Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

CTYI makes the papers!

  • 03-08-2004 3:06pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭


    This was handed to me when I came in last night. I thought some people might like to see it, so I have typed it up, complete with bad punctuation and mistakes.

    Evening Herald, Monday 2 August 2004

    Centre for Talented Youth is a Class Act for Gifted Children

    We’re all concerned about our children’s education. We worry if they can’t read or spell as well as others; and those in favour of testing seven-year-olds say it’s vital to pick up on children with problems early.
    But what about children found to be years ahead of their peers? Have you ever thought that they might need help to deal with being “different”?
    It can be tough at the top. Gifted children get bored in class, and this often makes them disruptive.
    It’s tough for the child who may find it hard to make friends; it’s hard for the teacher who’s trying to cope with a class of 35, hasn’t the time to give a gifted child extra work and attention; and its not much fun for the parents either.

    Outlet
    And that’s why the Irish Centre for Talented Youth was set up back in 1983.
    Based in Dublin City University the centre provides an outlet for children who are gifted academically, to relieve their boredom at school, and give them a appetite for subjects such as astronomy, philosophy and law.
    “It helps the students in many different areas,” says the director of the centre, Sheila Gilheany.
    “It feeds their interest, gives them confidence, enables them to study something new, and to meet someone who is a bit like themselves. They may have many friends elsewhere, but there is something special about someone who is reading the same type of book as yourself. ”

    Courses
    The centre started with 177 students, and now caters for around 2,800 a year. “Over 18,000 people have taken courses with us,” says Ms Gilheany. “We now have centres in Cork, Letterkenny, Athlone and Waterford and another will open in Galway in the autumn.”
    The centre caters for children from 6 to 16, and runs Saturday classes as well as the summer residential courses.
    Fifty per cent of the children are referred to the centre at the school’s recommendation; the rest by parents.
    The children are assessed by means of a SAT test, and those reaching a prescribed level are taken on.
    We tend to see all our children are brilliant, so does the centre attract pushy parents?
    “Most of them would be cringing at the idea of being pushy,” says Gilheany. “They would be underplaying their child’s achievement rather than overplaying. The pushy are by far the minority.”
    Where once schools seemed to dismiss the problems of a gifted child, now they ask advice from the ICTY. And there are easy strategies they can adopt.

    Projects
    Where once a child might be moved up a class or two, they are now kept with their peers.
    Instead they are given extra projects to work on, or are moved up for key subjects.
    That’s not the only way the ICTY help schools.
    “The courses themselves help from the school’s point of view,” says Gilheany, “Even coming once a week makes it easier for a pupil to cope with life at school. It changes the whole way they view the regular classroom.”

    Oisìn Collins (16), has just returned from the International Conference of Young Leaders held in Vienna, Budapest and Prague. There were representatives from New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore and everywhere in Europe.
    “It was awesome,” says Oisìn. “I was the only Irish representative, and I ended up chairing the final summit of 400 people.”
    Without CTYI, he says, he would never have had the confidence to do it. “Without it, I would have been overwhelmed.”
    Oisìn, from Wexford, first joined CTYI as a shy 12-year-old. His great friends, Aisling Keatly and Cork-based Owen Power joined two years later. Owen, in particular, was horrified at the idea of spending weeks of his precious summer in a classroom.

