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Education
Andrew McGowan
The Yeats Society
Andrew McGowan’s passion for Ireland is infectious; he has passed it
on to other family members and to hundreds of others all over the country.
At the request of the Yeats Society in County Sligo, McGowan founded the
W.B. Yeats Society in New York 15 years ago, on the 125th anniversary of
the Irish Nobel Laureate’s birth.
Since then, he has visited Ireland countless times to attend the Yeats
Summer School and to visit his large extended family – his father hails
from County Leitrim, and his mother from County Donegal. His wife Judith
is an authority on Irish-themed children’s literature, and his son, Ian,
is working on a graduate degree in the history of the Irish in the Americas.
The Yeats Society, which has over 400 members and an annual poetry contest
– judged by national poets the likes of Billy Collins, Eamon Grennan and
Paul Muldoon – is so successful that other literary organizations have sought
McGowan’s guidance. The organization also administers an annual award for
“contributions to Yeats studies” whose honorees are selected by scholars
around the world.
In addition to being a Yeats scholar, McGowan is one of the leading authorities
on broadcast public service advertising. He is the president of Planned
Communication Services and PCS Broadcast Services, and has orchestrated
the radio campaigns for Amnesty International USA, the Centers for Disease
Control, the Emigrant Awards Foundation, and United Way. He even taught
a course in “public service public relations” at the School for Visual Arts.
McGowan is also on the advisory board of the City University of New York
Institute for Irish American Studies.
Brigid Higgins
CaregiverBy Keith Kelly
When you’re a teacher in a cancer hospital, you learn to roll with the
ups and downs. Brigid Higgins, a Galway-born teacher is technically in the
New York City Public school system, but her classroom doesn’t have desks
or blackboards or overhead projectors. Her “classroom” is at the bedside
of high school students who must spend months – or sometimes years – battling
cancer at Manhattan’s renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and
at the nearby Ronald McDonald House.
And because it is cancer, there is the grim reality that each year, a
certain percentage of her students won’t make it.
 “I have the pleasure of attending many graduations,” says Brigid, “but
unfortunately, I have been at the bedside of children who died, sometimes
in my arms.”
This year, Higgins decided to retire, ending nearly 50 years in Catholic
and public school education. But most are pretty sure that this Irish-born
educator, union activist, and lifelong champion of Irish culture and teenagers
won’t be still for long.
“It’s going to be hard to fill her shoes,” said Dr. Mariann Cholakis,
principal of hospital schools in New York City. “She motivates her students
and has a great way of relating to them and their parents. It seems that
everyone knows her and loves her.”
Angelica Guterrez, an 18-year-old high school senior who aced three New
York State Regents exams last year while studying under Brigid, agrees.
“Motivating teenagers to complete schoolwork in a normal high school setting
is difficult. Brigid manages to do it in a hospital where children are often
too sick to even sit up in bed,” says Angelica.
Timothy Lynch, a 16-year-old who is battling Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma said
he first met Brigid only a couple of days after starting chemotherapy –
a treatment that can be nauseating and draining. She started teaching him
history and science. “She’s tough sometimes, if I fall behind and she knows
I could do better – but she’s overall nice,” he says. “Having her there
and teaching me is more like therapy than anything else.”
Higgins arrived in America for the first time as a teenager in 1950,
living with an aunt and earning a B.A. in Education from St. Thomas Aquinas
College in Spark Hill, New York. After teaching in the Bronx and upstate
New York, she returned to Ireland in 1972.
In Ireland, she quickly became absorbed into the education system, teaching
language and media studies at Ballyfremot Senior College in Dublin. However,
twelve years later, she decided to try New York once more, and landed a
teaching post at LaSalle Academy on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
She’s a steady talker with a ready laugh and boundless energy. At the
same time, she has incredible attention to detail and seems to have never
forgotten a single student. “I can still remember the names of the students
in the first class I ever taught,” she said.
Several years ago, a group of students and parents, in recognition of
her courage and compassion, had nominated her for Disney “Teacher of the
Year” honors. Brigid recently decided to write a letter to check up on one
of the students that had put her up for the honor. The letter arrived on
a Monday. A few days afterwards, Brigid got word that her former student
had died. The brokenhearted mom called Brigid to say her daughter had received
the letter – the last she would ever read before losing her battle to cancer.
“Never put off a gut feeling,” advises Brigid, as her eyes tear up a bit
at the memory.
