Want kids "communed"? Have to go to mass yourself so

PopePalpatine

Sarky wrote: »

Rolleyes is the f*cking bane of my existence and it needs to die screaming.

Your punishment must be more severe.

Sulla Felix

kylith wrote: »

I think you're right there.

Frankly I think the difference is that women know that their food is hearty and tasty, so they don't bother making porchini foam and nonsense like that. The whole cheffing faff, I think, comes from the same part of the mind that drives men to be trainspotters or collect stamps; both pass-times with a very high proportion of men to women.

I have to disagree with that blanket dismissal of the molecular cooking trend. Break past the pretentious crust and you'll find a truly fascinating gooey centre of basic organic chemistry that, rather than only being read about in a book, you can then go forth and experiment with. Give it a chance and you'll be experimenting with the effect of ph level on your reducing sugars and protein aminos in the Maillard reaction occuring in your frying pan. :P

Dades

Obliq wrote: »

Better to start our own thread?! "Is there less gender-bias in atheism generally?" or similar Why IS ladies rugby an oxymoron? (just goes to look up oxymoron....). Actually, have to go out in a min. Hope to continue a gender based yet atheist discussion later

Uh oh. Is this thread not "safe" enough? :pac:

(Figure that smiley out!)

Obliq

Dades wrote: »

Uh oh. Is this thread not "safe" enough? :pac:

(Figure that smiley out!)

Awww, the big bad wimmins won't get you here Dades. We'll mind ya :pac::P

lazygal

Back on topic, I had a laff and a half recently. One close relative made a massive fuss when my husband and I wouldn't be godparents, not once but twice. Trotted out the usual 'it's a symbolic role' line, and 'why are you making such a fuss, it doesn't really mean anything' etc. Had a big white church wedding, big fuss made of the christening and wouldn't hear a bad word said about the church, lots of 'there's loads of good priests out there, the church has done a lot over the years'.

Fast forward to getting their children a place in the local Catholic school and its full to capacity. So they've no choice, in a delicious twist, but to attend the Educate Together and give that they have to be a LOT more involved in the organisation of communion and confirmation instruction, they are already giving out that in a couple of years' time they'll have to organise time off work to bring the kids to classes, spend a Saturday/Sunday on some class of a course and attend a lot of masses. I pointed out that this is how it SHOULD be, if I want my child to learn horse riding or ballet or other non curricular subject I do it at my own time and expense. But it seems some of the Catholic parents of Ireland want the indoctrination to be done for them.

Obliq

Yeah, at the expensive of the curriculum coverage. Ha:-) That's quite amusing. Poor souls, all that extra work:-)

iguana

lazygal wrote: »

Fast forward to getting their children a place in the local Catholic school and its full to capacity.

So they baptised their kids but still couldn't secure a school place in the local Catholic school? That's a bit of a bonus to you then as you can use it to slap down any argument made to you that by not baptising your baby you won't get a good school place.

lazygal

iguana wrote: »

So they baptised their kids but still couldn't secure a school place in the local Catholic school? That's a bit of a bonus to you then as you can use it to slap down any argument made to you that by not baptising your baby you won't get a good school place.

Point already (somewhat gleefully!) made! Also pointed out that we'll have no trouble getting into our local (and excellent) Catholic school should the ET not have a place as it goes on proximity to the school as the first criteria!

keane2097

iguana wrote: »

So they baptised their kids but still couldn't secure a school place in the local Catholic school? That's a bit of a bonus to you then as you can use it to slap down any argument made to you that by not baptising your baby you won't get a good school place.

Since when are Catholic schools any good anyway? Isn't it the Protestants that have the reputation for being good educators?

iguana

We've hit the start of the baptism expectations (baby due in 3 weeks). At the weekend my nana has passed the family christening robe onto my mother for me. I hate the thought of disappointing her as she's had a rough few years and my baby is a big source of happiness to her but my mother assures me she'll accept that we feel it would be hypocritical to participate in a ceremony we don't believe in.

