Monk opens fire on Department of Education

robindch

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/the-outspoken-monk-who-says-we-need-to-change-our-teaching-habits-3308872.html

It's not often I'll come out and give an unreserved thumbs-up to the words of a priest, but Mark Patrick Hederman, current abbot of Glenstal Abbey and former headmaster of the school attached to the monastery, has published his thoughts on education in a book to be published next March:

Independent, excerpts wrote:

He said: "After 1,500 years of education the Benedictines have discovered that there are two species on the planet – men and women." [...]

He believes that the current orthodoxy that 800 is an optimum number in second-level schools is deeply flawed. "The Department of Education decided on that number at the same time that the Minister for Agriculture was proposing the same optimum number for pig farms." [...]

"The points system is no indication of how good an education is. The system is mind-numbing. It is the regurgitation in one single day of the year of material learned off by heart – such as facts about the stem of a plant. In an age when facts can be looked up on Google, it is an out-of-date exercise as ineffective as it is counter-productive."

He said it was absurd that success in an English Leaving Cert exam could be based on guesswork about which poet will come up. "The job of most English teachers is to make such predictions accurately. You're a great teacher if you guess correctly, you're a dud if you don't.''

Abbot Hederman said the second-level system is still based on an early 20th Century factory model. This sees schools as "assembly lines to provide children with chunks of knowledge necessary to work in a rigid hierarchical society where memory and obeying rules are all you need to be an efficient cog in the wheel. The number of days taken as holidays in the summer is a disgrace. Of course, teachers love their holidays, but they come from a time when children had to work.''

The abbot believes that schools have to fire the creative imagination of students if our education system is to succeed. He advocates a greater engagement by pupils with the natural world. "We should take children out into the country and use our coastline. They should be taken to the old estates that are dotted around the country. Having spent the morning being introduced to the natural world the afternoon can be spent expressing what they experienced. This could be in music or painting or literature. It can all be done in a much more dynamic way than the factory model, where they are sitting in the same clothes and the same rigid way all day. "

Abbot Hederman believes he benefited from not going to school until age nine. He was educated at home in Co Limerick by his mother, and had no structured lessons. "I was taught how to read and write, and that was it. It fed my curiosity. Because I was not told that I was in a particular age group I tended to think like an adult. When I eventually went to school I found the other students quite childish."

He believes imagination is being crowded out in the present curriculum. "Our children have no time for dilly-dallying, no space for inner or outer explorations, no opportunity for dreaming. Every minute of every day is full up with learning.''

I should declare an interest here since Patrick, then a Br now a Fr, attempted to teach me English for some years during the 1980's. Nonetheless, now that I read his opinions on education, I'm finding it hard to disagree with a word he's saying, and pleased to see that his wit, clarity and liberal views have not diminished.

Thoughts?

Sarky

I thought this thread would be about a gun-toting preacher.

Slightly disappointed.

Edit: But yeah, I see what he means, especially with how exams are regurgitating a year's worth of knowledge in one day. It's a sh*tty system where people cram as much as they can into a short space of time, and it's mostly forgotten before they're halfway out the door after time's up. I've been in postgrad classes with people who still think that way, who never bothered their arses coming in to practicals even though 90% of the course marks was based on the practical work. They thought if they just crammed for exams for the last two weeks they'd be fine, and spent the rest of the year faffing about like morons.

Galvasean

Sarky wrote: »

I thought this thread would be about a gun-toting preacher.

Slightly disappointed.

I was also thinking:

lazygal

I might take his comments on board were it not for the fact he's representing one of the most elite and expensive private Catholic schools in the country. If he was that interested in producing a different model of education, would he not spend his time in more deprived areas campaigning for more funding for overstretched public schools? Its very easy to have the time and space to ponder on educational models when you're not dealing with host of issues that go hand in hand with educating the poorest children who have the least possible chance of escaping poverty through education.

Obliq

Now there's a point. However, perhaps he's seen how his model works as he clearly has the scope given to him by the private school to go ahead and teach/say/do as he sees fit. From that position, he's probably better equipped to comment on how it could be, than some poor misfortunate teaching in an average secondary school and banging their heads off the wall.

