Outdated attitudes of schools/teachers

Teddy_Picker

This might be more suited to an educational forum, but since I'm approaching this with a female slant, I thought I'd post in here.

My secondary school days are behind me, now at university, and since I've made new friends from different parts of the country, I've been repeatedly surprised, from discussing our old schools, at how certain attitudes towards gender and school subjects still exist nowadays.

For instance, one school I've been told about did not offer Chemistry and Accounting, of all things, to girls, on account of it being a "male subject." As for Engineering, Construction...say no more.

Baffling. Unfortunately my own old school wasn't exactly a shining beacon. When I started there around 2003, the class was unusual in that the number of boys exactly doubled that of girls. There was also a very high interest in Engineering that year, but unfortunately the numbers wanting to do it exceeded the quota imposed for safety purposes. However, the teacher decided to automatically give first refusal to the boys wanting to do it, without any assessment of the students' abilities or attitudes, and so the girls had to plump for their second choice. Disappointingly, this decision was green-lighted (and seemed to be almost approved) by our female principal at the time.

Has anyone else that's maybe recently finished school, or is still a pupil, or who has kids/siblings/friends come across similar?

baby and crumble

I went to a mixed school and any and all subjects were open to whoever wanted to study them. I was one of the first girls in my school to do woodwork for my JC.

Nobody batted an eyelid tbh. My school was a mixed Church of Ireland boarding school with no religious orders in charge- the school was tightly knit to a parish, but none of the staff were rectors or anything. maybe that's something to do with it? it was 16 years ago, too, so it's not like my experience is particularly recent.

I have a feeling I'll get lambasted for saying that...

LenaClaire

I went to school in the states so I am not sure how it is here. At our school everyone had to take Home Econ (cooking, child care and sewing) and everyone had to take Tech Ed (lasers, woodworks and robotics). There were no classes that were "suggested" over others as far as I can recall.

pickarooney

In my secondary school they put the girls and the boys with the highest entrance exam scores in Home Ec and the rest of the lads in woodwork. I could never figure out who was supposed to feel most insulted.

Chuchoter

My school, an all girls, is fairly horrendous in some ways. Its not too bad on the subjects front (We have all three sciences and applied maths ftw) but we don't have engineering or anything of that nature. Where it really comes to the fore is the really offensive Religion classes and a TY personal development class.

I'll start with the religion class, where we are all told that women, after having sex once, became incapable of making proper decisions and became sluts. This is why sex before marriage is wrong, kids.

The TY class drove me insane. The teacher is a home ec teacher. The class basically focused around hair and makeup, then moved on to why women shouldn't be pilots (PMS, we'll crash the plane), that if you were good at maths you had a man brain, that women who don't like kids are unnatural. Then we had a few classes on how lesbians are actually men and gay men are really women. Just today my friends from the home ec class told me that she had told them that in London, gay men have clubs for aids orgies. I don't know what that has to do with Home Ec, but it obviously does.

Teddy_Picker

crayolastereo wrote: »

My school, an all girls, is fairly horrendous in some ways. Its not too bad on the subjects front (We have all three sciences and applied maths ftw) but we don't have engineering or anything of that nature. Where it really comes to the fore is the really offensive Religion classes and a TY personal development class.

I'll start with the religion class, where we are all told that women, after having sex once, became incapable of making proper decisions and became sluts. This is why sex before marriage is wrong, kids.

The TY class drove me insane. The teacher is a home ec teacher. The class basically focused around hair and makeup, then moved on to why women shouldn't be pilots (PMS, we'll crash the plane), that if you were good at maths you had a man brain, that women who don't like kids are unnatural. Then we had a few classes on how lesbians are actually men and gay men are really women. Just today my friends from the home ec class told me that she had told them that in London, gay men have clubs for aids orgies. I don't know what that has to do with Home Ec, but it obviously does.

:eek: Words fail me, Crayolastereo! I think I would be unable to hear what was being said in class over shouts of rage!

Zoegh, my school was a VEC school, and purported to be non-denominational, but was essentially Catholic in all but name. We had masses to mark the start of every year, and other masses from time to time, including, oddly, when the old pope died.

Konata

Wow crayolastereo, that's crazy! I don't know how teachers get away with making such remarks - especially the blatant homophobic ones.