    Rubbish
    “I thought it would be rubbish really. But I enjoyed it,” he said.
    And that’s because they were taught by people with a huge knowledge who treat them as equals. As Oisìn says it’s not “sit down, learn this and do that. It’s a chance to take a subject to the next level of learning.”
    That first year Owen studied archeology. “I enjoyed the field trips but it was a bit boring and the next year I tired engineering; but that didn’t suit me either. This year I’m doing physics and I’m not sure that’s for me. I think I’ll study medicine at college, but I’m still not certain.”
    If you had have expected to meet academic stereotypes up at DCU you’d have been disappointed. Oisìn Owen and Aisling are regular 16-year-olds who love sport, music, and in Aisling’s case dance and yoga.
    They enjoy the craic of the discos, talent competitions and table quizzes held at weekends here as much as the college style courses.
    But there is a special bond between them. All admit they make their closest friends through the scheme.
    “But we’re cool,” says Aisling. “We have friends at school too.”
    But what do her friends from St. Mary’s Convent in Dublin think about Aisling subjecting herself to academia in the holidays?
    “At first they said, ‘that must be a mad,’ but now they’re jealous. They really want to go too.”
    Currently studying Philosophy, Aisling hopes to be a writer but fears that she’ll have to teach for a living and write on the side.
    Oisìn would like to go into politics. He’s taken his Leaving Certificate and is off to college in the September. However, for the others, it’s into 5th year at school.
    Isn’t that totally boring for them?
    They swear it’s not. Owen says he’s chosen subjects- applied maths and physics- that will challenge him, and Oisìn points out that school is just different.
    Owen sums up his attitude to the learning process: “School is goal focused. You go in there and do your five or six years and get your Leaving Certificate. But you come in here and really learn.”


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    wow, we actually come off kinda well


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 849 ✭✭✭mentalimplosion


    oh god i haven't laughed so loud in weeks....


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    It's better than the last time when we were all called precocious...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 849 ✭✭✭mentalimplosion


    although aisling may have messed it up by insisting we're still cool....


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    yah, thought that myself but it probably sounded better when she said it


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    it sounded slightly desperate to be accepted...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,327 ✭✭✭NeoSlicerZ


    roflmao...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    I think the three of us did a damn sight better than last years fiasco with network 2. aislings statement was actually prompted by the interviewer but didnt sound that bad at all, and to be honest i still dont think its that bad.

    End of the day we made it sound like fun, which it is so job well done i gotta say *pats self, owen and ais on the back*

    P.S. stop laughing, its immature and i didnt see any of ye volunteering to do an interview so keep it to yourselves


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,880 ✭✭✭Raphael


    China still cool! You pay later, later!!
    </simpsons quote>

    Seriously though, its one of the better brushes we've had with the media....which doesnt really say much, does it?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,880 ✭✭✭Raphael


    Oisin, as regards that "fiasco", STFU

    You werent there for that interview, everything said was twisted completely, as Duddy and co parodyed


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    I would have volunteered but i didnt hear about it. *sulks in the corner for a while*


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    doesnt make a difference, at least the three of us were careful not to say anything that could even possibly be twisted. i stand by my use of the word as it was a fiasco! we came off terribly and while network 2 deserve most of the blame, people who are interviewed have to be careful and watch what they say or it WILL be twisted. thats a lesson for later life


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    also to consider is the way in which the interviewer's opinion will be noticable in the article; whether through direct statement or the way in which the article is phrased...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    precisely, well noted. its always pretty clear what they're trying to ge you to say during an interview as well and the less you give them the less they can use. In other words if you only talk about what a great place it is they cant make it sound like a pile of rubbish!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    true, but I don't think they intended to... look at the headline.. its very positive and if they wanted to make it negative they could have called the article something like "nerd camp?" or something so that people are automatically negative towards CTYI. It did bother me, however, that they kept calling it ICTY.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,880 ✭✭✭Raphael


    They're obviously putting it in alphabetical order for convenience


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    well it is more often referred to as The Irish Centre for Talented Youth then The Centre for Talented Youth, Ireland; even though CTYI is the official acronym


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    eh, irish centre for talented youth, could have been worse.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,138 ✭✭✭buffalo


    It was hard to keep reading after that first " the Irish Centre for Talented Youth was set up back in 1983." but still, good job everyone!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    I know, I'm just very pedantic and anally-retentive...(except about spelling :P)


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    i think that's actually correct, they just didn't start the courses till 1993


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    perhaps a pilot study, fundraising and general organising filled the first 10 years?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,138 ✭✭✭buffalo


    From http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/summer/general/introd.htm


    "In 1992 the Irish Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) was established at DCU"