Somehow, aside from her full teaching schedule, Higgins managed to get
elected as the union rep to the United Federation of Teachers for the teachers
in 40 city hospitals. She’s also co-chairperson of the UFT’s Irish-American
Studies Committee, which seeks to enlighten public shool educators about
the culture, literature and history of the Irish. She’s also a member of
the UFT’s Emerald Society and is an activist in TEACH (Teaching Educators
About Cancer in Health). In 2002, she was honored as the Woman of the Year
by the New York County Boards of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the
Ladies AOH.
It was her own diagnosis with cancer in 1989 that pushed her career in
a dramatic new direction. While undergoing treatment, which was successful,
she met with youngsters who were also undergoing treatment. “It was during
that time that I decided to return to college to get a master’s degree in
special ed, so I could work with children with cancer,” she said.
At 57, when most people are thinking about slowing down, Brigid was completing
her master’s at Manhattan College. It wasn’t long after graduation, that
she found herself in the New York Public School systems, teaching cancer
kids. “I’ve always taught kids,” she says. “I figured if I could fight cancer,
I could help them to fight it,” she says.
“It’s hard at times,’ she says of her work, “but I enjoy it. My goal
is to bring hope to the children.”
Her sense of humor helps her through some tough spots. “She understands
that sometimes we’re not up for school work,” student Timothy Lynch says,
“but she’s always good for a laugh.”
Says Brigid, “You have to get the most out of life, it’s so short – and
so precious.”
Frank Conroy
Iowa Writers’ Workshop
 For the last 20 years, Frank Conroy has been a literary staple in the
American cultural scene. Following an extensive career in academia, Conroy
became the director of the literature program for the National Endowment
for the Arts. Following that, he became the director of the most prestigious
writing program in the country – the Iowa Writers’ Workshop – a post he
held for 17 years and which he recently abandoned. Though he is recovering
from a surgery last year for colon cancer, the decision to leave was born
of a desire to make room for “new blood.”
In the time he served as director, Conroy witnessed an assortment of
talent pass through the University of Iowa. Alumni of the program include
Flannery O’Connor, John Irving, and Raymond Carver, as well as a dozen Pulitzer
Prize winners. Last year, 25 percent of the graduating class had landed
book deals within a year.
Conroy has published six books, including his widely acclaimed memoir,
Stop Time. His most recent books Time & Tide: A Walk Through Nantucket and
Body & Soul, have been published in French, German, Portuguese, Finnish
and Japanese. His articles and short stories have appeared in The New Yorker,
New York Times Magazine, and GQ, to name a few, and he has lectured nationally
and internationally. In 2003, he received a National Humanities Medal from
President Bush.
Frank’s expertise extends beyond literature. He is also a jazz pianist,
and in addition to jamming with Charles Mingus, he won a Grammy Award in
1986. He is a member of the University of Iowa’s jazz band, Close Enough.
Frank is second-generation Irish-American, and feels strong ties with
his heritage. “It is perhaps because I’m a writer,” he ponders, “but I’ve
always felt a spiritual connection to Ireland and the Irish.”
Laura Hurley
Just Read!
She may not have freckles, or fiery red hair, but inside, Laura Hurley
is a feisty Irish lass. Above all else, she possesses the passion that makes
her both emblematic of her breed and a stellar reading teacher. One of the
comments bounced around the classroom is that Ms. Hurley is rarely seen
sitting.
 “I love this job so much, I would keep it if I won the lottery,” Hurley
maintains. She has been teaching reading for 30 years, and it shows.
Last year, Hurley won the prestigious International Reading Association’s
2004 Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Award. She currently teaches in the
Reading Room at Tenino Elementary School in Washington State.
In her experiences, Hurley says that she has found that practice and
persistence make good readers, and that stress and trauma can block a child’s
ability to learn to read. She has written a collection of essays on the
subject, and is currently at work on a book for teachers entitled Just Read!
Hurley’s professional experiences have included librarian, teaching high
school English, middle school reading, self-contained fifth grade classrooms,
and coordinator and teacher of Gifted and Talented. She has taught in Mt.
Morgan, Queensland, Australia and White River in Buckley, Washington.
Hurley says her ancestry has had an effect on the assignments she gives
to her class. Disheartened by a gap of knowledge that exists in many family
backgrounds, she commonly assigns a project to her students on finding their
ethnic roots. About the assignment, she says, “I find it fascinating, and
discouraging, that the sum total of information remaining about the entire
lives of many great-grandparents consists of one-liners . . . . All that
is known of some is a name, birth date and death date.”