My school was grand - I did Chemistry, Physics, Accounting and Applied Maths for LC, so all nice "manly" subjects there We didn't have engineering or TG or anything but that was more due to a lack of interest than anything else - there simple wasn't enough girls expressing an interest in such subjects. There was the option to do Home Ec. OR Technology for the JC and quite a few in my year opted for the technology option

It was an all girls school but I always got the message from teachers that we could do whatever we wanted to do as women - the world was our oyster. I did my LC in 2008 so I suppose it's a fairly recent experience of secondary school.

ztoical

All girls school that was pretty blah TBH, wasn't telling girls they couldn't do 'boy's' subjects or anything, just had no creativity and expected for the leaving cert that everyone do one science subject, one langauage, one business subject and either history or geography...keep everything really nice and general so you left yourself 'options' to do something really boring in college. Seeing as I knew I wanted to do animation and comics from the age of 11 I was seen as very odd and really should think about becoming a doctor like my mother and kept telling me this the whole 5 years I was in the school, right up until the day I left. Found it all very odd as one the teachers telling me to become a doctor had told my mother when she first arrived in the town that no one would ever go to a female doctor and she was wasting her time....maybe she felt guilty about that and was trying to make it up to her.

SugarHigh

Crayola are you maybe exaggerating the truth a little?

Chuchoter

I'm not. She's quite old though...

The school itself only very recently stopped having nun teachers, its fairly intensely religious, we have about 1 to 2 masses a month and obligatory religion classes, they get very far right catholic/american christian groups to do the retreats and good few teachers very, very traditional. There are then some teachers the other end of the scale though, who are great, but there are quite a few (and in high positions) in the first camp though.

ztoical

crayolastereo wrote: »

I'm not. She's quite old though...

The school itself only very recently stopped having nun teachers, its fairly intensely religious, good few teachers very, very traditional. There are then some teachers the other end of the scale though, who are great, but there are quite a few (and in high positions) in the first camp though.

Is this a public school? If so why hasn't she been reported? Several of things being taught are pretty serious and grounds for dismissal. My first year in college [I know college FFS!] I had a art history teacher say gay people were evil in front of the class. Several of us got up and walked out and she was 'removed' from teaching there pretty quickly.

Chuchoter

ztoical wrote: »

Is this a public school? If so why hasn't she been reported? Several of things being taught are pretty serious and grounds for dismisal.

No its private. The principal is no better.

They would never walk out of her class, she's a popular teacher, and to walk out in objection would be to say you were gay.

amacachi

In my all-male secondary school there was no Home Economics until about 5 years after the room for it had been built, no-one was interested. In my sister's school there was an option to do Economics but generally there wasn't enough interest to form a class, same with Chemistry, some years there's a class and some years there aren't. In my old school last year the 6th years were taught after school by a recently retired teacher because it was decided at the start of 5th year that there weren't enough students wanting to do it but he came along and offered to do it.

So yeah, seems like supply generally follows demand. Also the sooner religion has no place in schools the better.

amacachi

ztoical wrote: »

Is this a public school? If so why hasn't she been reported? Several of things being taught are pretty serious and grounds for dismissal. My first year in college [I know college FFS!] I had a art history teacher say gay people were evil in front of the class. Several of us got up and walked out and she was 'removed' from teaching there pretty quickly.

College isn't school. There was an alcoholic teacher in my secondary school that they couldn't get rid of, same with my sister's school.

Chuchoter

amacachi wrote: »

College isn't school. There was an alcoholic teacher in my secondary school that they couldn't get rid of, same with my sister's school.

Thats true, its very, very difficult to fire a senior, permanent teacher. You would have to be talking smacking a student in the face or something. We have one guy who is a horrible bully and frequently makes the younger girls cry, but he's permanent so they won't fire him.

ztoical

crayolastereo wrote: »

No its private. The principal is no better.

They would never walk out of her class, she's a popular teacher, and to walk out in objection would be to say you were gay

When I say private I mean 100% fee paying, Catholic schools are technically priavate as they are state aided not state owned. The majority of private schools in the country wouldn't be Catholic and not so out spoken on certain topics you mention.

