This article appeared in The Mayo News on Tuesday, April 24, 2024.

“School days are the best days of our lives” is a mantra with which so many of us grew up. Opinions will differ; this writer has fond memories for sure, but sadly they are more of the craic-in-the-corridors type rather than the intricacies of the modh coinníollach or how to solve for X when Y is … well, unfathomable. But there is little doubt that our school years set the tone for the path we create in life, and the knowledge we glean from those few years should equip us to deal with at least some of the challenges we will face.

But not all.