Conor swims with jellyfish in otherworldly scenes

While basking in the cool waters off Donegal, glad that the summer suns of the Arabian plains were now only a fading memory, Conor Bradley noticed he had company: Tens of thousands of jellyfish.

Rather than cursing, floundering and then swifly exiting to tell the world of his narrow escape, like a lunatic, Conor went and got his camera…

The result? Otherwordly footage of an Omagh man surrounded by eerie, electrified mutants – he was diving in the midst of one of biggest jellyfish blooms ever witnessed off Ireland’s west coast.

Conor was working as a teacher in the Gulf state of Qatar when the pandemic began. After the Covid-19 crisis changed the nature of his vocation, moving learning from the classroom to the laptop screen, it became the Tyrone native’s crusade to convince children that learning doesn’t have to be boring.

So when he clocked the way children were entranced by his video – as though it were footage of an alien encounter rather than a brush with Atlantic sealife – it amounted to further evidence of something he has been fighting to prove for years; that learning can be fun.

Ever since, Conor has continued to build his case, determined to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that ‘fun learning’ is not a contradiction in terms.

When Conor left St Mary’s teaching college three years ago, he flew straight for the Middle East, securing a job as a primary school teacher in Qatar and finding himself in a rather bizarre scenario; he was an Irishman, teaching an Anglocentric-education to a diverse class of children of all kinds of country and creed.

Conor, never one to shy away from a new experience, was in his element.

But when Covid-19 pulled the chain and conventional classroom teaching swirled out of sight, Conor didn’t have the safety net of a state school or furlough scheme.

“The school I teach in is a private school,” explained Conor.

“It’s run like a business – we aren’t state supported, so to stay open they depend on the money of fee-paying parents.”

Accordingly, the following edict was decreed by senior management: ‘Prove to these parents and to the Ministry for Education that this school can still provide a valuable education for their children and so must stay open!’

The challenge was set; Conor and his fellow teachers had to get creative if they were to avoid suffering the same fate as many of their counterparts – permanent closure and joblessness.

INSPIRATION

In a moment of inspiration, Conor realised, “I had some videos laying around from my days of travelling, I had video editing skills from my past life, so I thought I could combine these to make educational videos to illustrate some of the ideas I was conveying in the classroom, and spice up online lessons.”

Conor has been traveling the world since he left school – some things you accumulate in such travels can be useful in the context of a classroom, and some are not.

Large sums of debt; not useful. Immunity against various Sub-Saharan viruses; possibly useful, but unlikely. A cache of videos documenting your adventures; bingo!

“The constraints on teachers aren’t as tight as they were when we were at school,” explains Conor. “This generation has a lot more freedom to introduce different learning techniques and materials.”

No doubt! Not once do I recall watching a video of a snorkelled teacher – surrounded by pulsating blobs of ectoplasm – calmly bobbing underwater as charged tentacles drifted inches past their face.

“Thankfully, I had this stash of videos I could use to to keep the children engaged,” Conor added.

It’s one thing to hear your teacher give a textbook explanation of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun and the plight of the Egyptian slaves, but it is another to see your teacher braving a sandstorm against the backdrop of the Great Pyramids of Giza saying, “What’s up boys and girls, it’s me, Mr Bradley, and today we are going to learn about Ancient Egypt.”

Pretty cool…

Initially, it was only children lucky enough to be in the bearded buck’s class who had access to his videos, but Conor has generously decided to democratise his content by putting it on YouTube – now his bank of videos is available for children across the globe via his ‘Mr Bradley – Learning Made Fun’ channel.

“Some kids can learn fine from books and traditional lessons, but this interactive form of learning suits lots of kids who don’t respond as well to the old-school style, so I thought I’d share my videos with everyone,” said Conor.

STIMULI

He continued, “Colour, music, humour, exciting landscapes and entertaining scenarios – these are all stimuli which make it more likely that the kids will form memories about the subject.”

“If I sit in front of a class and laboriously recite passages from a textbook about the customs and creeds of tenth-century Scandinavian sailors, they might absorb a couple of facts, but there is a good chance the bulk of the lesson will go in one ear before departing through the other.

“However,” reasons Conor, “if I have a video in which I cook a Viking meal while garbed in animal pelt with a fang fastened around my neck, there is a much better chance kids will be (a) be engaged with the subject, (b) enjoy the lesson, and (c) remember what was discussed and be excited about learning more.”

Conor has moved back to Qatar after a summer of harvesting new material in his indigenous land, prepped and ready for a new school year.

“While I was back in Ireland I shot loads of footage in the rich range of environments we are fortunate to have in Ireland – in Qatar there aren’t four seasons, and vast plains of sand dominate the landscape; Ireland’s environment is completely alien to most kids at my school and they take a real interest in it.”

But, devoted to his mission to make learning more fun for kids everywhere, Conor will continue to update his YouTube channel, constantly adding to his already substantial repository of engaging, exciting, educational videos.

“It takes a bit more effort than reading out of a textbook on my part, but if that extra bit of effort instils kids with a curiosity for learning about the world around them, then it has all been worth it.”

BY EMMET McELHATTON

e.mcelhatton@ulsterherald.com