You say it only stopped having nuns as teachers and have a mass once or twice a month but my old secondary school still has nuns teaching and we had mass every week [every single day if you were boarder] and it was a bog standard irish secondary school.

whatdoicare

I went to an all girls school and I have to say it was pretty much a case of "you're a girl - this is what girls do"
I wanted to do technical drawing, computers and Spanish (this was what I wanted to do in relation to further my career and my Dad is Spanish) but none of these was available to me.
I ended up doing Home ec, French and Geography - I had no interest in any of these subjects whatsoever. I still can't cook, sew, speak French and anything Geography related! I ended up trying to learn it after school and couldn't do that as it wasn't available, so ended up having to do a foundation year before I could start my college course.

I will never, ever forget my career advice teacher asking me why I couldn't just be a secretary or nurse! That's a true story! She even sent me to a nursing home for my work experience! - Lucky for me I came home after day one and my dad freaked out when he heard what they made me do - ie clean bed pans - and got me work experience with his graphic designer friend! :rolleyes:

LenaClaire

crayolastereo wrote: »

I'll start with the religion class, where we are all told that women, after having sex once, became incapable of making proper decisions and became sluts. This is why sex before marriage is wrong, kids.

The last school I went to (7 total) had a really old nun that went on a rant against the first years saying they were all sluts and were all going to end up as single moms on welfare and that she was wasting her time with them. She got sent to the old nun retirement home the next day though. I am sorry your school was so horrid

JimmyCrackCorn

I vaguely remember a sex ed video with a nun. I remeber it being very funny and horrendously out dated. It confused me more than cleared any issues up, ill not go into details but i thought something was wrong for two years


Other than that religion wasn't pushed on me until i changed schools to repeat my leaving cert. I was openly insulted for refusing to participate and was told it was mandatory and i was immature, followed by a 15 minute rant i zoned out on. I was immature but we eventually got to the understanding that if i wasn't there it was easier for us both.

It was an all boys school and i and of wish id done home economics. Took me years to learn i loved to cook.

Chuchoter

ztoical wrote: »

When I say private I mean 100% fee paying, Catholic schools are technically priavate as they are state aided not state owned. The majority of private schools in the country wouldn't be Catholic and not so out spoken on certain topics you mention.

You say it only stopped having nuns as teachers and have a mass once or twice a month but my old secondary school still has nuns teaching and we had mass every week [every single day if you were boarder] and it was a bog standard irish secondary school.

Private as in fee-paying, but as with all fee-paying schools, the government still pays for the majority of teachers and they are all in the union. All teachers, in all schools, once permanent are near impossible to fire.

In any case, especially with issues like this, the teacher can get away scot free because the students won't stand up, wouldn't tell the parents (wouldn't allow the parents to do anything about it lest they're are suspected of something) and most parents wouldn't even care, if they told management, management wouldn't care either

rainbow kirby

I went to a Catholic all-girls secondary school. :rolleyes: Languages and business were pushed far more than sciences, very little encouragement was given to students with an interest in the sciences unless they were aiming for medicine or nursing. I did physics, chemistry and accounting, and took applied maths outside of school. There were 6 people in my LC physics class, compared to 55 taking home ec and 70 taking business. My religion teacher was a 78 year old Sisters of Mercy nun, who kicked me out of her class at the start of 6th year for asking too many questions.

storm2811

My school isn't too bad, girls are allowed to engineering, TG, woodwork/construction etc, but not many do.
I did metalwork in first year and the teacher was such a subtle sexist, he was telling us to file something, but me and my two friends decided to saw it and then file it.
He came over and seen we were finished and exclaimed "For feck sake lads, even the girls are finished before ye!" I didn't mind though, he was just stuck in his ways and apart from that he was a really nice man and showed respect towards us most of the time.

Our religion teacher though is a whole other story, she rambles on and on about prejudice and diversity then gives out about asylum seekers and even once said that "gays are disgusting", I can't stand her, complete hypocrite.

Apart from that I can't really complain I don't think.

nermal15

My secondary school didn't offer any technical drawing, woodwork etc. apart from in TY but again, I think that's due to lack of demand. The science and business subjects are encouraged just as much as languages and home ec. etc.

I also didn't have any bad experiences with religion teachers, as expressed by others. Certainly no homophobic or racist comments! We generally just learned about STIs and watched films.