And what we suspect was my parents-in-law's dream of a Christmas time triple baptism, our baby and my sister-in-law's twins, was crushed yesterday when they suggested that my sister-in-law arrange a meeting with the church only to be told that the twins aren't being baptised. Apparently the school issue was brought up.

I really look forward to the point when comments to new parents about baptisms are queries rather than expectations.

keane2097 wrote: »

Since when are Catholic schools any good anyway? Isn't it the Protestants that have the reputation for being good educators?

I don't think it's so much that people think they are especially good but more that they are the vast majority so if you can't get into a Catholic school you have a very limited pool to choose from.

Dades

Best of luck with the nipper, iguana!

Hotblack Desiato

lazygal wrote: »

Fast forward to getting their children a place in the local Catholic school and its full to capacity. So they've no choice, in a delicious twist, but to attend the Educate Together and give that they have to be a LOT more involved in the organisation of communion and confirmation instruction

Kinda disgusted though that a valuable ET place would go reluctantly to the likes of them rather than to the many people who would actively choose it if they had the choice,

Hotblack Desiato

iguana wrote: »

We've hit the start of the baptism expectations (baby due in 3 weeks). At the weekend my nana has passed the family christening robe onto my mother for me. I hate the thought of disappointing her as she's had a rough few years and my baby is a big source of happiness to her but my mother assures me she'll accept that we feel it would be hypocritical to participate in a ceremony we don't believe in.

In 80s Ireland she'd baptise your child secretly in the kitchen sink rather than have it remain a 'heathen'. I'm not making this up, a friend of my mother's did this to her grandchild. It's not impossible that could happen today, so don't leave her alone with the child near water

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

Kinda disgusted though that a valuable ET place would go reluctantly to the likes of them rather than to the many people who would actively choose it if they had the choice,

A problem which can be solved by providing more places in Catholic schools, enough for every parent who wants one.

Ironic, no?

Hotblack Desiato

Peregrinus wrote: »

A problem which can be solved by providing more places in Catholic schools, enough for every parent who wants one.

Ironic, no?

Yeah because 93% of schools just isn't enough to cater for 84%* of the population






*.. and of couse we all know that 84% figure is HIGHLY dubious.

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

Yeah because 93% of schools just isn't enough to cater for 84%* of the population

Well, apparently it isn't, at least in some instances, because lazygal's relatives wanted to get their kids into the neighbourhood Catholic school, and there was no place for them.

I'm being mischeivous, of course. The better solution would not be more Catholic schools places, but more ET school places so there was enough for everyone who wanted one, plus everyone who wanted a Catholic (or other) place but couldn't get one.

But there is a serious point here. If the provision of Catholic school places is restricted, or stopped entirely, then it will more and more be the case that places in ET schools (or other multi-faith or secular schools) will be sought by parents who actually wanted placed in Catholic schools. This will not only make it more diffcult for people who actually prefer places in ET schools to get them, but as the make-up of the school community changes it will also tend to change the character of the schools themselves.

ninja900 wrote: »

*.. and of couse we all know that 84% figure is HIGHLY dubious.

Well, those of us who think we have a better right to determine other people's religious identity for them than they have themselves know that the 84% figure is highly dubious. The rest of us accept that it's accurate. Disappointing, perhaps, but accurate.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

But there is a serious point here. If the provision of Catholic school places is restricted, or stopped entirely, then it will more and more be the case that places in ET schools (or other multi-faith or secular schools) will be sought by parents who actually wanted placed in Catholic schools. This will not only make it more diffcult for people who actually prefer places in ET schools to get them, but as the make-up of the school community changes it will also tend to change the character of the schools themselves.

