Online teacher training goes the distance [IrishTimes]
- Published: 09 March 2010
EDUCATION PROFILE: Paudie O’Neill gave up a high-flying career as an engineer to train to be a primary teacher and online training allowed him to manage the change, writes LOUISE HOLDEN
‘THOSE WHO can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Now there’s a red rag to a teacher. Growing numbers of teacher trainees are upending the adage, however. People like Paudie O’Neill, for example, who worked as a civil engineer for six years but realised well along the path of a successful career that he really wanted to be in the classroom.“I wasn’t pushed out by the recession; it was at the height of the boom that I decided my heart wasn’t in it,” says Paudie, a 30-year-old homeowner from Carrigaline in Cork. The home-owning part is significant: Paudie could not afford to give up his day job and go to Mary Immaculate, the closest college of education to his home.
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