Quinn: Schools spend too much time on religion and Irish

MadsL

Ush1 wrote: »

So it would seem then that a lot of the catholic churches power today was indeed derived from the essentially being forced to send your kids to their schools? Cheers.

I don't think you will find that historically accurate. Could you show me when children were forced to attend only Catholic schools? Or any legislation on that?


Besides, you originally said that all of the catholic churches power was as a result of Religious Instruction, I merely said that not all of it was, and that people also attending mass was a factor.

Still nice to see you now agree with me.

Ush1

MadsL wrote: »

Let me answer that by asking you, if Religious Studies remains on the timetable, should it cover the fact that some people have no belief in God and that Atheism is a defined belief system?

As I've said, I don't think it's needed at all. The effects of certain religions could be explained in history. A lack of knowledge on the vast, wild and wonderful things people can come up with, I do not believe would in any real way inhibit a childs life, certainly not at the expense of anything more inportant. Don't have RE class and don't mention atheism, just let kids be kids, their imaginations are wild enough as it is.

MadsL wrote: »

You know, your attitude of mocking a rebuttal of your argument doesn't mean that you win that point. Far from it.

:eek:......................:pac:

MadsL wrote: »

So therefore Religious Studies should cover both the practices and effects of Religion, right? If psychology is the study of the "mad" (you would say 'twaddle') then RE/RS should examine the "mad" to get to the effects on society.

History covers the effects of religion and whatever practices may be relevant(most wouldn't be).

What are you proposing here exactly? Listing the practices of all religions or what?

MadsL

Ush1 wrote: »

As I've said, I don't think it's needed at all. The effects of certain religions could be explained in history. A lack of knowledge on the vast, wild and wonderful things people can come up with, I do not believe would in any real way inhibit a childs life, certainly not at the expense of anything more inportant. Don't have RE class and don't mention atheism, just let kids be kids, their imaginations are wild enough as it is.

Sure why educate them at all then. Most of the 'science' I was taught at primary level is ..um.. wrong. Or at least only half the story.

:eek:......................:pac:

I'm now really wondering if you actually think this helps you argument in some way. Quite bizarre.

History covers the effects of religion and whatever practices may be relevant(most wouldn't be).

Back to teaching the causes of WW1 through the medium of Modern Dance again, we have been down that road. You made some factious comment at the time, I guess that means you won that point (in your mind at least)

What are you proposing here exactly? Listing the practices of all religions or what?

Do I have to restate my position again? Here's a definition that pretty much covers my viewpoint. Notice the word secular.

the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.

Lelantos

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/debate-on-islam-and-evolution-has-to-be-called-off-after-revolt-by-student-societies-8418022.html

byhookorbycrook

Outside of the sacrament years,I would say there is nowhere the allocated time spent on teaching religion in many classrooms.

robman60

Jimoslimos wrote: »

If we can't teach Irish to an acceptable standard then we won't have any luck trying to replace it with other supposedly more useful ones.

Teaching languages isn't a matter of either/or. If you master one (fairly basic Irish) it makes subsequent ones easier to pick up.

Your post is very uninformed. Anyone who speaks English as a first language will find French (which I study) FAR easier than Irish. Irish bears almost no resemblance to English, whereas French has significant similarities. The primary languages still required for business are German and French, and there are over 2,000 job vacancies available in these fields with Irish companies stationed here and abroad currently.

As for your comment on learning subsequent languages: It's only really useful for subsequent languages if they bear similarities. For example, learning Italian would probably aid in acquiring Spanish down the line, but I don't believe learning Irish would benefit future language acquisition to the same degree.

I think it's nonsensical to coerce students to learn Irish. If the students that were actually interested were allowed to pursue it then everyone would benefit.


I say all of this as a fifth year student who hopes to do a degree in commerce and French, but I actually do like Irish. Just don't force people to do it as all.

Jimoslimos

robman60 wrote: »

Your post is very uninformed. Anyone who speaks English as a first language will find French (which I study) FAR easier than Irish. Irish bears almost no resemblance to English, whereas French has significant similarities. The primary languages still required for business are German and French, and there are over 2,000 job vacancies available in these fields with Irish companies stationed here and abroad currently.

As for your comment on learning subsequent languages: It's only really useful for subsequent languages if they bear similarities. For example, learning Italian would probably aid in acquiring Spanish down the line, but I don't believe learning Irish would benefit future language acquisition to the same degree.

I think it's nonsensical to coerce students to learn Irish. If the students that were actually interested were allowed to pursue it then everyone would benefit.


I say all of this as a fifth year student who hopes to do a degree in commerce and French, but I actually do like Irish. Just don't force people to do it as all.