Fortunately, you already countered your own argument, otherwise I'd feel compelled to point out that it would only be true if the total number of school places was dropping;

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm being mischeivous, of course. The better solution would not be more Catholic schools places, but more ET school places so there was enough for everyone who wanted one, plus everyone who wanted a Catholic (or other) place but couldn't get one.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Fortunately, you already countered your own argument, otherwise I'd feel compelled to point out that it would only be true if the total number of school places was dropping;

Actually, no. If we assume that the total number of school places is unchanged, but the number of Catholic school places goes down and the number of ET school places goes up (and, for simplicity, the number of school places of every other type is unchanged) then the result must be fewer people getting into Catholic schools, and an increase in the number of people who want to get into Catholic schools but can’t. And that increase is likely to find its way disproportionately to the only sector where there is growth, which is the ET schools.

I still think we should reduce places in Catholic schools and increase them in ET schools, though, since the proportion of people seeking places in ET schools who can’t get one is, I reckon, much, much higher than the proportion of people who seek places in Catholic schools but can’t get one, which is obviously unjust to those who want places in ET schools.

But I don’t think we can pretend that ET schools won’t be affected by this. One of the problems Catholic schools have had in the past is the proportion of people who send their kids there, despite the fact that it’s not really the school type that they want; it’s just the one they can get. The more mainstream ET schools become, and the larger the network of ET schools grows, they more they will have to deal with the same phenomenon. I suppose it’s an inevitable aspect of moving from being a marginalized minority, where you can at least be pure and exclusive and picky, to being mainstream, where you can’t.

And of course cutting across this is the whole issue of academic standards and educational achievement. Other threads complain about the amount of time devoted to religion in church-linked primary schools. If this impacts academic outcomes, then you would expect non-religious schools to tend to have better academic outcomes, which in return will attract a significant cohort of parents for whom the non-religious nature of the school is not an attraction, and may even be a drawback, but one they are willing to put up with in order to get little Fachtna into the school that will start him on the road to assured capitalist prosperity.

Obliq

Peregrinus wrote: »

And of course cutting across this is the whole issue of academic standards and educational achievement. Other threads complain about the amount of time devoted to religion in church-linked primary schools. If this impacts academic outcomes, then you would expect non-religious schools to tend to have better academic outcomes,.....

This is an issue I have talked about before - I don't believe it DOES impact on academic outcomes. This is primary school after all, and it is only a certain standard in each subject that needs to be achieved before secondary. In my experience, that standard has been achieved in the typical small N.S. my kids went to, but at the expense of much more input from parents in terms of homework. We parents basically cater for the shortfall in the teaching of the curriculum in communion/confirmation years with much more homework and much more pressure on the children to rush through subjects.

For some kids who are self-starters, this might not present a huge problem, as with my eldest. My youngest on the other hand, has an SNA and learning support and getting any homework done is entirely dependent on how much pressure he feels he is under. Luckily, being non-religious, he gets to sit-out religion class and do some of his homework then.

Peregrinus

Obliq wrote: »

This is an issue I have talked about before - I don't believe it DOES impact on academic outcomes. This is primary school after all, and it is only a certain standard in each subject that needs to be achieved before secondary. In my experience, that standard has been achieved in the typical small N.S. my kids went to, but at the expense of much more input from parents in terms of homework. We parents basically cater for the shortfall in the teaching of the curriculum in communion/confirmation years with much more homework and much more pressure on the children to rush through subjects.

I’m not sure that this makes complete sense. If the time devoted to religion creates a deficit of any kind that must be made up by parental effort, well, we know that not all parents will make the effort. Every teacher knows that kids come from different homes, in terms of how academically supportive they are, and the more reliance is placed on academic support at home then the greater will be the gap between those kids who come from supportive homes, who will do OK, and those who don’t, who will fall further and further behind. If it is the case that time devoted to religion creates a deficit which must be made up at home, then you’d expect religious schools to produce poorer outcomes than non-religious ones, all other things being equal (unless religious schools also manage to attract the kids with the most supportive parents, which I doubt).

Having said that, I’m inclined to agree with you that devoting time to religion does not materially affect outcomes at primary level. The importance of primary education is not what the child learns so much as that the child learns to learn - i.e. he learns the mental, emotional, social, technical, etc skills needed for understanding and creativity. That’s why a junior primary class can spend most of a term studying little but, stay, dinosaurs, or volcanoes; the topic is chosen because it engages them, and what they are learning is not vulcanology or palaeontology but the art of learning itself. Consequently the allocation of time between different subjects in the primary years is of comparatively little importance in terms of what is achieved.