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    fair enough


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,851 ✭✭✭PurpleFistMixer


    Although I hate to remember, I'll bring it up anyway, but we were in the paper during session1. And.. damn, I can't remember the name of the paper. But it was awful, this one is immensely better.
    There was also a thing about us on the Six o clock news couple weeks back, if anyone from sess1 remembers the cameras around the place. I actually have the tape and may put it up at some point for people to see... It was pretty messed up though, they kept talking about the babyCTYI and showing shots of us... and spitalians, for who knows what reason.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    based on the 10th annivesary thing they had up in DCU last year (i think) talk of a CTYI began in the early 80s


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,880 ✭✭✭Raphael


    Although I hate to remember, I'll bring it up anyway, but we were in the paper during session1. And.. damn, I can't remember the name of the paper. But it was awful, this one is immensely better.
    There was also a thing about us on the Six o clock news couple weeks back, if anyone from sess1 remembers the cameras around the place. I actually have the tape and may put it up at some point for people to see... It was pretty messed up though, they kept talking about the babyCTYI and showing shots of us... and spitalians, for who knows what reason.
    It was the indo, articles on the net

    *searches*


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    it was pinned up on the wall in the office, i read a bit of it, looked like the ussual rubbish


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,851 ✭✭✭PurpleFistMixer


    Hm, damn. I had cut it out and now I've completely lost it.

    The part which caused most outrage was, after they had finished commenting on how we "sail effortlessly through exams", calling us "whiz kids" and saying we like going back to school during the summer, they said we're normal teenagers which is apparent from the "ordinary" (yes, QUOTATION MARKS) way we socialise.

    Pah.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    i gave up after the first mention of the words "whiz kids"




    100th post


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,880 ✭✭✭Raphael


    Damn, cant find it on Unison.ie

    Dont suppose anyone has the date of the article?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,851 ✭✭✭PurpleFistMixer


    2nd of July, if I can remember correctly... either that or the 1st.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,880 ✭✭✭Raphael


    The whiz kids in a class of their own

    They are young, exceptionally gifted and their brains have a thirst for knowledge which normal education curriculums can't always quench. Three high-achievers talk to Martha Kearns about their academic goals and the summer school that caters for them

    The summer ritual of packing the school uniform away, pushing the maths and Irish books to the back of the press and waving goodbye to teachers before getting as far away from school as possible is the highlight of most teenagers' academic year. Summer for them means hanging out with friends, staying up late, watching extra TV, playing sport and generally lazing around the place.

    But for others, the smell of fresh-cut grass and summer sunshine signals the beginning of a broader type of learning and a chance to expand their mind further than exams and a strict syllabus ever could. These are the whiz kids who are not challenged by normal school work and seem to sail through exams effortlessly.

    Dublin City University provides an outlet for students who are above normal academically to relieve the boredom they can often face in school by taking them out of their comfort zone and studying subjects such as Japanese, archaeology, astronomy, physics, journalism and Chinese at university level. The Irish Centre for Talented Youth has just taken in its first batch of students, aged between 13 and 16, for the year. The younger students, aged from six to 12, will begin attending now that primary schools have closed for the summer.

    One student who has started at DCU is Kathryn Lambe. Although barely a teenager and just finished her second year in post-primary school, she already speaks with the intelligence of a college graduate and has a thirst for knowledge that is palpable. An avid reader, the 14-year-old from Dundalk, Co Louth, is long past reading the teenage pulp fiction of her contemporaries. Currently on her bedside locker is Paul Burrell's autobiography and she has just completed a biography of Saddam Hussein, which is beyond the interest of many of the country's adults let alone teenagers.

    Kathryn, who attends St Vincent's Secondary School in Dundalk, says: "It was really fascinating to read about his upbringing and the factors that made him who he is. But it was also interesting to read about all the good things he did for Iraq."

