great nephew within his powerful northern borders as well as commit to future support of the young earl when he was of an age to fight for the restoration of his ancestral rights, Lady Eleanor agreed to the marriage.  With a small guard of honour, she then set out on horseback to traverse the entire length of the island from south to north, while the English deputy in Ireland, Lord Leonard Grey, used all means at his disposal to pursue them. 

It is said, that everywhere they went they were met “with the utmost courtesy and hospitality,” the Lords of each territory meeting them at their borders and escorting them to their ancestral castles (Moore,439).    The fact that not a word of their journey was ever given to English officials attested to the loyalty the Irish felt to the house of Kildare and when the marriage of Eleanor to O’Donnell was accomplished, there was also a hope that an Ireland united in the cause of young Gerald, might also prove a united front against an increasingly hostile England.

By 1540, however, the anticipated help from the Continent did not arrive and Eleanor had learned that her 2^nd husband was planning to betray her great nephew.   So Lady Eleanor determined that the boy earl should flee Ireland for the safety of the continent and with “whatever money [she] had at her disposal, Gerald [was] disguised as a peasant of the countryside” then conveyed to the safest port and placed in a small trading vessel that set sail for St. Malo (Moore, 442). 

As soon as Lady Eleanor received word that Gerald was safely out of the power of her husband, she confronted O’Donnell.   With all her belongings packed, she told him that only the safety of her great nephew had made her agree to marry such a clownish curmudgeon and that since he had proved to be not only a fool but also a butcherly cut-throat the current safety of her great nephew seemed grounds enough for ending such a marriage (Moore, 442).  She then turned her back on the “great prince” of the North and returned to her own southern territories.

Lady Eleanor was described by a contemporary historian as “always known and accounted of every man that was acquainted with her conversation of life for a paragon of liberality and kindness, in all her actions virtuous and godly, and also in a good quarrel rather stout than stiff” (Moore, 436).  Her efforts to save both her great nephew and the earldom were rewarded fourteen years later when the earldom of Kildare was restored to Gerald as its 11^th earl in 1554.

"Alright, you can stay..."

Moore, T.  “The Romantic Wanderings of Gerald, 11^th Earl of Kildare.”  The Irish  Monthly, Vol. 46, No. 542 (Aug., 1918), pp. 433-448. JSTOR. Web. 1 May

            2013. 

Nicholls, K. W.  Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle Ages. 2^nd ed.  Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2003.

LITERARY CORNER: Rimbaud's "The First Evening"

She had very few clothes on

And big indiscreet trees

Threw their leaves against the panes

Slyly, very close, very close.

Sitting in my big chair,

Half naked, she clasped her hands.

Her small feet so delicate, so delicate,

Trembled with pleasure on the floor.

---The color of wax, I watched

A small nervous ray of light

Flutter in her smile

And on her breast---a fly on the rose-bush.

---I kissed her delicate ankles.

Abruptly she laughed.  It was soft

And it spread out in clear trills,

A lovely crystal laughter.

Her small feet under the petticoat

Escaped.  “Please stop!”

---When the first boldness was permitted,

The laugh pretended to punish!

---Poor things trembling under my lips,

I softly kissed her eyes:

---She threw her sentimental head

Backward: “Oh! that’s too much!...

“Sir, I have something to say to you…”

---What was left I put on her breast

In a kiss, which made her laugh

With a kind laugh that was willing…

---She had very few clothes on

And big indiscreet trees

Threw their leaves against the panes

Slyly, very close, very close.

                                   

                                    - Arthur Rimbaud

Rimbaud, Arthur.  Rimbaud: Complete Words, Selected Letters.  Trans. Wallace Fowlie.

            Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1966. Print.

THE THINKER: The Science of "Love at First Sight"

With the romantic couple being the dominant media icon of our time (Dym & Glenn, 1993) and intimate relationships being the driving force of a large percentage of human behaviour, sociology & psychology have attempted to scientifically examine the phenomenon of attraction.