Was JUST now having this very conversation with my 14 yr old, who is supposedly learning off reams of quotes, theorems, and verbs to regurgitate on a particular day in June. Funny how we all end up justifying ourselves to our children ("Well, I'm powerless to change the system individually. It's changing slowly and more people are aware that continuous assessment works well, for example, and it actually gets put towards your mark these days") in EXACTLY the same way as our parents did with us. Sigh.

Some of what he says sounds a lot like what we used to do on the mitch with some spliffs.

joseph brand

Deleted User wrote: »

Some of what he says sounds a lot like what we used to do on the mitch with some spliffs.

No shortage of 'imagining' there. Brushing up on ones' social skills, whilst opening the mind to the wonders of the world. Just don't drop your hash in the grass, you'll never find it. Lesson learned, badum-tish.

Hederman is quite right in what he says. Pretty progressive for a monk.

Personally, I thought 4th year of secondary school was a bit of a waste of time. I think we mitched most of it.

Nodin

joseph brand wrote: »

No shortage of 'imagining' there. Brushing up on ones' social skills, whilst opening the mind to the wonders of the world. Just don't drop your hash in the grass, you'll never find it. Lesson learned, badum-tish.

Hederman is quite right in what he says. Pretty progressive for a monk.

Personally, I thought 4th year of secondary school was a bit of a waste of time. I think we mitched most of it.

After 4th year I decided that education had nothing to offer me, so I departed for the wonderful world of the building site. Didn't come back to the leaving until 4 years later. Not the same school though, obviously.

strobe

I too would also like to express my disappointment at the fact that this wasn't a story about a monk, dressed in full brown hood and cloak monkosity, standing in front of the Department of Education headquarters with a cigar hanging out of his mouth, smiling an evil grin and muttering in a hoarse, croaky voice, a Latin phrase that I'm sure would be very clever and apt and humorous to me if I only spoke Latin, and then pulling two Tommy guns out of his cloak, one in each hand, and opening fire in the general direction of the bad guys while maintaining a maniac but stoic monkly stare.

I agree with his opinions on the awful way in which the education system is structured, but not his suggested solutions... take the lads out for a walk around 'the cliffs'? Nah. Would be nice for the lads, bit of a doss, sneak off for a sly smoke and a joint, get stuck into that sexy Niamh yoke down by the grassy knoll, but time could be better spent from an education point of view.

robindch

lazygal wrote: »

I might take his comments on board were it not for the fact he's representing one of the most elite and expensive private Catholic schools in the country. If he was that interested in producing a different model of education, would he not spend his time in more deprived areas campaigning for more funding for overstretched public schools?

"If he were that interested...". Patrick is an English teacher after all

But no, more seriously, there are a few items here:

Firstly, the high fees -- I believe they're around 15k per year, per pupil -- pay for one year's full board, as well as a range of extra-curricular activities. The state's contribution covers the state/union-mandated pay for a certain number of teachers only, the exact number of which is proportional to the number of pupils in the school. I also believe the school is run at a loss, with the difference being made up by the monastery from its own funds.

Secondly, as a teacher, headmaster and published author of many books, I think he's well-placed to discuss the creative side of education, rather than the side of education mandated by the Department of Education who, frankly, appear to have the imagination of rocks. And certainly, from my own education, while some of the regular leaving-cert stuff is useful in my job as a software developer, the best and most useful stuff is all from the creative side, where rote-learning was looked-down upon, where it was not actively abandoned.

But finally, as Obliq says, if he's in a position where he has the resources to try out things that other, less financially-straitened schools can't, then why not encourage that and find out what really is best for kids?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

robindch wrote: »

Thoughts?

I think he's contradicting himself in, on the one hand, wanting time for dreaming or whatever and on the other hand complaining about the length of holidays - which is presumably time for dreaming.

The points system is like democracy. Its the worst system, except for all the others. The points system at least brings some kind of objective measure to third level entry; it does greatly reduce the "educational" component of education. It doesn't eliminate it - there is some scope for people passing through the system to discover what they're good at.

Is there scope for something better? I think it has to start with a realistic idea of what we want people to get from education. I'm mindful of how, on the one hand, we sometimes bracket on about the need to produce science graduates, and the knowledge economy and so forth, and contrast that with a workmate who's young lad has graduated with a good degree in physics and maths, but can only get a few hours work per week as a substitute teacher.