Jaysus, after reading this thread I'm even more glad that my mother put her foot down and said "I'm not sending my child to a christian secondary" :eek:
I went to an inter-denom school, no religion classes. Did 6th year in a sort of grind school thing where nobody cared what subjects you were doing really

Edgedinblue

I went to both an all irish primary and secondary school and i have to admit they were both grand. No mention of religion, but i dont think irish schools are exactly known for teaching religion and of course we had a class for it but that was really for videos and getting homework done. we did have masses for grad and things like that, but if you didnt want to go you didnt have to.

And anyone could do whatever subject they wanted to regardless if they were a girl or boy too.

Nolanger

Schools aren't designed to encourage your talents! They're about making you conform. How many top male chefs did home economics in school?

strobe

The education set up in this country is ridiculous. I struggle to find a single redeeming feature. From the RCC control of the majority of primaries and most being single sex, to the fact useless teachers are defended to the death by ASTI et el at the expense of students, right up to the system in place with the leaving cert and CAO system being how college places are awarded. It's the main factor which will probably mean my (future) children will not be growing up in Ireland if I can help it. Which is a shame.

---

As to the OP. I went to a mixed secondary and had the option of doing either metal work or home ec. Wasn't a tough decision for me really when filling out the form. "Would I rather spend first year getting my foot in with the girls and cooking myself a load of munchies or hang out with a bunch of lads cutting and filing lumps of metal into different shapes?" Tough one.

So I put down home ec but when the classes were assigned I was told to go to metal work. I asked what was going on and was just told, "we keep the home ec places for the girls and only give places to boys if they request it and it hasn't filled up yet". So I went to metal work for a couple of months until I happened to be talking to one of the girls who said the opposite had happened to her. She applied for metal work and was told the places were kept for the boys. So I went to the principle and told him we wanted to switch with each other. His response was "Now Strobe, you don't want to do that, the other boys will make fun of you" :rolleyes: Told him I didn't care but he said he couldn't make the change this far into the year. So ended up doing metal work for my junior. Odd stuff alright.

The girl is a mechanical engineer for Saab in Sweden now btw and I spent 6 months of my time in Australia last year working as a chef. It's a weird old world.

spurious

Went to an all girls school thirty years ago - non-fee-paying.
Did both Honours Physics and Honours Maths for my Leaving in 1980.

I now teach in a mixed VEC school where all subjects are offered and available to all children.

There were and are always modern schools out there if you look for them.

sam34

i went to an all girls convent school

home ec was strongly encouraged, whereas pass maths was pushed more than honours maths.

we had to fight to be allowed retain a physics class, there were only 7 in the class and they wanted to scrap it

applied maths was not offered,, but my maths teacher very kindly took me on amd taught me outside school hours

LegacyUser

I went to an all girls convent too. I must have been lucky though, because all the science subjects, honours maths and metalwork were available. I don't know if woodwork was though.
A large amount of my year went on to study science after school and are now graduated, I myself went on to study science too, but due to a number of different factors I left and got a job.
However I'm now back at college studying science again. If I ever run into an old teacher at home, they are always very friendly and really pleased for me.

Of course it being a convent though there are a few times I remember us getting a good laugh at a few things.
In first year this really really old nun came to give us a chat. It involved not letting a boy get any closer to you than the space of a phonebook, and that if he did, his intentions were very bad!:pac:

We also had two American women give us a talk about chastity before marriage, and handed us out chastity cards for us to sign and carry with us at all times!.

I thought the actual Religion class was grand though. We were encouraged to just discuss and debate with each other some major topics.
We covered things like the death sentence, abortion, homosexuality, sex before marriage, Bullying, etc.
We would sometimes watch films and then spend the next class discussing them. We watched The Green Mile[debated the death sentence], Philadelphia,
and some film about a man who's pregnant wife was in a coma, and he had to choose to save her or the baby.

Our teacher was very fair, she would inform us of what the catholic church's standpoint was on these issues, and why they had it, but she would never say that any of our opinions or viewpoints were wrong, infact she encouraged debate.
She was also very happy when the new curriculum came in for the junior certs that they had to learn about all of the different religions of the world and their beliefs. She thought it was good for kids to at least be getting a bit more informed. She was a very strong catholic herself.

I dossed so much, and couldn't wait to be finished school, but looking back I realise I was fairly lucky to have such a nice school!:)

squeakyduck

I went to a mercy school for secondary school. We had all subjects open to us for leaving cert, the girls could go over to the mon(astry) (the boys school across the road) to do Physics, and the boys came over to do chemistry. Some boys did home ec for leaving cert in our school, and I did wood work for a while in TY which was interesting.