The theory of social homogamy explains that attraction occurs between people who are from similar social backgrounds (Holloway et al., 193).  Studies have shown the highest correlations of similarities in social factors are age, race, ethnic background, religion, socio-economic status, and political views (Holloway et al., 193); correlations for physical characteristics were also found, “suggesting that people find others with a similar appearance attractive” (Buss 1994). 

Ideal mate theory, on the other hand, suggests “that attraction is based on an individual’s unconscious image of the ideal mate formed from his or her perceptions of the meaning of certain characteristics” (Holloway et al., 193). 

Interestingly, both theories support the concept of “love at first sight” and both theories provide a psychological reason for its occurrence.  According to the ideal mate theory, every person’s “unconscious ideal” is constantly being utilized to compare and measure another person’s attractiveness (Holloway et al., 193).  The theory of social homogamy explains that perceptions of an ideal mate formed from positive childhood “experiences with other individuals”(such as a person’s family, people within the community, and media personalities who are similar) creates an ideal that is then used to compare against a potential romantic candidate (Holloway et al., 194).   In effect, and according to both theories, when the experimental comparison registers high in its measurement of similarity to one’s ideal mate, an instantaneous psychological reaction occurs and creates the perception of “love at first sight!”

Creating a mindset for your ideal mate is another way to look at it.  Perhaps, you have an unconscious memory of your mother leaning over the crib: you notice her blue eyes; she is singing to you; you feel safe; you feel comforted.  Later in your life, while at elementary school, you are helped by a teacher who has a certain demeanor and body type that you unconsciously remember.  Even later, in your pubescent years, you find yourself watching Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window; she stoops forward to kiss a sleeping James Stewart, white pearls glistening against her white neck; she moves closer, closer, even closer, her face suddenly filling the entire screen; you are struck by her blue eyes, her arched nose, her red lips….Now, as an adult, you enter a room full of people; you suddenly hear a soft voice in the corner, melodious, perhaps familiar; you look over; her frame is slight; she wears pearls, has blue eyes and there is just something, something, specifically, about her that especially attracts you…

Buss, D. M.  The Evolution of Desire.  New York: Basic Books, 1994.

Dym, B., & Glenn, M.  “Forecast for Couples.” Psychology Today July/August 1993.

Holloway, Maureen, et al.  Individuals and Families in a Diverse Society.  Toronto:

            McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 2003.

VIGNETTE: Interests & Adoration, Juxtaposing 60 Years

                                                                     

1953

"Easy boys...I don't even smoke!"

                                                                   

2013

"Try aiming the bird just above the pig..."

THE ANTIQUARIAN: The Old Countess & Richard III

Famed for her beauty in youth, she has been called “the Kerry Diamond;” afterward famed for her longevity of life, she became “the Old Countess” of Desmond.

The legend of Katherine of Dromana, daughter of John FitzGarrett Lord of Decies, purports her birth year as 1464; records that in her 139^th year, she journeyed from Ireland to England (walking on foot from Bristol to London) to visit James I; and states that her death at the age of 140 was due to her falling from a tree while gathering nuts.

In actuality, Katherine was the second wife of the 12^th Earl of Desmond, Thomas “Maol;” she died in 1604, most probably at the age of 104; and reliable sources record that up to the end of her life, she would walk (for pleasure) five miles from her castle at Inchiquin to the market town at Youghal when she could have had “the best horse in the kingdom” take her there (Sainthill, 452).

So where did all the legends come from? After the rebellion and subsequent beheading of Gerald the 15^th Earl of Desmond in 1583, and for twenty years after the ruin of one of Ireland’s great patriarchal families, the solitary widow, who had managed to protect her dower estate while the rest of the earldom’s properties were parceled out to undertakers, remained unscathed.  For the local populace, she became a living vestige of a much loved and ancient house that had ruled over their ancestors for more than four hundred years.  The origin of the remarkable legends surrounding Katherine of Dromana, then, were rooted in what she came to symbolize for subsequent generations of Irish men and women who, as Richard Sainthill described it, must have seen “the Old Countess” as the beloved remnant “of a long past, and almost forgotten generation”(452).