If your argument had used German instead of French you might have had a case. As it is, German, Dutch and Swedish are all far closer to English than French or Irish are. English speakers have traditionally found French easier because of the lack of opportunity to learn any of the other languages, not because it is more closely related, which it isn't. I'd also wager that most Europeans would have less difficulty in learning Irish than the richer more complex English.

The problem isn't the language, it is the attitude people have in English-speaking countries to speaking any other language other than their mother-tongue. Ever been to Canada, might surprise you how few English-speakers have any interest in French despite the fact that most would have been exposed to a significant amount in school.

Learning a second language makes any subsequent one easier, including unrelated ones. Anyway if people are unable to grasp a relatively simple language like Irish good luck with any others, especially everyone's flavour of the month - Mandarin.

There has to be a certain level of coercion involved in teaching any subject to kids at school. Otherwise most would do nothing and end up being unduly influenced by their peers. You might think it's nonsensical but when I was your age I was equally disgusted I couldn't drop crap subjects like Economics to concentrate on proper sciences. Needless to say I've grown-up since and see the advantage of having had a broad education in a number of subjects.

Solair

There are a couple of things I don't understand when it comes to language teaching:

1) We have a HUGE resource of recent immigrants from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe who speak Polish, may have degrees in Polish or other languages like Russian. We should be encouraging kids to learn those languages. There's a huge advantage to having them and loads of potential teachers already in the country. There's also lots of possibilities of actually speaking them to people here in Ireland and taking trips to Poland or even Russia to do exchanges. It's a HUGE growth market, and probably more important than France in the medium and long term.

2) We should be teaching a hell of a lot more Spanish! Latin America's a vast and emerging market and Spain is extremely close if you want to practice your Español.

Of the Latin languages, Spanish is much easier to learn than French as it has simple, phonetic spelling, a very regular grammar structure and is a truly modern world language with a vast amount of literature, media content, music, etc all of which makes learning a language very easy.

There are 405 million native Spanish speakers and over 60 million who speak it as a 2nd language.

I speak French, but I consider it a fairly minor language in terms of the markets it allows you access to. There's WAY too much emphasis on it in school here. There are only 74 million native speakers, although many more 2nd language speakers. Realistically speaking, it's not the world-language it likes to think it is.

German's possibly useful, but it's only spoken in Germany, Austria and a very small area of Belgium and a bit of Italy and most Germans seem to manage very well in English anyway, rendering learning it a bit pointless in some respects.

Mandarin Chinese, Japanese or Korean are probably just too much of a major leap for most people to learn. Although it could be offered in school.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Jimoslimos wrote: »

If your argument had used German instead of French you might have had a case. As it is, German, Dutch and Swedish are all far closer to English than French or Irish are. English speakers have traditionally found French easier because of the lack of opportunity to learn any of the other languages, not because it is more closely related, which it isn't.

Despite sharing a common origin with the Germanic languages, English also shares much in common with French due to a combination of Latin influences and the fact that French was the official language of England between 1066 and 1362. There's certainly more overlap than between English and Irish.

Permabear

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Yes, but we're Number One in Irish and we're Number one in Religion. Take that, Germany! Take that, Norway! :rolleyes:

steddyeddy

The international ranking of 22nd in science is crazy. It's amazing the biomedical companies choose to come here at all. I thinkbthe universities pick up a lot ofvthe slack to be fair though. One UCD lecturer tells new undergraduates, "everything you have learned about biology in school so far is wrong".

RDM_83 again

steddyeddy wrote: »

The international ranking of 22nd in science is crazy. It's amazing the biomedical companies choose to come here at all. I thinkbthe universities pick up a lot ofvthe slack to be fair though. One UCD lecturer tells new undergraduates, "everything you have learned about biology in school so far is wrong".

Can I ask what is the point of wanting science taught at a primary school level? Its going to be wrong or at an incredibly basic level, I'm also unsure of the advantages of teaching science has anyway for the majority of people(that couldn't be replaced by some teaching on critical thinking and the experimental method). I must have carried out 100's of Titrations in 2nd level and 3rd level, however since I've never worked in industry I've literally never used any of that knowledge (i have science degree).

Though I suppose the AH answer is probably because scientists are more likely to be atheists :0

Solair

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Despite sharing a common origin with the Germanic languages, English also shares much in common with French due to a combination of Latin influences and the fact that French was the official language of England between 1066 and 1362. There's certainly more overlap than between English and Irish.

English is a germanic language with latin vocabulary. The structure's largely germanic.
It also has some strong influences from gaelic languages in it, particularly in things like the use of continuous tenses/forms which are quite unlike germanic and latin languages.