The Junior cycle kids (junior cert) had to stay on school premises with regards to subjects. There was no leeway.

squishykins

I went to an all-girls convent school too, however the teachers (and nuns) there were sound! They were all like, "don't you dare conform, you do whatever you wanna do regardless of whether it's a 'man's job' or not!" And I was all like, "You go sister Tríona!"

Anyway, enough of that talk :P Yeah our school was great, it's slowly introducing woodwork and the likes, our year was the first to be offered LC technology, and we had all the sciences and all that. Religion was a compulsory subject but not an exam one, it was basically a 'common sense for real life' class. I did have an argument with my religion teacher about abortion though...he agreed with me in the end :P I'd never have one myself, but you should have the right me thinks...anyways that's off topic.

While my school was great, I met my long-term boyfriend in TY, and god his school...I felt like running in there and slapping the head off all the teachers! He was in a Protestant boarding school, and the silly little things like girls couldn't do technology or anything along those lines, boys couldn't do home-ec or have hair longer than an inch, which was already considered too long, girls couldn't wear trousers, english teachers refused to teach the poetry of Adrienne Rich because she's a lesbian, the list goes on...Beh...

Bottle_of_Smoke

amyputz wrote: »

While my school was great, I met my long-term boyfriend in TY, and god his school...I felt like running in there and slapping the head off all the teachers! He was in a Protestant boarding school, and the silly little things like girls couldn't do technology or anything along those lines, boys couldn't do home-ec or have hair longer than an inch, which was already considered too long, girls couldn't wear trousers, english teachers refused to teach the poetry of Adrienne Rich because she's a lesbian, the list goes on...Beh...

What school was that :eek:? I went to a Prod school adn there were plenty of girls in my metalwork and physics classes

metrovelvet

amyputz wrote: »

I went to an all-girls convent school too, however the teachers (and nuns) there were sound! They were all like, "don't you dare conform, you do whatever you wanna do regardless of whether it's a 'man's job' or not!" And I was all like, "You go sister Tríona!"

Anyway, enough of that talk :P Yeah our school was great, it's slowly introducing woodwork and the likes, our year was the first to be offered LC technology, and we had all the sciences and all that. Religion was a compulsory subject but not an exam one, it was basically a 'common sense for real life' class. I did have an argument with my religion teacher about abortion though...he agreed with me in the end :P I'd never have one myself, but you should have the right me thinks...anyways that's off topic.

While my school was great, I met my long-term boyfriend in TY, and god his school...I felt like running in there and slapping the head off all the teachers! He was in a Protestant boarding school, and the silly little things like girls couldn't do technology or anything along those lines, boys couldn't do home-ec or have hair longer than an inch, which was already considered too long, girls couldn't wear trousers, english teachers refused to teach the poetry of Adrienne Rich because she's a lesbian, the list goes on...Beh...

I bet they taught that Irish pedo poet. And as a result collects more royalties for trips to Thailand.

squishykins

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

What school was that :eek:? I went to a Prod school adn there were plenty of girls in my metalwork and physics classes

A school in Louth, the people in there really got on my nerves...I remember after the mocks for the LC they wouldn't give back the papers so that the students could see where they went wrong, just gave the percentage. Apparently they did this at all christmas and summer tests too, just chucked the papers in the bin once they were marked...but nobody in the damn school would step up and say something!

metrovelvet wrote: »

I bet they taught that Irish pedo poet. And as a result collects more royalties for trips to Thailand.

What pedo poet??

matrim

sam34 wrote: »

we had to fight to be allowed retain a physics class, there were only 7 in the class and they wanted to scrap it

applied maths was not offered,, but my maths teacher very kindly took me on amd taught me outside school hours

I wouldn't say that's to do with it being a Girls school.
My mixed school wouldn't put on a physics class when there were about 6 of us looking to do it. And if we wanted to do Applied Maths it had to be outside school hours too.

Fad

Not sure what the point in complaining about not getting offered engineering/DCG/and so on is, when often the schools might not have the facilities.

Design and Communications Graphics requires a decent computer room and a woodwork room. Engineering requires something similar. Technology (Newish subject) requires laptops, shed loads of electronics stuff.

