From school to UCC ACE

When UCC Adult Continuing Education (ACE) Director Séamus Ó Tuama talks about people who have endured negative experiences in education, he doesn’t have to look far.

He doesn’t need to review the literature or examine the research, because he’s been that soldier. He didn’t have a good experience in primary or secondary school, so college was never on his mind when he left.

When he finally decided to make the college leap, he went to an agricultural college in Rockwell, Tipperary. That proved the stepping stone that encouraged him to enjoy the classroom. Education could be for him.

“They started giving me back my results and I said, ‘wow, I’m actually able to do this stuff no problem’. It was a revelation to me. I thought ‘God, I’m not completely stupid after all’.”

Arriving into UCC as a mature student, Séamus made one promise to himself on his first day, one he’s kept ever since: “Don’t give yourself a destination.”

“That was one of the best decisions I ever made. I didn’t say ‘I’m going to do this for three years and then I’m going to do that’. I said ‘I’m going to take my time to think about where this might lead me to’.”

Séamus believes those with unconventional school experiences can often be the most creative learners and compares them to the superstars who emerge from Brazil’s street football tradition, many of whom grow up in poverty without grass pitches to play on or boots to protect their feet.

Fast-forward 36 years to Séamus’ office on Western Road and he talks for over ten minutes straight when asked to sum up UCC ACE’s mission.

“Fundamentally, it’s about giving people an opportunity to access education that they otherwise might not have. There’s a lot of groups of people who are in those kinds of scenarios.”

That mission also extends into addressing the complex global issues facing our planet, such as climate change or migration, and our inadequate reaction which is too often rooted in ignorance, fear, and a lack of understanding.

“One of the critical things that all education does is create cognitive flexibility – that you’re capable of opening your mind to see the world in new and different ways.”

The positives for each individual who enrols in UCC ACE can be enormous and wide-reaching.

Research on ten women from the northside of Cork city who took ACE courses in the 1990s showed the progression with all ten women subsequently finding employment, including one in academia.

Séamus says, however, that the benefits from education are not always predictable, once you don’t limit yourself to a set destination.

Séamus recalls interviewing a mature student coming onto an undergraduate course whose portfolio began with courses like flower arranging, first aid courses.

“You could see she was building a portfolio of learning, building her own confidence around learning, and, from fairly humble origins, she was able to plot her own learning journey.”

Séamus gets a huge buzz out of the impacts they make on people’s lives. They know that first step is often the hardest for people.

“It’s like if your new year’s resolution is to get more exercise. The hardest part is you say to yourself, ‘I’m going to go for a 2km run’, and the hardest part of the 2km run on the first day is getting out of bed.

“Once you’ve put on your runners, you’ve done the really hard part. The running is the easy part. It’s the same with this. The hardest part is getting it into your head that it’s right for you to do it.”

And all this Séamus knows from personal experience.

“One of the benefits of education is it gives you the capacity to see the world in less black and white ways, so you don’t see the obstacles as obstacles anymore and you are never going to be the same.

“Once you discover it, you’re in a different place. You can never go back,” he adds.