So, all in all it's a mixed bag. But there are a lot of similarities between French and English, for a lot of people it would be easier to pick up French than German as the vocabulary similarities would really make it easier. Phonetically, it's also not all that close to German either.

Structurally, it's probably most similar to Modern Dutch and maybe some of the Nordic languages, even though you'd struggle to pick up any of those, the underlying structure and the phonetics are quite similar to English. That's why Scandinavians and Dutch speakers usually pick up English without much difficulty and often speak it with almost no accent. Where as a Spanish-speaker, a French-speaker or even a German-speaker will have a lot more trouble doing that.

You could call English a bridge between the European Latin and Germanic languages really.

Canard

Jimoslimos wrote: »

If your argument had used German instead of French you might have had a case. As it is, German, Dutch and Swedish are all far closer to English than French or Irish are. English speakers have traditionally found French easier because of the lack of opportunity to learn any of the other languages, not because it is more closely related, which it isn't. I'd also wager that most Europeans would have less difficulty in learning Irish than the richer more complex English.

Learning a second language makes any subsequent one easier, including unrelated ones. Anyway if people are unable to grasp a relatively simple language like Irish good luck with any others, especially everyone's flavour of the month - Mandarin.

There has to be a certain level of coercion involved in teaching any subject to kids at school. Otherwise most would do nothing and end up being unduly influenced by their peers. You might think it's nonsensical but when I was your age I was equally disgusted I couldn't drop crap subjects like Economics to concentrate on proper sciences. Needless to say I've grown-up since and see the advantage of having had a broad education in a number of subjects.

I agree with you to an extent, but do you even speak French? It's extremely similar to English. And I never found Irish difficult, but it's definitely not "relatively easy" as you put it - it's actually quite difficult compared to any of the romance languages, and even German, not only by nature but by the fact that there are barely any online resources and so many different dialects and barely anywhere to practice it.

The problem is, in my opinion, that a broad education is sometimes foregone for the sake of Irish. I kind of liked it I guess, but I preferred French - so I was doing 2 languages, but 0 sciences. My school only offered biology and phys/chem; no physics class, no chemistry class, and no good biology teachers. But countless Irish teachers and religion teachers. That's a problem, and while it doesn't apply to all schools before someone jumps at me and says I implied that, I know my school wasn't the only one like that. I don't really mind, I probably would never have pursued science anyway, but the choice would have been nice.

MadsL

Patchy~ wrote: »

I agree with you to an extent, but do you even speak French?

All I read from this post was

"Bro, do you even French?"

The Interwebz has ruined me, ruined I tells ya.





I'll get me coat

Canard

MadsL wrote: »

All I read from this post was

"Bro, do you even French?"

The Interwebz has ruined me, ruined I tells ya.





I'll get me coat

Hahah, "DO YOU EVEN LIFT?" :pac: I hadn't meant it that way, I was just genuinely asking, it'd be hard not to notice that they're very similar and most people just assume German is more similar.

An Coilean

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

My main beef with secondary school history is that it completly glides over the more, eh, questionable acts of the irish side during the war of independence, or the Easter rising.

Such as?

mikemac1

In the 80's we were told German would be the 2nd language of the world

In early 90's it was Japanese. You young 'uns wouldn't remember

What is it these days?

An Coilean

More misguided attempts at populism from the Government.

Its just such a shame when these attempts lead to such bad ideas. We all know that the most important areas at primary level are the so-called three 'R' of reading, writing and arithmetic. Reducing the time spent on Irish will negatively impact literacy in our schools.

I have nothing against teaching Irish per se, but the results in terms of mastering the language simply aren't there.
Three years teaching, with one class a day should be enough to substantially master any language, yet after 10 years schooling we have kids who can't put a cupla focal together. The primary objective of Irish for the majority of kids should be to become verbally fluent and this should be achieved in primary school. The intricacies of declensions etc should be for those who later wish to study it academically.
At present our schools are producing graduates who can't even write english correctly, Just look at the numbers who finish school not knowing the difference between they're, their and there or lose and loose...
The priorities should be achieving high standards in english, maths (proper maths), science and modern languages.

PopePalpatine

An Coilean wrote: »

Its just such a shame when these attempts lead to such bad ideas. We all know that the most important areas at primary level are the so-called three 'R' of reading, writing and arithmetic. Reducing the time spent on Irish will negatively impact literacy in our schools.

And what about reducing the time spent on religion? Or would that "negatively impact morality in our schools", forgetting that the Bible is centred around the worship of a god who commits and condones horrific acts?

LiamMc

mikemac1 wrote: »

In the 80's we were told German would be the 2nd language of the world

In early 90's it was Japanese. You young 'uns wouldn't remember

What is it these days?