And I've no fixed views, or understanding for that matter, of what we should be aspiring to. But, for what it's worth, I've two at primary level and one in secondary, and I think they're getting a lot more out of schooling than I did. What's there now is better than what was there thirty years ago.

recedite

He said: "After 1,500 years of education the Benedictines have discovered that there are two species on the planet – men and women."

Needs to brush up on his definition of "species" unless he thinks women are not suitable as sexual partners for men

robindch

recedite wrote: »

Needs to brush up on his definition of "species" unless he thinks women are not suitable as sexual partners for men

Having studied, for some years, the mating habits of both, I incline to the view that the two sexes are separate species.

Corkfeen

The Leaving Cert system is atrocious and the same applies to the Junior Cert. I was always rather passionate about history and English but I have a severe issue with memorising quotes or what is basically data.(It's related to a condition :pac: ) So I never really engaged properly in Junior Cert history and chose not to do it for the Leaving Cert. Any essays I wrote for English got good results but place me in an exam situation where I have to recite quotes and I'm fecked.... Another issue with English is that there's specific criteria that you have to fulfill in essays on plays or poems, it basically discourages critical analysis.

The funnier part is that I chose to do a degree in English and History.... I average a high 2.1 in English and should have a 1.1 in History by the time the year is through. I still have issues with exams but it's far less of an issue in contrast to the painfulness of the Leaving Cert. Neither subject has entirely predefined expectations and they encourage you to think. I have no knowledge on Leaving Cert history but the Junior Cert history essay consisted of a chronological retelling of events, I can't see any benefit in reciting a history book, university history expects you to engage with the content and the debates that surround it. I can see the logic in the latter.

It's said a lot that the people with the best memory get the highest points and to an extent it is true. It doesn't prepare anyone for college.

Onesimus

robindch wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/the-outspoken-monk-who-says-we-need-to-change-our-teaching-habits-3308872.html

It's not often I'll come out and give an unreserved thumbs-up to the words of a priest, but Mark Patrick Hederman, current abbot of Glenstal Abbey and former headmaster of the school attached to the monastery, has published his thoughts on education in a book to be published next March:

I should declare an interest here since Patrick, then a Br now a Fr, attempted to teach me English for some years during the 1980's. Nonetheless, now that I read his opinions on education, I'm finding it hard to disagree with a word he's saying, and pleased to see that his wit, clarity and liberal views have not diminished.

Thoughts?

I don't see anything liberal about homeschooling its the most conservative move one can make. lol I homeschool too.

strobe

Corkfeen wrote: »

It doesn't prepare anyone for college.

It doesn't prepare anyone for anything...

Corkfeen

strobe wrote: »

It doesn't prepare anyone for anything...

True that. :pac: I'm still astonished by us supposedly having the 11th best education system......

[-0-]

robindch wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/the-outspoken-monk-who-says-we-need-to-change-our-teaching-habits-3308872.html

It's not often I'll come out and give an unreserved thumbs-up to the words of a priest, but Mark Patrick Hederman, current abbot of Glenstal Abbey and former headmaster of the school attached to the monastery, has published his thoughts on education in a book to be published next March:

I should declare an interest here since Patrick, then a Br now a Fr, attempted to teach me English for some years during the 1980's. Nonetheless, now that I read his opinions on education, I'm finding it hard to disagree with a word he's saying, and pleased to see that his wit, clarity and liberal views have not diminished.

Thoughts?

Man who believes in talking snakes, walking on water and has imaginary friends to release book regarding flaws in our educational system.

Hilarious.

Doc Farrell

[-0-] wrote: »

Man who believes in talking snakes, walking on water and has imaginary friends to release book regarding flaws in our educational system.

Hilarious.

Not particularly hilarious since if it wasn't for the Benedictines there would be no schools or western civilization as we know it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastic_school

The views of an atheist bible literalist are about as insightful as a bible bashing literalist.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Did they do the aquaducts?

Nodin

[-0-] wrote: »

Man who believes in talking snakes, walking on water and has imaginary friends to release book regarding flaws in our educational system.

Hilarious.

How do you know he views things in such simplistic terms....?

robindch

Onesimus wrote: »

I don't see anything liberal about homeschooling its the most conservative move one can make.