A further testament to the kind of grandeur she came to represent is the legend of her dancing with the Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) at a party given by his brother, Edward IV.  In one version of the tale, Richard is so taken with her that he repeatedly asks her hand in marriage, offers his current estates and the certainty of future prospects that, he suggests, may include the English throne.  Katherine, embarrassed by his advances, reminds the Duke that she is betrothed to the son of one of King Edward’s most beloved subjects, Thomas 8^th Earl of Desmond, and tells him that her only ambition is “to live---to die in my own land, with one who well deserves my heart’s best service”(Macarty, 278).  She then cuts short the Duke’s next protestation by simply wishing him well and walking away.  In Flora Macarty’s version of the story, the infamous future King of England reacts to this rejection by staring palely after the Kerry Diamond, curling his lip contemptuously, and “scorning his own weakness” (278). 

In effect, when viewed from a political perspective, “the Old Countess” became the woman who, in her youth, rejected all the imperial power of Plantagenet England and the one woman who, in her old age, defied and transcended all the dread power of England during its Tudor reign.

"You could have had all of THIS!"

Macarty, Flora. “Desmond; Or, The Charmed Life.”  The United States Magazine,

            And Democratic Review. (1837-1851). Vol 14 (69), Mar. 1844, pp. 276-283.     

            American Periodicals.  ProQuest. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

Sainthill, Robert.  “The Old Countess of Desmond.  An Inquiry:

     Did She Seek Redress at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, as Recorded in the Journal of      

     Robert Sydney, Earl of Leycester? And Did She Ever Sit for Her Portrait?” 

     Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. (1836 – 1869). Vol 7 (1857-1861),

     pp. 429-473.  Royal Irish Academy. JSTOR. Web. 7 May 2011.

THE THINKER: Benjamin Franklin & "the Favour"

The designation of “genius” is much overused in society; however, the inventor, statesmen, politician, and satirist Benjamin Franklin was one of those rare individuals who truly warranted the title.  Described as the First American and immortalized as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, the new Republic relied upon his ambassadorial skills to woo the French aristocracy into an alliance with the United States that became an essential component for victory in the Revolutionary War.  On his work in France, the scholar Leo Lemay remarked that Franklin was “the most essential and successful American diplomat of all time" (“Benjamin Franklin”).

Following some folk wisdom that he had learned, a major part of the American Statesman’s political strategy was based on the maxim, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged” (Aronson, 288). Testing the theory, in 1736, on an antagonistic member of the political opposition, Franklin recorded the experiment as follows:

            Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious

            book I wrote a note to him expressing my desire of perusing that book

            and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few

            days.  He sent it immediately and I return’d it in about a week with

            another note expressing strongly my sense of the favour.  When we next

            met in the House he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and

            with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me

            on all occasions, so that we became great friends and our friendship

            continued to his death (Aronson, 288).

Over two hundred and forty years later, this casual experiment was empirically tested by Jon Jecker and David Landy (Aronson, 288).  A group of students who participated in a mock task were later asked, as a favour, to return the money they had received for participating; they were told: this would help refund a financially strapped experimenter who claimed he was using his own funds to finance the project (Aronson, 288).  Another group of students were not asked to return the money they had received.  When all the participants were later required to fill out a questionnaire rating the experimenter, those “who had been cajoled into doing a special favour for the experimenter found him most attractive” (Aronson, 288).

In his book The Social Animal, Elliot Aronson explains the psychological perspective at work when one undertakes doing a favour for another person:  “In effect, we will say to ourselves, ‘Why in the world did I go to all of this effort (or spend all of this money, or whatever) for Sam?  Because Sam is a wonderful person, that’s why!’”(287).

"Excuse me, Ma'am...Would you do me a favour?"

Aronson, Elliot.  The Social Animal. 4^th Edition.  New York: W.H. Freeman &

            Company, 1984.

“Benjamin Franklin.”  World of Influence.  Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. 2002.   

            Web. 25 Feb. 2013.