    With such a high level of interest in current affairs, Kathryn tends to talk about these topics to her parents rather than her friends. "I would have debated the Iraq war a lot with my parents but they probably got fed up with me talking about it all the time! There are some of my friends that you can have a decent conversation with but most are generally not interested in the same things as me. It doesn't bother me really as my friends are great and we have fun talking about other stuff."

    Writing is Kathryn's main passion and she is taking the screen-writing course at DCU this year as a follow-up to the creative writing course she attended last year.

    "The creative writing course was exceptional. It was very enlightening and completely changed my writing. I learned to draw inspiration from a lot of places that I had not considered before and it was also good to be in the presence of other writers," she says.

    As well as writing fiction, Kathryn also pens poems, mainly based on war situations and her favourite poet is the American Edgar Allen Poe. "It's great this year to be learning another discipline and one that is so much more restrictive than creative writing," says Kathryn who wants to be a fiction writer but hopes to study either journalism or psychology at college.

    Moving from the creative to the logical, Jennifer Flood (16) from Blackrock, Co Dublin, is taking the legal studies course and has studied college-level maths, astronomy and psychology among other subjects since she was 10. "I am considering doing law at college and this is excellent preparation for that because it allows us to have a lot of discussion and opportunities to offer opinions," says the Institute of Education student.

    Last year, Jennifer, who got an A in higher-level maths in the Junior Cert, studied maths, which is generally not a favourite with most students. "Even some people who come to the course here think it's a little odd to like maths. It's really a personal decision - you either like maths or you don't. But it's not like I am going to say 'Oh, I can't go out tonight because I have to study maths!' The things we were covering were more advanced that the Leaving Cert syllabus but it did help to get into the mind-frame for the maths we will be covering for the Leaving Cert."

    At 13, she studied astronomy and at 14, psychology. "It opens your perspective more and allows you more choice when picking what you want to do at college and for your future career. By studying such diverse subjects, it gives you a broader idea rather than just following on with something that you were good at in school," says Jennifer, who is avid reader of works by classic authors such as Dickens, Hardy, Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley and the Bronte sisters.

    She adds: "I found psychology fascinating as the topics we were dealing with gave us a great insight into people's minds and how they work. We used to play experiments on the other students like changing our body language and seeing if they noticed."

    Centre director Sheila Gilhenney says that while the children at the centre are gifted, they can feel very isolated at times as well as under severe pressure. They can feel isolated because being academically gifted is not always something that is held in high esteem with peers. Sporting talents are more accepted. This can cause some gifted young people to deliberately underachieve as they downplay their ability as a way to conform.

    "We would like to get the positive message out there that it is very acceptable to be an individual and stand out. If people stand out because of their talents in football and music, they are revered but if they have a talent for maths, it is not so acceptable because it is hard for most people to understand how people can get a kick out of maths."

    Sheila explains that because the students perform well, they are always expected to do as well and can put themselves under tremendous pressure.

    She says: "It's a wonderful thing to be have a talent but there are upsides and downsides to it. One of the characteristics they tend to have is that they are perfectionists. While this can help them succeed and challenge themselves, it can also be crippling as nothing is ever good enough. The family don't put them under pressure and it is unusual to have pushy parents. It is usually the child that does all the pushing."

    So even for the gifted, exams still have an element of dread. "I hate exams," says Kathryn. "Coming up to exams, I can get really uptight but I do know that I find them much easier than other people. People in the class can be competitive but at the end of the day, we just want to do the best we possibly can. Results do matter to me, whether they should or not. I am aiming for all As in my Junior Cert next year."

    Jennifer also feels under pressure coming up to exams, not from her teachers or parents but from herself. "I'm my own worst enemy. I have no problem from my parents telling me to study. I tend to expect a lot from myself and would always be striving to do better. I would be hoping for all As in the Leaving Cert," she says.

    John O'Rourke (16) from Ballsbridge in Dublin has been coming to the centre for eight years and has studied, among other things, university-level art classics, Irish writers, science and this year is taking on screen-writing. The Clongowes Wood student is also looking for top marks in his Leaving Cert next year but feels he will not have to study as hard as most of his classmates. "Unless I am really het up about something I don't really study. I tend to listen in class and it all goes in. I have a good attention span," says John whose current reading material is Jack Kerouac's On the Road, normally a coming-of-age book for college students.

