Tag: Galway County Library

Fierce Close Podcast Day

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Today Seán and Josephine from Galway Library Services brought the Schools Library Van to the school for a very special reason as Alan and Elena from Soundtrack and Podcast in Galway were with us to help us record our Fierce Close podcast.

Over the past month we have been working with Orla and Annie from CURO NUIG to challenge our thinking, discuss our views, and form and unravel opinions around philosophical questions. Clontuskert’s critical thinkers prepared dialogues and monologues to record for the Fierce Close podcast. We look forward to sharing with you soon. In the meantime, here are some highlights from behind the scenes. Thanks to Elena and Ms. Tracy Murray for recording footage today.

*The Fierce Close Project*
The aim of this programme is to create critical thinkers and activists on Climate Change. The project takes its title from an Irish idiom for a humid day, one where a storm is imminent. Through sessions that build their philosophical skills and a creative outcome that can be shared with their communities, this project gives voice to young people’s perspectives on climate change while building their critical thinking skills and debating literacy. Project participants will express their ideas to one another with the support of professional philosophers and create and perform new monologues through skills building workshops and guidance in podcast creation from Soundtrack and Podcast
This project responds to the scale of change expected in Galway City Council’s Climate Strategy by allowing young people to meaningfully explore possible solutions together.

‘Climate change is a critical challenge for Galway. It will result in a range of impacts across a wide number of sectors that are likely to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. Taking proactive action to adjust and prepare for anticipated changes will reduce losses, improve our environment and provide a host of community benefits.’ (Galway County Council’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2019-2024)
These young people will be engaged in philosophical dialogues, informed by Lipman’s Community of Inquiry method, to build an understanding of how and where perspectives need to shift in order to think and act productively in relation to Climate Change. These workshops will be led by community philosophers from Library partner Curo who will scaffold their acquisition of critical thinking skills. Through this process they will isolate the most important questions relating to climate action and climate justice that faces Ireland today. At its close this project will allow young people to give voice to nature itself, through guided reflection, and podcast creation workshops.

Core Outcomes:
-Participants will develop their critical and creative thinking skills through facilitated dialogue with professional philosophers.
-Participants will identify pressing questions in relation to climate change and climate justice creating collaborative answers to these by drawing on their own lived experience.
-Participants will communicate their thinking through the production of short podcast episodes that focus on emerging ideas and questions from their philosophical dialogue.

‘To the Island’ with Patricia Forde

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Children’s author Patricia Forde visited the school today to introduce her new children’s book ‘To the Island’ to the infant class.

Patricia was commissioned to write the book by Galway 2020 as part of the European Capital of Culture programme.

RTÉ was in attendance to film the event for their youth news programme – News2day, which we looking forward to watching on RTÉ2 this week. As part of this news piece, the presenter, Pat McGrath spoke with some of the students and teachers to get their thoughts on the book.

The book was gifted to each of the nine junior infant students that have started school in Clontuskert NS this year, as well as all junior infant students in every primary school in Galway, in celebration of our year as European Capital of Culture.

Josephine Vahey with Sean and Aoife of Galway Schools Library Service visited with the Schools Library Van giving us the opportunity to restock our school library with some wonderful new reading material.

About the Author
Patricia Forde is a children’s author from Galway in the West of Ireland. Her first novel The Wordsmith was published to great critical acclaim in 2015. It has since been published in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Russia, Turkey and the Netherlands, and is an American Library Association Notable Book. In 2018 Patricia wrote Bumpfizzle the Best on Planet Earth. She is married to Padraic and has two grown up children. She still lives in Galway, her favourite city in the world. Her books have won two White Raven Awards and twice been shortlisted for the Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year. Bumpfizzle the Best of Planet Earth was the Dublin UNESCO Citywide Read 2019. Her picturebook Fidget The Wonder Dog will be published by Puffin in 2021.

During the last school year, 5th and 6th class read her latest novel, Mother Tongue. Patricia joined us in live Microsoft Teams classes during lockdown. She inspired our young readers to write themselves and gave them tips to improve their own creative writing. Check out some highlights from the classes here.

‘To the Island’
Fia longs to go to the mysterious island that appears and disappears out in the bay. One night a moonbeam reaches across the water and leads her there, to where magical creatures stride around and the air is thick with secrets. Based on the mythical island of Hy Brasil off the West coast of Ireland.

Visit from Jane Mitchell- Author of A Dangerous Crossing

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On Wednesday 6/11/19 we were visited by Jane Mitchell, the author of the book A Dangerous Crossing. We did a workshop on her book. We really loved reading A Dangerous Crossing.
This visit was arranged by Josephine Vahey of Galway County Libraries Schools Service as part of the Look Beyond our a World project which seeks to foster an understanding for minority and excluded groups through creative arts and literature.

At the start, she asked what sports and hobbies we did, then, she showed us her books and drawings as a kid. In sixth class, she was passionate about writing, creating excellent stories and drawings and moved from print to joined cursive writing. Her illustrations were really amazing!

She asked us if you had to leave your country what would you bring with you? She said you couldn’t bring your pets. Some of us said that we would bring phones, money, clothes etc. She used Mrs Murray’s Surface to write a list of the important things that we would bring if we were in the terrible situation where our country was bombed and we had to leave our homes quickly.

Jane has visited the refugee camps in Calais to help the people there and had spoken to them. We had to guess two things that lots of refugees wished they had brought with them when trying to escape Syria and other places of conflict. Most people wished they had brought their phone and wellies/waterproof boots. We had guessed the phone as you can put your photographs and memories on a phone and it also helps to communicate and find your way but were surprised to hear about the boots. She explained that many people would have travelled so far by foot that proper, comfortable footwear becomes a priority.

She showed us the American version of her book, It was called Without Refuge. She showed the Portuguese(Brazilian) version. We liked this version because it had a picture at the front showing the family and it had pictures all along the bottom showing them travelling on their journey and if it was day, evening or night it had a different page colour, dark for the night, orange for morning or sunset and white for during the day. We thought it was so visual and added to the story. It also showed the characters in shelters and on the boat. At the end she told us to tell her what we thought of the book and if we got to change anything what would it be.

We love the original Irish version of the cover of A Dangerous Crossing. It shows the main character Ghalib as he walks through the ruins and rubble of Kobani. Across the rubble, we see flowers and vines. We think this means that even when there is death and destruction there is always hope and life.

Laura interviewed three of us about the Look Beyond our a World project.
Thanks to Jane, Josephine and Laura for visiting Clontuskert. It really was special to have them in our school.