A Class Act

April 01, 2017

A 'thumbs up' after the successful 'Follow your Dreams' presentation

to third class at St. Seachnalls Primary School, Dunshaughlin.

I did a talk / presentation yesterday for my daughter Aoife's class. I wrote it especially for them. Infact, you could say I penned it for ANY primary school. It is called 'Follow your Dreams'

I started off by sitting down on a chair, along with the kids and this is how I started..

"Welcome Children, I'm Aidan, I'm Aoife's Dad".

<followed by a pause>.

"Once upon a time there was this 5 yr old kid. He actually lived in Dunshaughlin too. But one day, he ran out between 2 parked cars and was hit by an oncoming scrap metal truck. This young child was in a bad way. Mrs. Colgan was doing down the village doing her shopping at the time and witnessed a small welly boot being flung 20 feet into the air. The Ambulance was taking a while to come, it had to travel from Navan Hospital. There was a sales rep doing business in Lawless's Hardware at the time. He had an estate car. He threw down the back seats and rushed this kid to hospital. The good news was that this young child was well enough to go home after 15 days. However, it wasn't until 2 years later, it was discovered that this kid had permanently lost sight in one of his eyes and it had happened the split second he was hit by that scrap metal truck, 2 years earlier".

"What then transpired was, what this kid wanted to do when he grew up, he was told he could never do. You see, people that are blind in one eye could not become policemen and as for flying? Would never become a pilot, that was impossible".

"But guess what, this child grew up and learned to fly, not just Hot Air Balloons but Helicopters too. Infact at present, he is the only licensed Hot Air Balloon pilot and Helicopter pilot in Ireland and the only pilot in the world (trained post his sight loss) that is qualified to fly both of these types of aircraft".

"THAT KID IS ME and I want to right now, welcome you all to my presentation 'Follow your Dreams'.

I could instantly see in their little eyes that I just commanded, connected and indeed captured their full attention. So with that, I stood up and commenced my slide show and talk. You could hear a pin drop in the classroom for the next 70 mins.

I had just started and straight away, there was little hands popping up in a most mannerely fashion. A lot of blotting paper was on this classrooms floor and in no uncertain ways, I quickly discovered that I was the ink. I immediately asked Miss Scally if the children could be handed some note paper, which was duly done and I then politely asked them all to simply write down their question, so it's not forgotten and I would answer them all at the end.

In the two weeks lead up to yesterday, I was working on and off on this presentation. I was never a fan of Microsoft PowerPoint and always felt it had an amateurish feel to it. So it didn't take rocket science to sway me in the direction of what Apple had to offer. For years, Apple were always at the forefront and indeed were the and still are the workhouse of professional publishing and printing. I wanted and needed software that could do this but on a white screen. Apple nailed it for me. It took a few hours to figure out how to use their software, but halfway thru my presentation build, I was reasonably competent on using this. I have since wrote (and re-wrote) my other presentation. It's called 'INSIDE OUT' and is designed more around the business world but indeed could also be shown to students too, but only from late secondary school level and up.

I must remember to bring a bottle of water or energy drink with me to next time, as my throat was never as dry as it was yesterday morning. Having said that, during and indeed for some time after my school visit yesterday,my mind was far from dry, it was so well lubricated. I would even go as far and say that there was cog wheels in my head yesterday that I didn't even know existed but now, not only can I see them, they are rotating and synchronising most magnificently and the feeling is just beautiful.

St. Seachnalls has actually got three 3rd class's. It would not and could not be fair just to let one class have a go. For those that know me well, will be familiar with one of my mantras 'Everybody gets a go, Everybody wins'. So we have a plan of highest cunning (another one I use) that has been duly hatched. I have my 'Toxic Tuesday' this coming week. It takes 2-3 days for the heavy part of my hospital administered I.V Chemo toxins to begin to disapete and it can take similar timeframe if the demons come and visit me. So late next week, all going well, we will put the remaining two 3rd class's together in a larger room, where I will attempt to teach them, show them and prove to them that you can 'Follow your Dreams'.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Have a super weekend everybody.