I'd love to have done Technology, but there was no way the school could have run it, it would have cost a huge amount of money to get the facilities.

Never had the chance to do home ec either, because of lack of facilities...

metrovelvet wrote: »

I bet they taught that Irish pedo poet. And as a result collects more royalties for trips to Thailand.

If he's on the syllabus, you have to teach him. Cathal O'Searcaigh's poetry is really really easy (And actually pretty decent if you have any appreciation for the language), so anyone protesting about his presence on the syllabus was really just lazy tbh. If there's filth on the syllabus like An tOilean, I dont understand complaining about him....

Konata

Fad wrote: »

If he's on the syllabus, you have to teach him. Cathal O'Searcaigh's poetry is really really easy (And actually pretty decent if you have any appreciation for the language), so anyone protesting about his presence on the syllabus was really just lazy tbh. If there's filth on the syllabus like An tOilean, I dont understand complaining about him....

I agree. I know a lot of people were put off by the accusations of him taking sexual advantage of young boys in Nepal though - they felt he should've been taken off the syllabus and condemned as a result. Sure the content of his poetry was grand, nice and simple

Teddy_Picker

Fad wrote: »

Not sure what the point in complaining about not getting offered engineering/DCG/and so on is, when often the schools might not have the facilities.

Design and Communications Graphics requires a decent computer room and a woodwork room. Engineering requires something similar. Technology (Newish subject) requires laptops, shed loads of electronics stuff.

I'd love to have done Technology, but there was no way the school could have run it, it would have cost a huge amount of money to get the facilities.

Never had the chance to do home ec either, because of lack of facilities...

Well, if the problem is lack of facilities or funding or other factors beyond the school's control, I suppose it's understandable, but when the facilities are there, but it's the ignorant notions and mindset of the teachers involved that presents the obstacle, that's another story.

Scarinae

I went to a mixed private school, and I never saw any gender bias with the subject allocation. There were several guys in my Home Ec class, and there were four of us girls in Applied Maths. There were a lot of girls in Biology, but also there were a lot more Biology classes than Chemistry or Physics classes and I think that was because everyone is advised to keep up one science subject for the Leaving and Biology is seen as the 'easy' option. My Chemistry class was about half boys half girls. In TY we all had to take a basic cookery class, basic computer class, basic business class etc.

Funnily enough though, my school didn't offer Metalwork or Woodwork, even though they had some of the more obscure subjects like Classical Studies and Applied Maths. It may be unfair of me to say so, but I think this was because it was expected that we would all go to university rather than going into trade or into other more vocational roles. I would have quite liked to have tried out Metalwork.

As for religion - I don't remember it being a Junior Cert subject, when was that brought in? (I did the JC in 2002) We had religion classes from first to third year, but people who weren't Christians didn't have to go. They were pretty generic, as religion classes go, and to be honest they were a bit of a doss. In fifth and sixth year, we had a choice between religion or PE - I chose religion because it was actually quite interesting, and it had a very attractive young Northern Irish teacher We would watch films like Gattaca and have debates on cloning, or learn about world religions, that sort of thing. It was a nice break from the horrors of the impending Leaving Cert.

If I raise my children in Ireland there is no way that they will go to a single-sex school or to a Catholic school. I'm sure that there are good single-sex Catholic schools, but I am very glad that I was not in one of them and I would want my children to have the same open-minded upbringing.

Chuchoter

Fishie wrote: »

I went to a mixed private school, and I never saw any gender bias with the subject allocation. There were several guys in my Home Ec class, and there were four of us girls in Applied Maths. There were a lot of girls in Biology, but also there were a lot more Biology classes than Chemistry or Physics classes and I think that was because everyone is advised to keep up one science subject for the Leaving and Biology is seen as the 'easy' option. My Chemistry class was about half boys half girls. In TY we all had to take a basic cookery class, basic computer class, basic business class etc.

Funnily enough though, my school didn't offer Metalwork or Woodwork, even though they had some of the more obscure subjects like Classical Studies and Applied Maths. It may be unfair of me to say so, but I think this was because it was expected that we would all go to university rather than going into trade or into other more vocational roles. I would have quite liked to have tried out Metalwork.

I think its because subjects like metalwork and woodwork are generally only offered in VECs, which very often wouldn't offer Applied Maths or Classical Studies, so its a trade off really of practical vs academic subjects in that situation.

