Quinn: Schools spend too much time on religion and Irish

Permabear

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franktheplank

But then we'd have to pay the teachers a 'not teaching Irish and religion so much any more' allowance.

Grayson

Permabear wrote: »

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I Think science in primary school consisted of a nature ramble for me.

Would most teachers in primary school even be able to teach basic science at this stage?

Permabear

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Pilotdude5

Good. I would be in favour of removal of religion from both secondary and primary, and make Irish an option in both.

gallag

What's the point in Irish? It's like Ulster Scotts, the child would benefit from learning French or German etc. I think sport and religion should be scrapped and sports clubs on Saturdays and religion on Sundays if required. That way children will not be sent home with houres of homework destroying family time.

Permabear

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slarkin123

I think religion should be kept out every public school. If parents are that pushed about kids having a religious education then the church should set Upanishads Sunday school type of thing. Preparation for holy communion and confirmation takes up way too much time which could have been spent on more beneficial subjects to the children.

Irish on the other hand i feel should stay. Its part of our culture and it would be sad to lose it. My dilemma when sending my first child to school was i wanted them to be fluent in their own language but every Irish school had a catholic ethos. They are in an Irish school now and i find in 3rd class most of their homework consists of learning religious prayers for communion. I had approached the principal about the possibility of my child not making her communion and it was seen as a big no no.

Seaneh

Religion shouldn't be thought in public schools.

I think Irish should be changed entirely, it should be 100% conversational until after junior cert year. And then optional academic classes.

Opinicus

I spent thirteen years of my life learning Irish and I still can't string a sentence together in Irish if you asked me. Learned more French in five years. We should be teaching young people HTML and logic instead of wasting their time learning something they'll never use.

As for religion, there's no place for it in a state school.

Mr Whirly

slarkin123 wrote: »

I think religion should be kept out every public school. If parents are that pushed about kids having a religious education then the church should set Upanishads Sunday school type of thing. Preparation for holy communion and confirmation takes up way too much time which could have been spent on more beneficial subjects to the children.

I feel the same way about Irish as you do about religion. It should be taught outside school to people interested in learning it. Academic subjects in school should be beneficial to students and not a complete waste of time, money and resources.

VinLieger

There is absolutely no reason for religion to be taught in schools along side factual and useful subjects.
If parents want to force their own backwards and archaic beliefs onto their children its up to them to do it themselves, crossing my fingers that disgusting brainwashing will outlawed soon enough as well though

cmssjone

Permabear wrote: »

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With regards to Maths, Ireland's ranking is set to plummet thanks to the ill conceived Project Maths debacle. I'm sure this has been covered in other threads.

As for Irish, it is part of your heritage and should remain in some form. Perhaps, as in Wales, it should be compulsory until Junior Cert and then made optional.

MUSEIST

Learning irish is a complete waste of time and resources, it should only be an optional subject for those who are genuinely interested (in my experience most people had a strong dislike for the language). As for religion, well that has no place in schools unless it's teaching a broad range of religions and history of religion and even then that time could be spent on more relevant subjects.

slarkin123

MUSEIST wrote: »

Learning irish is a complete waste of time and resources, it should only be an optional subject for those who are genuinely interested (in my experience most people had a strong dislike for the language). As for religion, well that has no place in schools unless it's teaching a broad range of religions and history of religion and even then that time could be spent on more relevant subjects.

Making Irish optional is a very good idea.

Permabear

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redandwhite

VinLieger wrote: »

There is absolutely no reason for religion to be taught in schools along side factual and useful subjects.
If parents want to force their own backwards and archaic beliefs onto their children its up to them to do it themselves, crossing my fingers that disgusting brainwashing will outlawed soon enough as well though

Yeah.

Total waste of time teaching kids about one of the most influential forces in human life, both past and present.

gallag

The Irish language is dyeing and people are using children as its life support. Can anyone make an argument for learning a dead language over a language that could help with employment and communication with other people in the world? Most people will not speak three languages so filling their head full of irrelevance for your own romantic ideals.

I think that every child should be tought sign language then everyone in the world could communicate.

My name is URL

slarkin123 wrote: »

Making Irish optional is a very good idea.

How would that work exactly? What if only 10% of kids opt to study Irish? Would it be justified to employ a teacher just for them?

VinLieger

redandwhite wrote: »

Yeah.

Total waste of time teaching kids about one of the most influential forces in human life, both past and present.