Where the local school is dreadful for whatever reason, home-schooling is quite a rational choice and in Pat's case, I think it's worked out rather well.

In the case, however, of people -- mostly rather conservative -- who home-school in order to keep the big, bad world away from their little darlings, well, sooner or later, that'll come around and bite them in the ass when their kids grow up and discover that they are like sheep at a wolf's banquet.

robindch

[-0-] wrote: »

Man who believes in talking snakes, walking on water and has imaginary friends to release book regarding flaws in our educational system.

Patrick sits firmly on the (rapidly shrinking) liberal wing of the catholic church and has earned the ire of many of his more conservative co-religionists by questioning many of the tenets of catholic belief, and -- I believe -- by openly suggesting that much, or even most, of the bible is simply metaphorical. Given the direction the Vatican has been taking of late, his liberal position and approach are admirable in comparison.

Incidentally, remember Jennifer Sleeman of Clonakilty and her one-day boycott two years back? One of Sleeman's sons is a confrère of Patrick at Glenstal and I've always wondered how much of this, sadly very limited, anti-Vatican push in Clonakilty originated in Limerick.

Dades

Doc Farrell wrote: »

Not particularly hilarious since if it wasn't for the Benedictines there would be no schools or western civilization as we know it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastic_school

The views of an atheist bible literalist are about as insightful as a bible bashing literalist.

Why do people always assume that because Christianity has had a grip on our education for centuries, that it didn't exist there'd be an civilisational void where it existed?

Christianity itself filled a void that existed. If it wasn't that it would have been something else. Who knows, in an alternative universe maybe something other than Christianity took hold and those people are colonising the galaxy instead of persecuting each other and still peddling centuries old myths as fact.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Incidentally, remember Jennifer Sleeman of Clonakilty and her one-day boycott two years back? One of Sleeman's sons is a confrère of Patrick at Glenstal and I've always wondered how much of this, sadly very limited, anti-Vatican push in Clonakilty originated in Limerick.

I did not know that. Am close friends with one of Jennifer's daughters for over a decade and have met her sisters but she never mentioned having a brother...

Bannasidhe

Corkfeen wrote: »

The Leaving Cert system is atrocious and the same applies to the Junior Cert. I was always rather passionate about history and English but I have a severe issue with memorising quotes or what is basically data.(It's related to a condition :pac: ) So I never really engaged properly in Junior Cert history and chose not to do it for the Leaving Cert. Any essays I wrote for English got good results but place me in an exam situation where I have to recite quotes and I'm fecked.... Another issue with English is that there's specific criteria that you have to fulfill in essays on plays or poems, it basically discourages critical analysis.

The funnier part is that I chose to do a degree in English and History.... I average a high 2.1 in English and should have a 1.1 in History by the time the year is through. I still have issues with exams but it's far less of an issue in contrast to the painfulness of the Leaving Cert. Neither subject has entirely predefined expectations and they encourage you to think. I have no knowledge on Leaving Cert history but the Junior Cert history essay consisted of a chronological retelling of events, I can't see any benefit in reciting a history book, university history expects you to engage with the content and the debates that surround it. I can see the logic in the latter.

It's said a lot that the people with the best memory get the highest points and to an extent it is true. It doesn't prepare anyone for college.

Not doing history for the LC is a positive advantage when it comes to doing history at 3rd level. You can skip the bit where you have to unlearn the crap you learned off in school.

Zillah

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Not doing history for the LC is a positive advantage when it comes to doing history at 3rd level. You can skip the bit where you have to unlearn the crap you learned off in school.

How's that?

Bannasidhe

Zillah wrote: »

How's that?

For the same reason that LC history text books are not accepted as reliable sources in 3rd level.
They are biased but presented as objective history.
They are inaccurate but presented as 'factual'.

The LC history course is the absolute opposite to how history should be approached and a great deal of time in University is wasted countering 'but in school we learned...'
Better off starting from scratch and learning how to do it properly.

[-0-]

Bannasidhe wrote: »

For the same reason that LC history text books are not accepted as reliable sources in 3rd level.
They are biased but presented as objective history.
They are inaccurate but presented as 'factual'.

The LC history course is the absolute opposite to how history should be approached and a great deal of time in University is wasted countering 'but in school we learned...'
Better off starting from scratch and learning how to do it properly.