As for religion - I don't remember it being a Junior Cert subject, when was that brought in? (I did the JC in 2002) We had religion classes from first to third year, but people who weren't Christians didn't have to go. They were pretty generic, as religion classes go, and to be honest they were a bit of a doss. In fifth and sixth year, we had a choice between religion or PE - I chose religion because it was actually quite interesting, and it had a very attractive young Northern Irish teacher We would watch films like Gattaca and have debates on cloning, or learn about world religions, that sort of thing. It was a nice break from the horrors of the impending Leaving Cert.

I think its only certain schools, the community colleges with no religion attached to them don't have the classes.

If I raise my children in Ireland there is no way that they will go to a single-sex school or to a Catholic school. I'm sure that there are good single-sex Catholic schools, but I am very glad that I was not in one of them and I would want my children to have the same open-minded upbringing.

Completely agree.

echosound

squeakyduck wrote: »

I went to a mercy school for secondary school. We had all subjects open to us for leaving cert, the girls could go over to the mon(astry) (the boys school across the road) to do Physics, and the boys came over to do chemistry. Some boys did home ec for leaving cert in our school, and I did wood work for a while in TY which was interesting.
.

Almost the exact same situation here (left secondary school 13 years or so ago). Girls went over to the boy's school to do woodwork/mechanical drawing etc, boys came to our school to do home ec.

My school was pretty decent as far as subject choice went - I was the only one in my year that wanted to do physics for the LC, and they laid on a class during the regular school day especially for little ol me The teacher for physics was a very progressively minded nun, she as much as said she only went into the convent so she could work as a teacher, and thought the biblical version of events (creationism, as opposed to evolution) was tosh.
Lovely woman (and daft as a brush to boot ).

Some of the stories here are scary. Crayolastereo - I am gobsmacked. We did have a nun in primary school (another all girl's convent school) that battered on about how "our bodies are temples not to be sullied by filthy men" :rolleyes:, along with various stories about how the ground literally opened up and children were swallowed down into fiery pits of eternal flames and torment for minor transgressions (such as not pointing your clasped hands "towards heaven" when praying). This was to a class of very young children, I'm talking 6/7/8 yrs old, who for the most part shat themselves as it was taken literally.

They also terrified junior and senior infant children into buying those little badges with "angels" on them (were actually badges of iconographical paintings), 1p for a predominantly brown one, 3p for a predominantly silver one, and we were told they were actual guardian angels who looked out for us, the silver ones were "better" than the brown ones as they offered more protection (obviously, being 2p dearer:p), and we were told stories of how children who wore the badges were pulled out of the way of traffic when they accidentally stepped out in front of a car (by their "guardian angel") but the children who didn't buy them were run over and killed as no-one was looking over them :mad::mad:

But that was in the early 80s, I'd have thought things moved on a bit since then.:mad:

squishykins

Fad wrote: »

If he's on the syllabus, you have to teach him. Cathal O'Searcaigh's poetry is really really easy (And actually pretty decent if you have any appreciation for the language), so anyone protesting about his presence on the syllabus was really just lazy tbh. If there's filth on the syllabus like An tOilean, I dont understand complaining about him....

Not necessarily. To be guaranteed to have a poet you know on the paper, you have to do 5/8 poets, which is what the teachers tend to do since it's nearly impossible to do 8 in 2 years. There's always a female poet guaranteed for political correctness (which is a joke, it's more politically incorrect to make a deal of it) so it's either Eavan Boland or Adrienne Rich...

And Cathal O'Searcaigh wasn't on our syllabus...just saying :rolleyes:

almostnever

amyputz wrote: »

Not necessarily. To be guaranteed to have a poet you know on the paper, you have to do 5/8 poets, which is what the teachers tend to do since it's nearly impossible to do 8 in 2 years. There's always a female poet guaranteed for political correctness (which is a joke, it's more politically incorrect to make a deal of it) so it's either Eavan Boland or Adrienne Rich...

