Compulsory Irish in schools

Foxhound38

Richard Bruton has announced today a plan for all Junior Cert students to be studying a foreign language in the next few years.

I am all for that (in fact I thought it was already the case) - anything that helps our young communicate with a larger share of the world than they already can is a plus in my book.

Which brings me to the question in the thread - is our insistence on compulsory Irish in the curriculum worth the cost in terms of both money and the time that could be spent teaching something else?

Don't get me wrong, it should always be an option for those that wish to take it, but given the lack of real world utility for this language (given that the people who use it can also communicate in English perfectly well when the situation calls for it - unlike for example the majority of those who predominantly communicate through Mandarin Chinese or Russian for example) beyond what is essentially a hobby for the gaeilgeoir communuity, does it even do the language any favors to force it down the throats of those that can't see any use for it, at least at Leaving Cert level when most students are likely stressing about subjects that they may be more likely to actually use in later life? This way too, those that actually WANT to study the language can at a level that doesn't need to take into account the uninterested.

What think you, AH?

biko

I think this have been discussed a couple times before

On topic, I see no need to teach Lithuanian and Polish in school, but Spanish, French, German and Mandarin could be very useful.
There should be still Irish taught, but in a different way that focus less on grammar and more on practical applications.

Sleepy

No, it isn't. But there'll be a dozen posters along in the next few minutes that I'm not a "real" Irishman for believing so and that I'm ignorant of our "culture".

Chancer3001

Yawn

eviltwin

It should always be an optional subject. It makes no sense to me that we teach our children a language that has no practical use outside our little island at the expense of other more useful subjects. We waste time on religion and irish and don't have adequate PE, science or computing but hopefully in time that will change.

Ken.

Mod-Sorry but I'm going to jump in here early. This has been a very emotive topic before in After Hours. Please keep it civil.

Mrs OBumble

Yes. Learning any 2nd language from a young age helps give people the skills to learn a 3rd etc.

We have more teachers qualified to teach kids irish than to teach them a useful 2nd language.

MrMorooka

I'd be interested in hearing if there is any anglophone country that successfully teaches a foreign language in schools, such that there is actually a decent level of ability in the general population. Maybe Canada with French?

To me it seems that there is no established method of foreign language learning for English-speaking countries, like how in many European countries people generally have a decent level of fluency in English as well as their native language and maybe another. I can't think of an English speaking country where that is the case, anglophone=monolingual usually. Would love to hear more about Canada in that respect.

Agricola

Im assuming it hasn't changed much in 15 odd years but Irish always had the wrong vibe in primary & secondary school. This gobbledegook that we all knew we'd never need and which was rammed down our throats with way too much emphasis on the academic/grammatic side of it, as opposed to real world applications.

The money and man hours that has been sank into it over decades can only be viewed as a waste of resources. I don't care what the aspirational census says, only a small percentage of the population can carry a conversation in Irish. It's time to make it optional.

An Ciarraioch

Agricola wrote: »

Im assuming it hasn't changed much in 15 odd years but Irish always had the wrong vibe in primary & secondary school. This gobbledegook that we all knew we'd never need and which was rammed down our throats with way too much emphasis on the academic/grammatic side of it, as opposed to real world applications.

The money and man hours that has been sank into it over decades can only be viewed as a waste of resources. I don't care what the aspirational census says, only a small percentage of the population can carry a conversation in Irish. It's time to make it optional.

There has reportedly been a greater shift towards oral Irish at all levels, perhaps the total immersion approach would be best for teaching all languages. As for the main topic, keep it compulsory at primary level, perhaps up to Junior Cert, but make it optional for the Leaving Cert. Portuguese would seem the most useful addition of the proposed languages, given the rise of Brazil.

Arcade_Tryer

Barbie! wrote: »

Mod-Sorry but I'm going to jump in here early. This has been a very emotive topic before in After Hours. Please keep it civil.

This is essentially the problem with compulsory Irish and nationalism based policy in general. Reason and logic are trumped by emotion and tradition. And any attempt to make a counter argument to compulsory Irish is inevitably greeted by accusations concerning culture and heritage and so on.

Ormus

Foxhound38 wrote: »

Richard Bruton has announced today a plan for all Junior Cert students to be studying a foreign language in the next few years.

