seamus wrote: » Give us some proper data on how many are actually a member of these religions, versus who just likes to call themselves Catholic.
tretorn wrote: » I dont want to livein an area with a large non national population because I dont want my child in a class with people with poor english [...]
tretorn wrote: » [...] and with customs I abhor so if that happened where I live I would sell up and live elsewhere or else I would just put up with whats available and stop whinging.
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » It's still a pointless question*, and a p!ss-poor way to justify maintaining the 19th century education system we have. As I asked before, why should an OAP in Donegal ticking the catholic box have any influence on the patronage of a school in Cork? We already know that a large number of parents want change, and we already know that our education system violates human rights. We also know that people lie through their hoop on the census form - how about that "I really really can speak Irish" question?* It should be a pointless question, as the religious affiliations of citizens should make no difference to the provision of state services...
robindch wrote: » FYI - "dont" should be spelled "don't", "livein" should be "live in", "non national" should be "non-national", "whats" below should be spelled "what's" and the first letter of 'english' should be capitalized, as in 'English'.Sounds like things are so bad here in Ireland, you should leave the country!
tretorn wrote: » Ahem, kindly keep your english grammar teaching to yourself.
tretorn wrote: » Back in your box now, you rude patronising individual......... And arent you lucky you didnt get a last century education, you wouldnt be able to show off if you had.
smacl wrote: » My take on it as a secularist is that religious beliefs and all that go with them are personal and subjective. What they mean to any given person is none of my business, but neither should the be allowed influence the decisions of the state for the same reason. I think the issue here is misuse of census information, which unfortunately happens all too frequently. We shouldn't be attempting to define people's preferences by their nominal religious affiliation, we should be asking them about their secular preferences on the census in addition to the religious affiliation. I posted a poll on the Christianity forum a few years back with this in mind, asking non-Christians not to vote, and 73% of respondents said that they were against the church influencing the state. The question was further qualified in relation to schools and hospitals.
tretorn wrote: » I have no interest in immigrant friends and to be honest the immigrants I know, eg, the Chinese, the Filipinos,the Poles etc all stick to their own groups too. I have never seen Chinese people hanging out with Nigerians or Muslims for example and while my children are in school with lots of nationalities they dont socialise outside school with anyone but their own nationality.
tretorn wrote: » I dont want to livein an area with a large non national population because I dont want my child in a class with people with poor english and with customs I abhor so if that happened where I live I would sell up and live elsewhere or else I would just put up with whats available and stop whinging.
Mark Hamill wrote: » I too believe that religious beliefs are personal. The thing is that labels are not personal, and that's by design. We have labels so that we can communicate to people information about ourselves quickly and efficiently, without having to stop and describe every single aspect of ourselves in every situation to everyone. If someone takes on a label, then they are defining themselves by that label. Therefore expecting people to only take labels that actually define them is completely reasonable.
lawred2 wrote: » The divestment in North Dublin has been postponed by the department. Not surprise - their plan to achieve it was cack handed
evolving_doors wrote: » Intentionally cack handed!
Anteayer wrote: » We've a modern education system but it's hampered by a 19th century structure. The first real venture into something that looks more like a public school system has been the ETBs. Everything else is basically running on the model of having a private religious organisations or, in the case of Educate Together, a secular trust running it. You can critique the structure and the heavily religious ethos without necessarily talking about the quality of academic achievement. Saying that the structure is wrong isn't saying that the education system and its outcomes are poor, rather that the systems could be improved upon. Schools play an important role in social structures of society and that's the area where the patronage issue is problematic. We've a public, compulsory attendance school system that's outsourced to private organisations, the vast majority of which are religious and have an agenda of evangelisation (faith formation to use their terminology) which is being achieved through control of public schools. Add to that a much more diverse population through the change away from religious practices in Ireland and also immigration and you've a scenario which is creating an "us" and "them lot" in education which is a public service. I mean would you accept this in any other public service? I doubt it somehow. Can you imagine Catholic libraries Vs protestant libraires and people having to set up Reading Together to accommodate diversity? Or having different Garda stations for different religions or maybe post offices, play grounds etc etc When you apply the same structure to any other public service it suddenly starts to seem ludicrous. If we live in a republic which claims to be pluralist and secular with equal rights for all, we certainly don't live up to that in our education system.
