A M

SCHOOL for me was a former parish hall in Terenure, Dublin, which, during my time there, operated as Rathfarnham National School. It was a fourteacher school - the main hall was divided into two classrooms and other classes inhabited annexes and later prefabs.

I have fond memories of the school and of my first teacher, Miss Heather Duggan, in particular. Before I completed primary school, I had the choice of moving to a newly built school or of going to High School and spending my last couple of years there before I started in the secondary school.

In those days, High School was still located in Harcourt St - where the Garda Dublin Metropolitan Headquarters are now. I have nostalgic memories of the school which was housed in some very historical buildings. I was fascinated by former pupils - William Butler Yeats for example - and the fact that our classrooms in a row of old houses had once been used for other purposes.

When I was about 14, High School moved to its new location in Rathgar. Here too there were historic links. We occupied the site of the former dairy farm of the Bewley family whose famous Jersey herd supplied their cafes with milk and cream.

I kindled a lot of my interest in nature from my attendance at that school. I wasn't overly interested in subjects like Latin, but I did enjoy sitting in class spotting the different types of seagulls feeding on the rugby pitch. I had wildlife diaries with me and kept a checklist of different species. It could have been regarded as misbehaviour, but for me it was pretty formative education.

Miss Williams, our maths teacher, established a young ornithologists' club, in which I got very involved. I lived for it. On Saturday mornings we'd go out to Bull Island and the Booterstown Marsh to watch birds. For me, the social side of school was ornithology and natural history. Even the sports I participated in gave me bird-watching opportunities. Canoeing, for example, supplied me with the chance to spot kingfishers or dippers along the Dodder river.

I DIDN'T regard myself as good at languages, but latterly I became very, very interested in learning Irish. I felt it was an important part of the identity of which I felt proud.

I was fascinated by history. For Leaving Cert, though, I decided to study chemistry because I had hoped to do forestry. But after fifth year, I realised that I missed history too much. So, over the summer, when most people were enjoying themselves, I fitted out a garden shed as a study and applied myself to catching up on the history curriculum.

At that point my interest was turning to teaching and I applied to the College of Education in Rathmines, which took me in, even though I was only 16. Because of my age, I repeated a year in college, which gave me the chance to catch up with the subjects I needed for teaching, especially Irish. My Irish was poor - I'd bluffed my way through Leaving Cert by learning large chunks by heart and transcribing them. At college, it was make or break for me in Irish. I decided to apply myself, included Irish in my social life and eventually won an Irish song-writing competition. It was the high point of my college career.

Trevor Sargent, TD, who is Green party spokesman on education and science, was in conversation with Yvonne Healy.