Which brings me to the question in the thread - is our insistence on compulsory Irish in the curriculum worth the cost in terms of both money and the time that could be spent teaching something else?

What think you, AH?

Of course it's not worth it. It's not supposed to be worth it in terms of money or in terms of the time that could be spent teaching something else.

The writers of the Constitution took the view that some things are worth more than just money, and that preserving the status of our native language is something which needs to be protected and enshrined in our Constitution.

I think this was well-intentioned, but ill-advised. I look at the North of Spain, where the Catalans go to great lengths to learn their native tongue, against the wishes of their national government. In this country, we constantly complain about our national government forcing us to learn our native tongue.

We've long since passed the time when Irish had any significant utility. Maybe if Irish were optional it would ignite a new passion for it in some.

But please don't blame the Government for upholding the Constitution.

judeboy101

MrMorooka wrote: »

I'd be interested in hearing if there is any anglophone country that successfully teaches a foreign language in schools, such that there is actually a decent level of ability in the general population. Maybe Canada with French?

To me it seems that there is no established method of foreign language learning for English-speaking countries, like how in many European countries people generally have a decent level of fluency in English as well as their native language and maybe another. I can't think of an English speaking country where that is the case, anglophone=monolingual usually. Would love to hear more about Canada in that respect.

Wales teaches welsh as a brilliant 2nd language

One eyed Jack

Foxhound38 wrote: »

Which brings me to the question in the thread - is our insistence on compulsory Irish in the curriculum worth the cost in terms of both money and the time that could be spent teaching something else?

Just because it's badly taught (that's the waste of time and money), doesn't mean IMO it shouldn't be taught. However, it's going to become much harder to keep it compulsory when there are more and more children starting in schools who have to attend EAL classes and are exempted from Irish. I was glad to have my child taught Irish by teachers who were actually passionate about the language, and I have plenty of friends who are non-nationals who are actually hungry to learn Irish. I always do a trade with them that I'll teach them Irish, if they teach me their native language. I can speak several languages now, and one of the lads in work is teaching me Sanskrit.

I always figured I'd learn German before now, but I've no German friends.

Parchment

I think it would be so sad to see Irish die out.

Ekerot

Honestly, I think it's time to rip off the band-aid and make Irish optional from Secondary level and on, it just isn't worth it anymore.
I went to an Irish primary school and Secondary school, and, aside from talking with relatives briefly over in the Gaeltacht, it's never been of any use to me.

It's not even the waste of money, resources and man hours that have been put into it over the years that annoys me, it's more so what we could've used those instead for, like more hours spent on Mathematics and French, or even more of an emphasis on Coding and Computing and Critical Thinking!

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Lads, we need to copy almost exactly how Hebrew was revived or we are going to spend another few decades pumping billions into our own dying language education. That only churns out a handful of fluent speakers after 12+ years of daily teaching. We are getting it absolutely wrong. There's plenty of evidence to suggest we couldn't be doing a much worse job if we tried.

Hebrew revival.

Hebrew was effectively a dead/dormant language in everyday life for Jewish people 100 years ago. It was only used in certain aspects of legal, religious and a few other arenas of life. It is now the dominant language of the state of Israel. They have done 10 times more than us with their language.

Everyone of us learned how to speak English through active participation in it. You 'live it' in a conversational context first and foremost. We teach Irish through a teacher talking 90%+ of the time and learning liom, leat, leis, lei, linn, libh, leo, and all those other ones over and over until we know it off by heart. But when we need to apply this learning in a real application most people will splutter through the most basic of sentences in a barely understandable way.

Primary school should be almost entirely about conversational Irish being taught. In secondary school you can teach the correct spellings and grammar and all that. But once you can hold a chat, the aim that has been so far missed for so long can actually be achieved. And **** Peig Sayers into to the bin.

pjohnson

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

Lads, we need to copy almost exactly how Hebrew was revived or we are going to spend another few decades pumping billions into our own dying language education. That only churns out a handful of fluent speakers after 12+ years of daily teaching. We are getting it absolutely wrong. There's plenty of evidence to suggest we couldn't be doing a much worse job if we tried.