Hurley is fourth-generation Irish-American with roots in Counties Tyrone,
Donegal, Tipperary, and Cavan. She was born on St. Patrick’s Day and is
the mother of two grown sons, Robert and Jonathan.
Lawrence O’Flynn
Science Is Fun
Since the start of his teaching career in 1980, Lawrence O’Flynn has
been recognized for the job he does teaching science. After a mere three
years, he was an Apple Award recipient for excellence in teaching. This
past year, he was one of three national finalists for the Shell Science
Teaching Award. He has been nominated again for 2005.
O’ Flynn, who currently teaches at Jones Middle School, in Upper Arlington,
Ohio, where he is the science department chair, enjoys making science accessible
to students, but more important, he says, is teaching kids skills for life.
 “The most fun thing about my job is dealing with aspects aside from science,”
O’ Flynn says. “Science is still fun, but it’s even better to work on getting
kids motivated and helping them to learn how to solve problems in their
everyday lives.” O’ Flynn believes that teaching should be more hands on,
and he has developed his curriculum accordingly. He has also expanded the
use of technology in the school, and has introduced video, laser discs,
FlexCam, a microscope camera, and computers into the classrooms.
O’ Flynn has always been proud of his Irish heritage. In 1998, he was
the recipient of the Columbus Academy Putnam Grant, enabling him to visit
the birthplace of the Irish chemist Robert Boyle, and to explore education
in Ireland by interacting with his Irish peers.
O’Flynn is fourth-generation Irish-American. His great-grandfather hailed
from County Cork. He and his wife Anne have one son named Sean.
Michael Meade
Storytelling Unites
Michael Meade has been teaching and practicing the art of storytelling
for nearly 30 years. He has teamed up with the likes of novelist Alice Walker
and poet Luis Rodriguez to open communication between different generations
and cultures. To him storytelling can unite fragmented communities, and
help cure a youth with a fractured sense of self.
 Meade is the founder of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a Seattle-based
group that works towards his goal of piecing together society. In addition
to working with prisoners, Meade also works with disenfranchised youth,
and most recently, has started a project with Sudanese refugees. Though
his storytelling serves many purposes, Meade uses fable and poetry to reach
groups that traditionally feel marginalized by society. Recently, while
working with newly released prisoners in Boyle Heights, Seattle, Meade performed
a welcome back ceremony, which garnered some emotional responses. For one
of the attendees, a 27-year-old man who had been incarcerated for eight
years, the ritual was the only formal acknowledgement he had received of
his return.
In the ’80s, Meade co-founded the “men’s movement” with poet Robert Bly.
Though the idea behind the movement was misinterpreted by the media, its
goal – an exploration of the male psyche and its relationship to men’s societal
roles – was novel.
In Men and the Water of Life, published by HarperCollins, Meade acknowledged
St. Patrick, “who got confused about snakes and wells but remembered in
time to transcribe the old stories and pass them along.” He is also the
editor of two books, Crossroads, The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage,
and The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. This year he received an honorary
degree from Pacifica University.
Meade is third-generation Irish-American. Like many Irish Americans,
he has been unable to trace his roots. When he visits Ireland, he views
each citizen as a possible relative.
Meade is married with four children, Oona, Aram, Fionn, and Bran.
Robert Murphy
Boys In Literacy Initiative
In 1991, Robert Murphy worked in Katmandu, Nepal as a Jesuit volunteer,
where he taught English as a Second Language (ESL) to fifth, sixth and seventh
graders at St. Xavier school. The experience taught him a valuable lesson
about a segment of students that, he maintains, are traditionally marginalized
in the school systems.
 After enriching his knowledge with further travel, first as an ESL instructor
in Istanbul, then as a specialist in the Marshall Islands, Murphy received
a Master’s degree in Linguistics and English as a Second Language from Georgetown
University. He has since joined Francis Hammond Middle School in Alexandria,
Virginia, where he considers himself more of an ESL advocate. “I work to
ensure that teachers and administrators are aware of the learning differences
and difficulties ESL students face to ensure ESL students receive the best
education possible,” he exclaims.
Murphy is also the creator of the Boys In Literacy Initiative (BILI),
a program which works to narrow the gap between girls and boys in adolescent
literacy. America Online recently awarded Murphy a $10,000 grant to expand
BILI.
He has offered workshops to other teachers and ESL specialists, and in
2004 was awarded the Agnes Meyer Award for excellence in education by the
Washington Post. He was also a 2004 nominee for Virginia Teacher of the
Year.
Murphy is a fourth-generation Irish-American. He has visited Ireland
twice, and looks forward to future visits.
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