I'll also add that 2nd level is learning dates. "What happened on xxx", for instance. It's more important to know what happened, exactly when it happened is secondary IMO.

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

They are biased but presented as objective history. They are inaccurate but presented as 'factual'.

Evidence?

Having given up history in 2nd year in secondary school, it's certainly been years since I've seen anything good or bad. The last book I read from was, so far as I recall, Modern Ireland since 1850 which I believe was one of the approved LC texts. Are you aware of anything specifically wrong with this book?

That said, I do remember reading stuff touted as history books in fifth and sixth class in primary school -- all containing lavish descriptions of the penury, but muted glory, of the Irish and the endless perfidy of the English -- and even at the tender age of what I suppose must have been nine or ten, sniffing a very large rat.

Bannasidhe

[-0-] wrote: »

I'll also add that 2nd level is learning dates. "What happened on xxx", for instance. It's more important to know what happened, exactly when it happened is secondary IMO.

See that all the time. 3rd level students going into exams frantically learning off dates.

If I was to learn off every single 'important' date I'd need a portable head harddrive to plug into a usb socket in my ear.

We tell them - ballpark dates unless it's a pivotal event we do not expect you to know every single date - but we do expect you to demonstrate an understanding of what happened and present a plausible explanation of why it happened.

Looking for evidence of a functioning brain rather than a functioning memory is the main requirement.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Evidence?

Having given up history in 2nd year in secondary school, it's certainly been years since I've seen anything good or bad. The last book I read from was, so far as I recall, Modern Ireland since 1850 which I believe was one of the approved LC texts. Are you aware of anything specifically wrong with this book?

That said, I do remember reading stuff touted as history books in fifth and sixth class in primary school -- all containing lavish descriptions of the penury, but muted glory, of the Irish and the endless perfidy of the English -- and even at the tender age of what I suppose must have been nine or ten, sniffing a very large rat.

Rarely teach Modern Ireland but have listened to the rants from colleagues who do about that particular text book as not only being biased but containing factual inaccuracies. I did read son's copy and it really is awful.

Have had the displeasure of reading some of the Early Modern text books and the Reformation stuff is appalling - Luther very bad man who dared to criticize Rome, Calvin very bad man who jumped on Luther's bandwagon. How very dare they say Rome was corrupt. Ohhhh - Look at this lovely ceiling Michelangelo did.

As for the Early Modern Irish history - it appears that Gaelic Irishmen* existed in some Celtic twilight zone until called into existence only to oppose the perfidious English who were trying to make them all Protestant.
Hiram Morgan is slowly rewriting the text books on the Irish bit but it's only just slowly coming on-line as part of the curriculum now.

*There were no Gaelic Irishwomen apart from a stroppy bint in Mayo with a strangely English name who was a pirate queen.

Bannasidhe

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Have had the displeasure of reading some of the Early Modern text books and the Reformation stuff is appalling - Luther very bad man who dared to criticize Rome, Calvin very bad man who jumped on Luther's bandwagon. How very dare they say Rome was corrupt. Ohhhh - Look at this lovely ceiling Michelangelo did.

Eh? Only took it up to JC but we never had that slant on things
Must have been a better textbook
I didn't go to a catholic school either

Bannasidhe

bluewolf wrote: »

Eh? Only took it up to JC but we never had that slant on things
Must have been a better textbook
I didn't go to a catholic school either

Which may or may not explain a lot....

Yeah, just occurred to me at the end so I threw it in
it would be mad if that was the thing and it's slanted everywhere else

robindch

robindch wrote: »

[...] his thoughts on education in a book to be published next March:

Turns out the book has been published already for anybody interested:

http://www.glenstal.org/shop/

vitani

robindch wrote: »

Turns out the book has been published already for anybody interested:

http://www.glenstal.org/shop/

Veritas have it as well, although it's 4c dearer.

http://www.veritasbooksonline.com/the-boy-in-the-bubble.html

Might pick up a copy. I heard Hederman speak on Marian Finucane a couple of months ago, and was quite impressed with what he had to say about education here.

Delirium

He was on Newstalk this morning, his suggestions for education sounded very like Ken Robinson's ideas for reforming education.