Hebrew revival.

Hebrew was effectively a dead/dormant language in everyday life for Jewish people 100 years ago. It was only used in certain aspects of legal, religious and a few other arenas of life. It is now the dominant language of the state of Israel. They have done 10 times more than us with their language.

Everyone of us learned how to speak English through active participation in it. You 'live it' in a conversational context first and foremost. We teach Irish through a teacher talking 90%+ of the time and learning liom, leat, leis, lei, linn, libh, leo, and all those other ones over and over until we know it off by heart. But when we need to apply this learning in a real application most people will splutter through the most basic of sentences in a barely understandable way.

Primary school should be almost entirely about conversational Irish being taught. In secondary school you can teach the correct spellings and grammar and all that. But once you can hold a chat, the aim that has been so far missed for so long can actually be achieved. And **** Peig Sayers into to the bin.

Whats your name as gaeilge?

Foxhound38

Parchment wrote: »

I think it would be so sad to see Irish die out.

If the difference between a language living and dying is its compulsory status in the last two years of secondary schooling, I think the issues speak for themselves here.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

pjohnson wrote: »

Whats your name as gaeilge?

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo as Gaeilge is Sile.

And by happy chance that's also the name of a female in native Australian.

So have all my bases covered.

cruizer101

Should definitely be optional throughout secondary.

People argue Irish would die out without it being mandatory, I don't think that's is the case as it being mandatory did nothing to encourage me to want to take it up if anything it discouraged it.

Its a bit of a s**t or get of the pot one, either radically change how it it taught or get rid of it, its pointless keeping it as it is.

I'd also argue other subjects need the same treatment, English as it is currently taught is more of an irrelevant English literature subject. If we are to have a subject on our own language it should be useful, teach people proper grammar, how to read and write technical reports not feckin shakespeare.

jamesbere

There first mistake is trying to teach Irish to Irish people, it was never going to work

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Been over this: the arguments in favour of are fallacy:

"They should learn a second language"
- I agree: but why should that langauge be Irish?
- they aren't "learning" a lanaguge - they're learning a school subject.

"They should learn to love their heritgae"
- how do you know it's "theirs" when you don't know them?
- why should the automatically "love" it anyway?

"They should learn it because the Gaelteach will go out of business if they don't!" (yes, this has been used)
- it's not the responsibility of teenagers to prop up an ailing economy by creating a false demand.

"They did it with Welsh and Hebrew"
- we're not Welsh and we're not Hebrew.

"They should do it in order to learn that some thigns are hard and can't be avoided"
- then why not just get them to dig holes in gardens?

Sooner it's status is dropped the better.

We're soon going to be the only English-speaking country in the EU. It's going from 13% of the EU being native speakers to about 1% along with Finnish, Danish and Slovak. ****ing right we should be learning useful languages other than English. Again, as the vast majority of people know the issue with Irish is with the system of teaching and the dictatorial message behind it.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Deleted User wrote: »

We're soon going to be the only English-speaking country in the EU. It's going from 13% of the EU being native speakers to about 1% along with Finnish, Danish and Slovak. ****ing right we should be learning useful languages other than English. Again, as the vast majority of people know the issue with Irish is with the system of teaching and the dictatorial message behind it.

...??

An Ciarraioch

The Maori teaching method:

http://www.newswire.co.nz/2011/07/maori-immersion-communities-the-saviour-of-the-maori-language/

cnocbui

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

...??

I think they mean that Irish is a considerable pointless waste of time and effort and that those would be better spent on learning other EU languages besides English.

Walter H Price

I was dyslexic in English (but only got diagnosed late in the day 6th year) so Irish was an absolute nightmare always , total waste of time and stress for me had i not had to waste so much time on Irish, i probably would have done better overall , i never would have chosen it as a subject and tbh it being compulsory achieved nothing for me i cant speak or understand a word of it today despite 11 years of it being drilled into me.

On top of the dyslexia we had a teacher from the north for 4th and 5th class in primary school who couldn't speak Irish as a result we only had about 5 classes over 2 years , all the lads i new from that class struggled all through secondary because we were so far behind.

