Thanks for agreeing to talk to the readers of Reclaiming the Piazza, Lydia. To start, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your academic history and how you ended up teaching in higher education?
Thank you for the invitation. I was born and raised in the west of Ireland, and am now living in rural County Kerry in the stunning south-west of the country. I am a wife and mother to a beautiful nine-month-old daughter.
I had a roundabout journey into teaching in higher education. Education was always to the fore of my family background, with both my parents having been primary school principal teachers. Primary teaching, then, seemed like a natural career choice for me. I graduated from Mary Immaculate College in Limerick in 2016 and began my teaching career in an area of socioeconomic disadvantage. I soon realised that I felt most called to serve those in my class who were at risk of falling behind; in particular, those with mental health difficulties or additional needs.
This spurred my motivation to train as an educational and child psychologist, and I completed my doctorate in 2022. Through my work as a psychologist, for various reasons, I became convinced that in order for me to have the greatest impact in effecting positive change for at-risk children and young people, I needed to work at a larger systems level. So, in 2024 I was delighted to take up a post as a lecturer at my alma mater, Mary Immaculate College, helping to form the future teachers who will work with at-risk children and young people in primary schools.
As a psychologist, what would you consider to be the principal reason why student teachers benefit from the insights available from psychology?
Modern psychology offers student teachers a lens through which they may come to a better understanding of the children they teach. There are many psychological theories which aim to explain children’s development and behaviour, and knowledge of these can be useful in the context of the classroom. For example, knowing that Bandura suggests in his Social Learning Theory that children learn primarily through observing others may cause student teachers to reflect and alter their own behaviour for the good – after all, if children are always watching, it’s probably best not to be caught arguing with the photocopier again!
There are also behaviourist theories, such as those proposed by Skinner and Watson; these can also be useful in helping student teachers understand and manage children’s behaviour in the classroom. For example, a student teacher might use positive reinforcement, like praise or rewards, to encourage desired behaviours such as participation during lessons, and negative consequences to discourage disruptive actions.
However, these psychological theories can also be considered reductionist because they tend to oversimplify our understanding of children and why they behave in the ways they do. Student teachers will benefit most from the insights available from psychology when they consider these insights within a true, holistic approach to understanding the child.
How should the Church’s educational institutions respond to the “wellbeing” agenda that is so much in vogue today?
We know too well that we are living in an era of grievous and increasing mental health concerns among our children and young people. It is therefore of pressing urgency for those of us who work with youths to do our best to help them in the face of mental health difficulties. Likewise, I am sure that if you spoke with leaders of Catholic educational institutions today, many of them would tell you that they are bombarded daily with marketing information selling set programmes designed to promote students’ wellbeing, far more than they could ever even consider implementing. Many countries, including Ireland, also specify prescriptive wellbeing curricula for students attending state-funded schools.
While these programmes and curricula are often designed with the best of intentions, it remains for the Church’s educational institutions to approach the area of wellbeing with a critical, Catholic mindset. In considering any proposed approach to wellbeing promotion in Catholic institutions, it should be asked: Does this align with a Catholic understanding of the human person, i.e., a composite of body and soul, created in the image and likeness of God? Will this lead our students towards Jesus and closer to sanctity? And finally, does this aim to develop all aspects of a young person’s wellbeing, and, importantly, their spiritual wellbeing?
A light-hearted question to finish: where would you rather live, Dublin or Rome?
That’s a tough question! I am generally a homebird, but the Eternal City has captured my heart – on this occasion, all roads lead to Rome!