But, in fact, that’s a bit of a side issue. Whether it’s due to saving time on religion or not, it’s inevitable that some non-religious schools will develop a reputation for high academic outcomes, and the more non-religious schools there are the more schools will develop such a reputation. And this (as well as shrinking availability in Catholic schools) will provide another “draw” to those non-religious schools which has nothing to do with their non-religious character. Which, in turn, (a) will tend to dilute the distinctive character that they presently tend to enjoy (they’ll no longer have a school community who chose them largely for their non-religious ethos) and (b) will mean that parents who are drawn by that ethos will increasingly compete for places with (and sometimes lose out to) parents who aren’t. But I don’t think this can be avoided, if non-religious schools are to become mainstream. And the problem that ninjagirl points to back in post #133 is, while unfortunate for those who are affected by it, perhaps a cheering sign that ET schools are become more mainstream.

Obliq

I imagine that I can be thankful never to have had an issue with availability of school places, in that I never had a choice! In rural areas, most people don't have the luxury of actually choosing a school that best fits our perspective, we just make do with what is on offer, ie. the N.S. or some place very far afield.

While I do find it unfortunate that so much time is allocated to religion, I can see that the majority of parents around here being catholic, are very well pleased by the continuation of communion/confirmation studies within the school system. As has been mentioned before, and I agree - I imagine a sizeable number of parents would have great difficulty in dragging their children through the religious learning required by the church for these initiation ceremonies, if the learning had to be carried out in their home time.

But this begs the question is it right? Is it right that parents must pick up the slack in the curriculum teaching, regardless of religious belief, in order that religious parents can enjoy the status quo? I don't think it's fair, and I would much rather see a complete separation of church and state in terms of schooling. However, I see no chance of things going my way, fair or not. If parents all over the country were given the choice to take this element of religious education out of primary schools, I believe most Catholic people would vote according to their own best interests - obviously, not to have to tackle the work with their children within the home.

Banbh

There are really three groups in the scools: non-religious; practising Catholics; non-practising Catholics.

With an increasing number of non-religious kids in the National (Catholic) Schools, the majority - the non-practising Catholics - are inclining to non-religion rather than towards the minority practising-Catholic position.

This is purely based only on my own experience and on conversation with parents in other schools but I suspect it is more general. Once one parent asserts his/her right to have his/her child not participate in religious education, others join in. If parents are required to teach their children their religion I suspect we will have a big increase in the numbers opting out of religion instruction.

One thing we non-religious must watch out for is the renaming of Catholic instruction as Religious Education which is done at Second Level under the guise of studying all religions.

Obliq

Very true. I keep an eye on what my eldest is being taught in secondary during religious education, but as he is a son of mine, I don't really have to! If there was any attempt to portray one religion as better than another, or any attempt to invalidate his own beliefs, he'd be on it like a shot

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Actually, no. If we assume that the total number of school places is unchanged, but the number of Catholic school places goes down and the number of ET school places goes up (and, for simplicity, the number of school places of every other type is unchanged) then the result must be fewer people getting into Catholic schools, and an increase in the number of people who want to get into Catholic schools but can’t. And that increase is likely to find its way disproportionately to the only sector where there is growth, which is the ET schools.

Yes but that does not mean it becomes "more diffcult for people who actually prefer places in ET schools to get them."
Because in this scenario, there are an equivalent number of new places available in the ET schools to take the pupils who are transferring across from religious schools.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Yes but that does not mean it becomes "more diffcult for people who actually prefer places in ET schools to get them."
Because in this scenario, there are an equivalent number of new places available in the ET schools to take the pupils who are transferring across from religious schools.

Well, think this though.

