The Trinity Ball

I did my H.Dip Ed in Trinity College, back in 1996.
It's got nothing to do with sharing hallucinogenic guacamole finger food with a guy called Edward.
It's the secondary school teaching qualification in Ireland.

Being a non practicing Catholic with no priests in my family, it did not open many doors in the secondary schools of the land, but it helped me to find a job as a tower crane driver almost straight away (the site manager, in his great wisdom, had decided that the " frog teacher" was less likely to drop loads on his co-workers)

My experience in Trinners was mixed.
I had one amazing teacher (thankfully the main one - Teaching Practice). Two great ones, and three abysmal muppets who cost a lot of money to the Irish tax payers.

Philosophy of Education. Professor Val Rice. I'd love to let begowneds be bygones (the old waste of space loved to parade in his black gown while dramatically rolling his Rs and not talking much sense at any time). Professor Emeritus. Jaysus, he must have cost a packet.

Psychology of Education. Dr Mona O'Moore. She was supposed to sell us the motivation necessary to become a successful teacher. She didn't even have a sample on her. I called her Bora O'Moore. She even bored herself to death, in a monotone voice that inspired dread in me as I struggled to keep my eyes open. Psychological Torture of Education was her true specialization.

Statistics and Education. The Cameron yoke. Can't even recall his first name, that fraud. He was reading from thick paper cards that were yellow with age. This is not an image. They were literally yellow with age. In all his "lectures" he never mentioned one bit of statistical data older than 1984. The man had not changed his already much mediocre notes in more than 12 years.

But I went to the Ball that year and Trinity has the grandest university canteen I have ever had the pleasure to be fed at.