Japanese was understood to be a language of Global Trade for many decades, but I don't think many thought it would overtake a European origin language for 2nd place.

Futurists in early 1990's were predicting/anticipating Spanish (all variants) as overtaking French as the Global 2nd Language.
The reasoning was that most of North and South America spoke it.

While no timeline was given, the same futurists were advising to invest in companies involving Human Resources, Waste Management and Water Management.

MadsL

LiamMc wrote: »

Japanese was understood to be a language of Global Trade for many decades, but I don't think many thought it would overtake a European origin language for 2nd place.

Futurists in early 1990's were predicting/anticipating Spanish (all variants) as overtaking French as the Global 2nd Language.
The reasoning was that most of North and South America spoke it.

While no timeline was given, the same futurists were advising to invest in companies involving Human Resources, Waste Management and Water Management.

Spanish is the most widely spoken language in the world by number of native speakers outside of Chinese (Mandarin) if any language would have a claim to be Global second language it is Spanish not French. Spanish has over five times the number of native speakers. Arabic and Russian would also be more widely spoken than French as a second language.

An Coilean

PopePalpatine wrote: »

And what about reducing the time spent on religion? Or would that "negatively impact morality in our schools", forgetting that the Bible is centred around the worship of a god who commits and condones horrific acts?

It's possible, though from my recollection of Religion in school it was learning prayers and prep for the first communion more than morality focused, at least at primary level. Though that's not necessarily a failing that can readily be rectified, children at that age are not really able to learn abstract concepts, the kind of thing we are talking about is more along the lines of 'sharing is good', 'hitting other children is bold'.

I can see the case for removing all religion from schools, but I would be more inclined to leave it at the discretion of schools and the parents of children attending them. Though in areas where there is demand for it, the provision of non-catholic schools should be targeted.

tawnyowl

gallag wrote: »

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

There is more than one version of sign language - some are very different from others.

Stained Class

An Coilean wrote: »

It's possible, though from my recollection of Religion in school it was learning prayers and prep for the first communion more than morality focused, at least at primary level. Though that's not necessarily a failing that can readily be rectified, children at that age are not really able to learn abstract concepts, the kind of thing we are talking about is more along the lines of 'sharing is good', 'hitting other children is bold'.

I can see the case for removing all religion from schools, but I would be more inclined to leave it at the discretion of schools and the parents of children attending them. Though in areas where there is demand for it, the provision of non-catholic schools should be targeted.

Yeah whatever.

I'd prefer if they knocked that Irish yoke on the head.

Total waste of time, effort, resourses, money, prople's patience, etc

Irish was introduced into the Irish primary school curriculum after 1922.

It replaced Science.

Clever move, that was.

clairefontaine

Deleted User wrote: »

I have nothing against teaching Irish per se, but the results in terms of mastering the language simply aren't there.
Three years teaching, with one class a day should be enough to substantially master any language, yet after 10 years schooling we have kids who can't put a cupla focal together. The primary objective of Irish for the majority of kids should be to become verbally fluent and this should be achieved in primary school. The intricacies of declensions etc should be for those who later wish to study it academically.
At present our schools are producing graduates who can't even write english correctly, Just look at the numbers who finish school not knowing the difference between they're, their and there or lose and loose...
The priorities should be achieving high standards in english, maths (proper maths), science and modern languages.

This seems to be a fairly common opinion, or at least one I have a heard a lot, a general complaint about the inefficiency of language teaching. It would seem to make a lot more sense to me, given that immersion is really the best and only way to really learn a language, is to scrap the whole curriculum from junior infants onwards, and just send everyone to the gaeltacht for a few months at the end of secondary school or sometime in the middle. Far more cost effective and with better results. I agree that primary school is the best time to learn a language but it's not practical to send small kids off to language camp in the gaeltacht and it also seems the primary purpose of studying it is to do well on the leaving and not really to acquire the language for any reason other than an exam result. There probably are a handful that like and appreciate the language but they are probably in gaelscoil anyway so it's not an issue. It would also make sense that on the leaving certificate some kind of positive discrimination is given to those who don't live in a gaeltacht area, just off the top of my head an extra 10% or something like that to compensate for the disadvantage.

MadsL

Stained Class wrote: »

Irish was introduced into the Irish primary school curriculum after 1922. It replaced Science.

Clever move, that was.

Have you a source for that? Just curious if that's a myth?

Stained Class

MadsL wrote: »

Have you a source for that? Just curious if that's a myth?

It's no myth. Look it up.

I only found out about it recently & it made my blood boil.

MadsL

Stained Class wrote: »

It's no myth. Look it up.

Where? That's what I'm asking for.