I think by secondary all subjects should be optional , to be honest by the time you come out of primary you can read and write and do basic maths you don't really need any further in those subjects either unless you intend on pursuing a professional career or a career in the STEM industries , i honestly think I've used as much second level Maths as i have Irish or Geography since leaving school , none play any role at all in my work or personal life.

Make it optional what harm some will pick it some wont , who cares.

Sesame

I spent 14 years learning Irish and I could barely string an Irish sentence together now.

What a waste of hours of learning that could have been used to learn taxes, philosophy, how mortgages work, self-defence, civics, the difference between a non-contributory and contributory pension. You know, the stuff I'm actually finding out lately that I know very little about.

Its easy to understand that people don't want to see a part of our culture die, but that's what museums are for.
If we want to preserve our own language and associated stories, put them in a museum and let school tours visit it.

It's overkill to insist upon all children spending hours of their week for years learning something that is useless in real life.
No wonder our country is so backwards in some regards when we are churning out young adults who can recite rosaries and Irish verbs to beat the band.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

...??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

[Deleted User] wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit

Ahhh.... good point

Dr Crayfish

To me the Irish language is as pointless as religion at this stage.

Anyway who are they kidding? There's no way on Earth any kid is going to come out of school being able to speak another language in this country. There's zero attraction to learning a foreign language for Irish or British kids. Pop culture and the international language is all in English so kids in Holland and Germany want to learn English and speak it when they're on holidays no matter where they go. That's why they're bilingual and we're not, in my opinion.

I almost forgot I was fluent in Irish when I was a kid, but that was from going to a Gaelscoil from low babies upwards. It was the only language we spoke, but you really need complete immersion in a language to learn it properly.

seachto7

Sesame wrote: »

What a waste of hours of learning that could have been used to learn taxes, philosophy, how mortgages work, self-defence, civics, the difference between a non-contributory and contributory pension. You know, the stuff I'm actually finding out lately that I know very little about.
.

Who wants to know about mortgages....

Arghus

I wouldn't have a problem with cumpolsory Irish up until the Junior Cert Level, it should be a choice afterwards.

The bigger problem is the manner in which it's taught. No way should people spend 12 years been taught a subject and then lack a basic working knowledge of it, so something is wrong there.

AudreyHepburn

Irish is our native tongue, there is no good reason why we all shouldn't be fluent. The problem as I see it is the way it's taught in schools. You're taught to write essays and answer questions on poems rather than to actually speak the language properly.

Irish should in my opinion remain compulsory but the method of teaching needs to change - spoken Irish should account for the majority of your grade/result, maybe 60-40 (with 40 being writing and reading).

Dr Crayfish

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Irish is our native tongue, there is no good reason why we all shouldn't be fluent.

There is, no one wants to f**king learn it or f**king speak it

Your Face

Maybe teach them Maths instead.
A truly international language.

Arghus

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

There is, no one wants to f**king learn it or f**king speak it

Overstating the case there a little.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Irish is our native tongue, there is no good reason why we all shouldn't be fluent. The problem as I see it is the way it's taught in schools. You're taught to write essays and answer questions on poems rather than to actually speak the language properly.

Irish should in my opinion remain compulsory but the method of teaching needs to change - spoken Irish should account for the majority of your grade/result, maybe 60-40 (with 40 being writing and reading).

The problem is desire, or lack thereof. Students are practical and mostly don't want to learn it -
and of they do, power to them - and the nation is mostly happy speaking English.

LordSutch

The decision was made in the 1930s to introduce compulsory Irish into each and every Irish school. Obviously the way the language has been taught in the decades since then has been an utter disaster, (otherwise successive generations would have been fluent in our so called "native tongue").
I fully expect mandatory Irish (up to leaving cert) to continue for the foreseeable future, otherwise the whole premise of marking us out as " different" from the British would be lost, and we would once again become too similar to the the other inhabitants of these islands. A linguistic difference successive Irish governments have strived to accentuate (them British, us Irish), we are not the same as them, we speak Irish, they don't .......

Expect your children & your grand children to leave school armed with the 'cupla focal' but don't expect them to be fluent in Irish, as that is not the primary reason we "do Irish" in school.