And Cathal O'Searcaigh wasn't on our syllabus...just saying :rolleyes:

He's referring to Ó'Searcaigh being on the Irish syllabus, where you have to study all of prescribed poetry. You did the LC in 2010, right? For Ordinary Level, Níl Aon Ní was Ó'Searcaigh's poem and for Higher Level Níl Aon Ní and Maigdiléana were both on.

squishykins

almostnever wrote: »

He's referring to Ó'Searcaigh being on the Irish syllabus, where you have to study all of prescribed poetry. You did the LC in 2010, right? For Ordinary Level, Níl Aon Ní was Ó'Searcaigh's poem and for Higher Level Níl Aon Ní and Maigdiléana were both on.

Ohhhhh, my bad :P Shows how much attention I paid in Irish class

almostnever

amyputz wrote: »

Ohhhhh, my bad :P Shows how much attention I paid in Irish class

Oh, I love Irish but that poetry/literature in general was the bane of my existence :P

Anyway, on topic: in my school (an all girls convent school) there were a grand total of two of us in my physics class. I did my Leaving there in 2009 so I suppose back then they didn't have as much of a problem funding a class with two people in it. I also did economics (six of us in the class) and chemistry (seventeen or eighteen, IIRC.)

Went and repeated the LC last year in an all boys school, and that's where the fun really began. :pac: Physics was a proper class, which was just weird. Economics was massive. And chemistry was the tiny one-I'm amacachi's sister, he mentioned already the situation with the three lads and the retired teacher taking us after hours. I did considerably better in the repeat school and much preferred the atmosphere.

So basically, the attitude of the teachers and schools weren't really at fault, the demand for the subjects just varied in both schools. The language situation was better in the boys school though-they had French, German and Spanish on offer, whereas in my original school you had to do French in first year and could do German as well if you didn't do Home Ec, or something like that. It was six years ago, I'm hazy on the details.

Celtise

When I was in leaving cert, a mere 5 years ago, the teacher tried to get rid of me out of the honours maths class cause he said that girls are just not able for it. All the rest of the girls couldn't put up with his sh!t and dropped down and I was the only one left for the last year of it with a group of boys. Complaints were made to the principal but to no available. To top it all when I was topping the regular exams and beating all the boys round christmas and the mocks, he started claims that I was cheating. He was not that old either, just took early retirement last year.

Because of that though I dropped physics since I was the only girl as well and just couldn't handle having to top both classes just to be considered as being as good as the boys.

Blush_01

I was told not to do physics, that it was a boys subject. They didn't even offer it in my school, but I ended up doing it in the local CBS. I have since worked out that what my principal meant (as he said it to a repeat student a year later) was don't do physics, you'll have to do it in the CBS and the teacher is a big bag of poo. He should also have added that she would flirt with the boys and pick on you for answers to make you appear stupid in front of said boys. Not the best environment for someone shy.

I also did economics in the CBS, but there were three of us (girls, I mean) in the class with the boys, so it wasn't so bad. Being the only girl in the physics class did nothing for my self-confidence.

By the way, men could learn a lot from reading the instruction manual - just saying!

mojesius

Crayolastereo, your school sounds exactly like mine! I wonder if it's the same one. Did the home ec teacher/ stand in personal development 'specialist' also tell you to half your chocolate bar with your friend and go swimming so you wouldn't get fat?

Even if it's not the same school, it's comical what these places can get away with. We had a nun teaching maths and she was blatant about her views on abortion and divorce. Say if we didn't want to learn calculus, we'd just have to ask her opinion on either subject and she'd have her youth defence leaflets out and give us a sermon for the entire class.

Also sex ed: "just say NO", ffs.

goose2005

Fad wrote: »

If he's on the syllabus, you have to teach him. Cathal O'Searcaigh's poetry is really really easy (And actually pretty decent if you have any appreciation for the language), so anyone protesting about his presence on the syllabus was really just lazy tbh. If there's filth on the syllabus like An tOilean, I dont understand complaining about him....

In any case, it's ridiculous to ban a writer from the syllabus based on his actions we'd have to get rid of all the Ancient Greek pederasts, Oscar Wilde, de Sade, Rousseau, Villon and many others.

Novella

I went to a private school, a grinds type school I suppose. No religion, no PE and although I felt like I was being heavily influenced to put Primary School Teaching as my number one choice on my CAO, other than that, subject choices etc., all came down to me. The main pressure in that school was to keep the numbers up in Higher Maths and Irish classes and although I was already studying eight other higher subjects and had no particular interest in Maths, nor was capable of getting a good honour in it, it was definitely frowned upon when I chose to move to Ordinary Level class.