Suppose 10% of school places are in non-religious schools and 90% in religious schools. Suppose also that 20% of parents would prefer a place in a non-religious school. Obviously, the chance of getting the place they want is 1 in 2. (Slightly less, in fact, since some places in non-religious schools are already taken up by people who want a place in a religious school, but can’t get one, but let’s ignore that for simplicity).

Now suppose that I transfer schools representing another 10% of places from religious to non-religious schools, by changing the management/patronage of the schools.

We now have 20% of places in non-religious schools. But the number seeking such places is now 30% - the 20% who sought them before, plus the 10% who used to find places in Catholic schools, but now no longer can. (There’s a slight overlap between those two figures, but let’s ignore that too.)

So, if you apply for a place in a non-religious school, your chance of getting it is now 2 in 3, which is obviously better than 1 in 2. But probably one-third of successful applicants will be people who, given their choice, would take a place in a religious school (since that’s the make-up of the applicant group). So, of the 20% of students who now find a place in a non-religious schools, 13.3% actually want one, and 6.7% would rather be somewhere else.

You’re right; the position of those wanted places in non-religious schools has improved – they used to have a 1:2 chance of getting the place they want, but now they have a 2:3 chance. But that still leaves a large minority who don’t get the place they want. And those who do get the place they want find that it’s now in a school whose character is materially different, since one-third of the school community are now not supportive of the ethos, which was not the case before.

Of course, this is a grossly oversimplified model. It assumes that everyone who is in a non-religious school is there because they want to be, which we already know is not the case. But I suggest it’s much more the case now than it is in Catholic schools – and it’s inevitable that, as the non-religious sector grows larger, it will become less the case.

That might be a price worth paying if it meant that parents seeking a place in a non-religious school could be confident that they would get one. But in this model, while their position improves, it’s still far from satisfactory – the outcome is different for only one in six of the parents seeking a non-religious place - and they pay quite a price in terms of dilution of ethos to achieve that degree of improvement.

Tombo2001

Obliq wrote: »

Very true. I keep an eye on what my eldest is being taught in secondary during religious education, but as he is a son of mine, I don't really have to! If there was any attempt to portray one religion as better than another, or any attempt to invalidate his own beliefs, he'd be on it like a shot

If that did happen, not withstanding your final comment, what could you do about it.....

Bannasidhe

Tombo2001 wrote: »

If that did happen, not withstanding your final comment, what could you do about it.....

Probably what I did when my son was given detention for objecting when during his 'religious studies' class the teacher described Hare Krishna as a new cult (isn't every creed essentially a cult?) and was frankly outrageously, hate mongeringly, ignorant about Islam. Son explained the connection between Hare Krishna and Hinduism and corrected her about Islam so wham! detention.
Head Master got a visit the next day and a lecture about poor standards, sectarian rhetoric and, given the fact that his school advertises itself as multi-denominational and had (still has) students of all faiths and none ( including Hindus and Muslims), a threat of a letter to the dept. of Education.
...son no longer had detention.

Tombo2001

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Probably what I did when my son was given detention for objecting when during his 'religious studies' class the teacher described Hare Krishna as a new cult (isn't every creed essentially a cult?) and was frankly outrageously, hate mongeringly, ignorant about Islam. Son explained the connection between Hare Krishna and Hinduism and corrected her about Islam so wham! detention.
Head Master got a visit the next day and a lecture about poor standards, sectarian rhetoric and, given the fact that his school advertises itself as multi-denominational and had (still has) students of all faiths and none ( including Hindus and Muslims), a threat of a letter to the dept. of Education.
...son no longer had detention.

is that multi-denominational in ethos or in its student population.....either way its depressing to hear that.

Obliq

What she said Although it has to be said (in fairness to the school my lad goes to) that the comments he's had in his reports regarding religion class are invariably 'participates very well, always polite and informative'. In answer to the question though, I'd be straight in there too.

Bannasidhe

Tombo2001 wrote: »

is that multi-denominational in ethos or in its student population.....either way its depressing to hear that.

Both - although one could posit that the former is alleged while the latter is reality.