Wibbs

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

Lads, we need to copy almost exactly how Hebrew was revived or we are going to spend another few decades pumping billions into our own dying language education. That only churns out a handful of fluent speakers after 12+ years of daily teaching. We are getting it absolutely wrong. There's plenty of evidence to suggest we couldn't be doing a much worse job if we tried.

Hebrew revival.

Hebrew was effectively a dead/dormant language in everyday life for Jewish people 100 years ago. It was only used in certain aspects of legal, religious and a few other arenas of life. It is now the dominant language of the state of Israel. They have done 10 times more than us with their language.

Though oft referenced in the Irish debate, Hebrew is a very bad example for a few reasons. The main reason being that the state of Israel was a new state and Jews were coming to the place from all over the Western world, speaking many different languages. In short Israel required a common language to continue and grow. They could have picked any number of European languages*, but figured let's start from essentially scratch with a native Jewish language(ancient Hebrew speakers would find it incredibly difficult if not impossible to understand modern Hebrew speakers and vice versa. It had evolved radically over time with a lot of European influences coming in).

On the other hand Ireland already has a common language and it happens to be English(and it happens to be a very useful one internationally). Almost the entirety of the "native" born Irish population have English as their first language and the vast vast majority of bilingual Irish?English speakers would have a larger vocabulary in same.





*English was a real possibility and before WW2 German of all things was one of the choices near the top of the list of possible common languages. It was used a lot in higher education and the sciences and a lot of the diaspora already spoke it.

Arcade_Tryer

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Irish is our native tongue, there is no good reason why we all shouldn't be fluent.

I'll bite.

Irish is not "our" native tongue. Irish is not my native tongue. And Irish is most likely not your native tongue.

A country does not have a native language. People do. And for the vast majority of people living in this country, English is their native language. Followed by Polish. And then Lithuanian, Chinese, Indian, Irish etc.

Graces7

Maybe this is off topic and sounds trite but as a teacher... Are we talking of Irish as an academic subject or a living language?

If the latter then the real place for "teaching" it is in the home.

I once went to Mass in a Gaeltacht area, entirely in Irish.

When I was chatting with folk afterwards I was deeply impressed by the mothers talking to their little ones in both languages. As I have seen children of parents from two nationalities and languages do.

Little ones who are learning to talk absorb language and become fluent in two languages so easily.

And every language teacher knows how vital visits and time spent in the country of the language is.

FTA69

There's two aspects to this question really:

1) Languages are taught abysmally in Ireland. Absolutely brutal. People often state that Irish is pointless and how nobody can speak it after schooling etc and then simultaneously state we should all be learning German or French instead - ignoring the fact nobody can hold a conversation in a European language either after six years of secondary school. It's a joke. I did five years of French and I learned more and better French being in Algeria for two weeks than I did at the time of sitting my Leaving Cert. I'm conversational in Spanish after two years, because I learned it properly in immersive classes and travelled in Spanish speaking places and practiced it in a social context. Language teaching should be 80% oral at least. The way we're teaching Irish, French and German et al is a massive waste of everyone's time. You go to Denmark or Germany or wherever and you're embarrassed at how much English people speak.

2) I'm a massive fan of the Irish language, it's a hugely important part of our heritage and culture - shaping our names and the names of the places we live in.I often see people from other cultures massively curious about our language and then bewildered about how some people are actively hostile to it. Minority languages such as Euskera, Irish, Welsh, Catalan etc are a treasure and should be preserved.

...And that preservation will come about from those who want to preserve it. We have thriving Gaelscoils, urban Irish language groups in Dublin that are massively popular, classes, music, the whole shebang. Let them at it and support that. Flogging things like compulsory Irish, driving tests in Irish and Gaeltachts (most of which are fake now anyway) isn't going to achieve bog all. It's a fig leaf and not even one which is working.

Make Irish voluntary and make teaching the language a conversational, living thing. It'll do it the world of good in all probability.

FTA69

Wibbs wrote: »

Though oft referenced in the Irish debate, Hebrew is a very bad example for a few reasons. The main reason being that the state of Israel was a new state and Jews were coming to the place from all over the Western world, speaking many different languages. In short Israel required a common language to continue and grow. They could have picked any number of European languages*, but figured let's start from essentially scratch with a native Jewish language(ancient Hebrew speakers would find it incredibly difficult if not impossible to understand modern Hebrew speakers and vice versa. It had evolved radically over time with a lot of European influences coming in).