    Despite being obviously talented, the students don't want to stand out from the crowd as could be seen from the 'ordinary' way they chatted and socialised in the college canteen this week.

    Jennifer says: "I don't feel superior to other people but sometimes I feel like I have to be conscious about what vocabulary I use and about bringing certain topics up in conversation in which some of my friends wouldn't be interested.

    "But it's not like I don't talk about other things and spend all my time studying and never watch TV. We are still normal people and like normal things."


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,851 ✭✭✭PurpleFistMixer


    That's the one. And there was a picture of Kathryn Lambe, John O Rourke and Jennifer Flood to go along with it, all looking very pompous and "talented".


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    <bullshít article>

    I don't know whether to laugh or cry, they (the journalist) clearly weren't even taking it seriously and the students were probably taking it a bit too seriously (no offence meant if you are they I'm just making an observation)


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,851 ✭✭✭PurpleFistMixer


    The Irish Times did an article? *raises eyebrow inquisitively*


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭skanger666


    it's still better than having the whole course lumped into one "precocious" catagory....


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 748 ✭✭✭Zounds


    The Irish Times did an article? *raises eyebrow inquisitively*
    my mistake, sorry


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,851 ✭✭✭PurpleFistMixer


    Ah, nearly had me about to attack my beloved Irish Times.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,440 ✭✭✭✭Piste


    Oh.......My.......God.......How bad did that make us look? I can't believe She actually wrote 'ordinary'. Cringetastic


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 59 ✭✭Sunstorm


    Well, one of our better brushes with the media, and a lot better than the Indo. Kathryn, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING????


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 58 ✭✭Rainbow Girl


    Yeah, seriously, every other article on us I've read has made us sound so nerdy (in the bad way, cos i know most of us are nerds, really), and like we loooove school, this one almost seemed fair. Nicely done to Oisín Ais and Owen, ye did pretty damned well.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    thank you, sentiment is very much appreciated. If im talking to owen or ais ill pass it on. go rainbow girl!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    thank you rainbow girl, the sentiment is much appreciated


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,440 ✭✭✭✭Piste


    Oh.......My.......God.......How bad did that make us look? I can't believe She actually wrote 'ordinary'. Cringetastic

    Yeah you did really well. That quote was about the Indo article. How......ugh.....did some people sound?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,383 ✭✭✭Aoibheann


    well done guys, it must have been prertty damn scary/humiliating/etc to do that. I'm so proud of you all. ;) if only i could find my fathers damned copy of yesterdays herald..........not that i'll bring it to the reunion to embarrass you all or anything...........


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 33 mr. scanger


    People are getting way too caught up on these articles.Last year it was a laugh coz the documentary thing was so bad, but it's not like CTYI newspaper articles are any huge deal.They're just for publicity.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    believe it or not liam, people actually read newspapers so such articles dramatically impact how CTYI is seen by people in ireland. so you can play the "oh it doesnt really matter" card all you like but the truth is it does and to deny that is pure ignorance.

    CTYI's public image matters cos thats how people become aware of it and choose to go there. would you have gone if it had been splashed accross the papers as "NERD CAMP"?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 33 mr. scanger


    Yes I would have actually because I knew about it from my sister, who found out about it from a small advertisement in either a newspaper or magazine.Ads are grand, then people can make up their own minds, the articles try to be way too influencial.It's only an article oisin, no need to write a speech over it


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,383 ✭✭✭Aoibheann


    guys guys guys enough please. its really sad.
    mr. scanger, you may not find the article important, but it may introduce people to the idea of CTYI. more people could find out about it.
    oisin, fair enough, i agree with what you're saying, but dont get so worked up about it.
    and god i sound really pathetic myself and i'd rather not get involved in this so thats it.


  • Advertisement
Advertisement