tretorn wrote: » Well, the status quo is remaining in North Dublin and the parents and the teachers will be very relieved. It didnt take much to cause hysteria so its obvious there is no real appetite in that particular community for change. And, no, the end goal is not secular education, who do you mean by "our" do you mean the small minority of parents who agree with you.
patsman07 wrote: » By "our" I meant people who, ordinarily, go to the Atheism&Agnosticism section of Boards. Why would the teachers be relieved? If their school was divested they would no longer have to prepare children for the Communion/Confirmation etc. Plus, if there are more than five teachers in their school, statistically, one of them is currently teaching children to believe something that they find literally unbelievable.
lawred2 wrote: » The message going home to parents came from the teachers through the kids
evolving_doors wrote: » Well said, I think the worst word that has entered educating kids is "choice". Could you imagine if they started to slice up the hospitals according to religion, so we could all have our own health ethos catered for. I don't really understand why people need to be Catholic, or whatever religion, to learn a subject like maths or science. There's a split and ghettoisation of education going on with religion at its core. The only way people can say their religion is better than everyone else's is this league table nonsense.
tretorn wrote: » Young women generally arent interested in STEM subjects, they are drawn more towards roles that are people related, they for the most part arent geeky or happy to work alone in labs and no amount of encouragement is going to change gender preference.The female brain is completely different to the male, this is apparent from age two.
The league tables are very important, the parents of children who arent academic will say otherwise. A sporty boy will do much better in an all boys secondary school as there will be more very talented athletes to make the top team. The staff make up in all boys schools is generally more male and boys related better to men at this age. If you look at the league tables the single sex schools do better and most if not all are religious. Dont forget who educated the poor and disadvantaged, it was the religious orders so they have a long proud tradition in Irish education.
patsman07 wrote: » Treton has a point here I believe.https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ We see different skills in males&females of other species, why should humans be any different?
tretorn wrote: » As I said male and female brains are very different, its two different species, this is why nursing and teaching roles /Social care roles are predominately female.
smacl wrote: » Ok, as per the rules of this forum, I'm going to ask you to provide some hard supporting evidence for the above. In my opinion it is sexist nonsense. Again, this is all unsupported opinion. Schools in better off areas tend to have better outcomes than those in socially disadvantaged areas, which is hardly a surprise. Schools that are results focused tend to favour those students that are high achievers rejecting others. This simply increases polarisation between 'good' and 'bad' schools. Education, in case you weren't aware, is about getting the best outcome for all of our children, most of whom aren't privileged or gifted. As for the religious orders, their abusive running of schools directly is thankfully nearing an end as their own memberships dwindle away. Our schools are funded by the taxpayer and run by lay teachers, with the involvement of the religious orders being something of a bad hangover.
tretorn wrote: » Young women generally arent interested in STEM subjects, they are drawn more towards roles that are people related, they for the most part arent geeky or happy to work alone in labs and no amount of encouragement is going to change gender preference.The female brain is completely different to the male, this is apparent from age two. The league tables are very important, the parents of children who arent academic will say otherwise. A sporty boy will do much better in an all boys secondary school as there will be more very talented athletes to make the top team. The staff make up in all boys schools is generally more male and boys related better to men at this age. If you look at the league tables the single sex schools do better and most if not all are religious. Dont forget who educated the poor and disadvantaged, it was the religious orders so they have a long proud tradition in Irish education.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w8.vanillicon.com/v2/867a9f20e705add43a3ada2e4f4480cc.svg)