Stephen Hanna

 

Stephen Hanna is unique among winners of the Jean Forbes Award in that he received it as a staff member, rather than a student, at Shimna College. After graduating from university, he thought about a career in education and worked in a local primary school to get some experience, before getting a job with a secondary school in their Special Educational Needs Unit. After some time spent travelling abroad, Stephen returned to County Down and became a classroom assistant at Shimna in 2007. By then, he no longer aimed to be a teacher, and had started studying a part time HND in environmental science. Stephen asked Ellen McVea about setting up an environmental project within the school, and the Shimna College Eco Club was born.  As well as working with the Ulster Wildlife Trust to set up and maintain a wormery, the club planted trees and bulbs, put up bat houses and bird houses, and learnt about environmental management. Stephen was taken aback to hear he had been given the Jean Forbes Award, but delighted to be involved in promoting environmental studies.

Stephen first met Jean in person in 2008, about a year after they started corresponding by email. Jean had been involved with Shimna since the school was just an ambitious idea, and took a particular interest in the geography department, as an educationalist who liked to see young people ‘getting out and hands on’ . As well as helping set up projects like traffic studies and surveys of Murlough nature reserve, Jean was full of ideas for the Eco Club. Stephen was impressed by her enthusiasm and tenacity, and Jean was keen for him to get involved with more environmental projects outside the school. As Stephen got to know more about Jean’s work with groups such as Gateway 2000, and her continuing links with the University of Strathclyde, he realised the extent of her abilities and her tireless energy. Like many people who worked with her, he sometimes found himself ‘ashamed – look what this lady is doing with her time!’

Stephen found Jean ‘very sharp’ in conversation, drawing on her ‘rich knowledge base’ and never shying away from a debate. She was skilled at ‘taking people to task’ when necessary, pressing politicians and planners to try new things and adopt successful ideas from other parts of the world. Like many people who knew Jean only in her later life, Stephen was unaware of how widely she had travelled, taught and written in her field. She played an important role in reforming the Scottish planning system in the 1970s, and always kept an eye on the latest planning developments in Northern Ireland, contacting local MPs and other academics, and keeping up to date with the latest technology. Jean became a bit of a mentor for Stephen and he ‘can’t thank her enough’ for sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm.

Jean was a great advocate for environmental education, and had a big impact in this area, not least because she was involved in setting up the David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability and the School of Environmental Studies at Strathclyde University. As an academic, Jean’s work spanned science, geography, social science and education, with a special focus on integration and women in education.  Jean was an ‘ardent supporter of integrated education’, not just in terms of religion but also regarding disability and special educational needs, advocating a ‘whole school’ approach while she was working and writing in Scotland.  For Stephen, Jean ‘embodied the college motto’, Learning From Each Other.  Although academia was her vocation, Jean not only enjoyed her retirement but put her energy and experience into a wide range of local projects and organisations. Among these, she was particularly active in Gateway 2000, a group that incorporated many of Jean’s beliefs about planning and sustainability, such as energy decentralisation, which Jean described with typical elegance as a system of ‘suns and satellites’.  As well as taking on a public role in campaigning for a better future, Jean enacted her principles of sustainability and holistic integration through her own life, whether as an early adopter of solar water heating in her home, or as mainstay (and often host) of a plethora of interest groups and activists.

The many people who worked with Jean in the network of small groups in which she was ‘the lynchpin’ are saddened by her loss, but continuing with the projects she put so much effort into. Like Jean, Stephen sees environmental studies as a vital part of education which links many subjects together. Given ‘where we’re at as a civilisation and species’, Stephen sees resource management as a crucial problem, and is concerned that ‘we’re not preparing our children to deal with the obstacles that will be a reality in 15-20 years’ time’. Things have now moved full circle, as Stephen has recently  begun studying at the University of Strathclyde himself, doing an MA in Environmental Studies at the David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability that Jean set up.