Remembering a Remarkable Teacher

Jackie and Andrew Kirk in Panama, December 2007. (COURTESY OF ANDREW KIRK)

Jackie Kirk loved teaching. She taught in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Japan. When she moved to Montreal and found that her visa did not allow her to hold a paid teaching job, she volunteered at a school working with immigrant children. So began a whole new life: graduate study at McGill (she completed her PhD in Education in 2004), as well as consulting for international organizations that support education in areas torn by disaster or conflict.

Her particular genius was bringing together people and organizations. “She was the queen of networkers,” says her friend and former doctoral supervisor, Professor Claudia Mitchell. Jackie advised UNESCO, UNICEF, the UN Girls Education International and other groups building stability for children’s education. Her interest in girls’ education took in the training and support of women teachers. Her energy was legendary, even though “she lived on lettuce, mango and gallons of weak tea,” says her husband Andrew Kirk, Associate Professor in McGill’s Faculty of Engineering.

Last August, Jackie was just 40, recently appointed as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, and serving as an education advisor with the International Rescue Committee (a New York–based ngo which operates worldwide post-conflict education programs), when she was killed in Afghanistan. Along with two aid workers and the driver of their car, she was the victim of a Taliban ambush.

Her work will go on. She had started to organize a seminar series on education in developing countries with colleagues at McGill and uqàm. The new journal she co-founded, the Journal of Girlhood Studies, will devote its fourth issue to her special concerns.

And Andrew Kirk has established the Jackie Kirk Fellowship in Education at McGill with his lead gift of $100,000 from Jackie’s life insurance policy – and with the help of the matching program currently offered by The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. (Please see From the Desk of the Vice-Principal to learn more about the McConnell Match.)

Friends, relatives and colleagues from around the world have also joined together with their own contributions. “A lot of people have said they are thrilled with the chance to help carry on Jackie’s work,” says Professor Kirk. To date, $19,711 has been raised from 76 donors.