On the other hand Ireland already has a common language and it happens to be English(and it happens to be a very useful one internationally). Almost the entirety of the "native" born Irish population have English as their first language and the vast vast majority of bilingual Irish?English speakers would have a larger vocabulary in same.





*English was a real possibility and before WW2 German of all things was one of the choices near the top of the list of possible common languages. It was used a lot in higher education and the sciences and a lot of the diaspora already spoke it.

Spot on. Basque is a much better example.

An Ciarraioch

FTA69 wrote: »

Spot on. Basque is a much better example.

Or indeed, Catalan, as mentioned on the first page.

doolox

Irish only had a very peripheral part of my families lives since they all came from the midlands and East Galway going back 5 generations.

People who say Irish is our native tongue are only counting the Post Famine west coast as "real" Irish people as if the Anglophone majority do not count as Irishmen.

The status of compulsory Irish creates a huge resentment among English speaking people who are faced with the burden of attempting to learn it in competition with Native Irish speakers who are mostly bilingual...it is rare nowadays to find a Gaeltacht inhabitant who struggles at English but this was not unusual when I went to school. This evened things up a bit since I struggled at Irish and they struggled at English. (Education is a competitive activity which determines your future position in life).

In order to play fair there should be a minimum standard of the core subjects set at a rudimentary level available to study for all students. If they are finding Pass or honours Irish too onerous there should be a foundation level available to allow them to survive matriculation to the national University where Irish ,at least a pass, is compulsory to get in. As far as I know you cannot fail the leaving cert by failing Irish as was the case at one time but every LC student has to attend and sit the Irish exam compulsorily and unconditionally unless they have come from abroad over 11yrs of age where they get an exemption. However they must pass another language for university entrance if they don't have Irish. I don't think Irish will be got rid of in my lifetime and there is probably no point looking for it to be made optional at LC level. The pro Irish lobby is still too powerful.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Graces7 wrote: »

Maybe this is off topic and sounds trite but as a teacher... Are we talking of Irish as an academic subject or a living language?

If the latter then the real place for "teaching" it is in the home.

I once went to Mass in a Gaeltacht area, entirely in Irish.

When I was chatting with folk afterwards I was deeply impressed by the mothers talking to their little ones in both languages. As I have seen children of parents from two nationalities and languages do.

Little ones who are learning to talk absorb language and become fluent in two languages so easily.

And every language teacher knows how vital visits and time spent in the country of the language is.

Gealtacht areas are a joke. The 2016 census shows only 32% of those in Gealtacht areas ever spoke Irish outside the classroom. A deplorable figure for those areas. Children will not learn the language at home because it is not sufficiently fluent in the home.

It is no longer a living language and will never be again as things stand.

mickmac76

I found Irish to be a nightmare in school and am strongly against compulsory Irish in schools. I do think it should be taught in all schools but on an optional basis. Also it shouldn't be a requirement for college, the army,gardai or civil service.

FTA69

Lyle Swift Gesture wrote: »

.

It is no longer a living language and will never be again as things stand.

Define living though. There are thriving schools across Ireland where the language is spoken on a fluent basis by young people. There are many couples who speak Irish with their children in the home across the country (probably more outside the Gaeltacht than in it at this stage). If you look up Irish language meetups in Dublin there are thousands of people joined those groups. The Gaelgeori society in my college was always thriving. Videos on YouTube of Irish and songs in it have millions of views.

It's far from dead by any means.

Graces7

FTA69 wrote: »

Define living though. There are thriving schools across Ireland where the language is spoken on a fluent basis by young people. There are many couples who speak Irish with their children in the home across the country (probably more outside the Gaeltacht than in it at this stage). If you look up Irish language meetups in Dublin there are thousands of people joined those groups. The Gaelgeori society in my college was always thriving. Videos on YouTube of Irish and songs in it have millions of views.

It's far from dead by any means.

Amen to this and well said. That is what I saw and heard that day and others.

I was deeply moved and impressed although I felt like an outsider - which I am.... Hearing those children ....