The history and power of religion is taught in history class, but teaching children how to worship and that one relgion out of the hundreds of other choices out there is the right one as a subject in school is just plain wrong

anncoates

I don't think it's such a bad thing to make the national language compulsory. albeit taught in a context that might bring it to life a little.

while I agree that a grounding in sciences is good thing, I'd hate to see education (especially primary) becoming solely a dull employment-orientated exercise.

Religious instruction should not be taught at any school level. People have places of worship and the home to practice their faith in. Perhaps history curricula could be expanded to give an overview of religion in a strictly historical and informative sense.

c_man

He's dead right. And one of the few in Government who I think is actually trying to do some good :eek:

Solair

He's right though. Our curriculum is not fit for purpose at all.

I would add to his list :

1) No science / none worth mentioning at primary level.

2) Very poor choice of foreign languages in most schools with a major over-emphasis on French. Spanish is actually easier to learn and much more widely spoken and useful if you're going to pick a latin language to teach and not enough schools are offering German.
Mandarin Chinese could be offered, but it's probably too difficult to teach in the context of a school curriculum to be honest.
We should probably offer Polish too, there are loads of poles living here and probably quite a few who would be ready to teach with primary degrees in Polish. There could also be quite a few people capable of teaching Russian here too.

3) We have too much duplication of schools.
Think of the overheads involved in having umpteen different primary schools in any given area all because we have this notion that girls can't be educated with boys and that catholics and protestants and non-religious types all have to be segregated.

It is institutional sectarianism, sexism and class-discrimination. We can't see it because that's what we grew up with and we think it's normal. Compared to most countries in the developed world, the Irish (and to a degree the British) educational system is absolutely weird in that regard.

Can you imagine the uproar that would go on if someone suggested that universities should be single sex and religiously divided up, or any other aspect of public service for that matter?

Anyone been to the catholic female-only motortax office recently?

Every one of those schools has buildings maintenance, and more importantly a principal on a very hefty salary. We need fewer principals and fewer, better organised facilities to house schools in.

I would propose as an interim measure, that primary schools be organised into school districts with one principal per district.
Maybe take all the schools in one suburb / one town (work it on some population model) and then merge them when the funds are available. But, in the interim perhaps use the existing buildings as a single organisation.

Obviously, they couldn't just fire the principals, but they could just not hire new ones. Most of them would be in their 50s anyway so it's not like they've long to go in the job.

KamiKazeKitten

gallag wrote: »

I think that every child should be tought sign language then everyone in the world could communicate.

And I like the idea, but there are different kinds of sign language in the world, fyi.

Stained Class

AFIK, Science was on the primary school curriculum untill 1922. It was then abandoned to facilitate the teaching of Irish.

My name is URL

gallag wrote: »

The Irish language is dyeing

lol... and the English one?

KamiKazeKitten

Fwiw I think religion has a place in schools - before you jump on me though I'd be supporting children learning a little bit about different religions instead of doing the whole Communion shebang.

Real Life

VinLieger wrote: »

The history and power of religion is taught in history class, but teaching children how to worship and that one relgion out of the hundreds of other choices out there is the right one as a subject in school is just plain wrong

agreed. religion has had a huge role in society for thousands of years so it needs to be taught but in a way that says heres what these people believe etc. not in a this is right kind of way. Id say an hour per week is enough to do this. Science should play a much larger role, there should be classes everyday for at least an hour on it.

gallag

My name is URL wrote: »

lol... and the English one?

Give me a break lol, I am on my phone.

Lelantos

gallag wrote: »

Give me a break lol, I am on my phone.

And driving?

cmssjone

My name is URL wrote: »

How would that work exactly? What if only 10% of kids opt to study Irish? Would it be justified to employ a teacher just for them?

If Irish was totally optional then I have a feeling that some schools would make it their USP that they still offered it. It would then be down to parental choice (to some degree) whether or not their child learnt Irish or not. Before people object and say that in some areas this choice would be removed from them, I totally agree.

Irish is part of your heritage and this should be embraced if at all possible. It would be a shame if the language became extinct. Give people a flavour and the opportunity to decide after studying for a few years. Other languages are started at JC level and there is no reason why Irish can't be one of these. I do believe it is pushed too much at primary level which probably alienates children at such a young age. They have more important things such as English, Science and Maths to be focusing on at this stage.