Should Irish be made optional at schools.

It was all the one sentence, and what I meant by it is that children would have equal rights as their parents in their determination of how they wish to be educated. The idea of the Irish language being a mandatory subject in Irish schools is a completely separate argument to that.

The reason I think making the Irish language an optional subject in Irish schools is a bad idea is because it relieves the State of its obligation to promote the Irish language.

Ag bonail

Activities like GAA and Irish dancing, traditional music and art aren’t really comparable to the teaching of the Irish language...

Because they're fun, and learning a language isnt.

Learning a language can be fun, to be fair - but probably not when you're forced to learn a language you neither like nor need.

I’m not telling you that having them assigned is a separate argument, I’m making the point that students don’t have a choice when it comes to learning the Irish language as a subject, because it’s a core subject, like mathematics and English. At Leaving Certificate level, schools don’t have the resources to be able to offer students a choice of whatever subjects they wish to study. Their options are again limited.

I already gave you the reason why I think making Irish an optional subject in Irish schools is a bad idea, now you’re asking me an entirely different question as to why letting students pick their own subjects is a bad idea, having previously made the point that it’s not a completely separate argument. Clearly, it is.

I’d agree with you that the Government is already massively failing in it’s constitutional obligation to promote the Irish language, and to that end I would suggest they should be doing so much more, not less, and certainly not demoting the status of the Irish language to an optional subject in Irish schools.

There’s no conflict in priorities between using schools to promote the Irish language by making it a mandatory subject in Irish schools, and students in Irish schools. It’s for their benefit! Making it optional wouldn’t change the fact that it’s taught badly which is the reason why students often have difficulty with it, not because it’s not an interesting language, but because all too often the teachers themselves have no passion for it and little patience with students who have difficulty with it. Teachers are already struggling with an overloaded curriculum and a whole plethora of other issues which indicate that the priority for Government isn’t the Irish language, but it’s to give children a basic or rudimentary education at as little cost to the State as possible.

I don’t need to make excuses for anything? It’s a core subject of the Irish curriculum, it isn’t a subject that students are given a choice to study. It’s not unreasonable to conclude from your argument that, well, you’re arguing that students should have a choice in what subjects they wish to study, and somehow you expect that this should be provided for them by the school regardless of what resources are or aren’t available. All I can think is “Good luck with that 👍”, because it’s not an idea that’s even worth entertaining.

And does this really sound to you like a situation I wish to continue?

Making it optional wouldn’t change the fact that it’s taught badly which is the reason why students often have difficulty with it, not because it’s not an interesting language, but because all too often the teachers themselves have no passion for it and little patience with students who have difficulty with it. Teachers are already struggling with an overloaded curriculum and a whole plethora of other issues which indicate that the priority for Government isn’t the Irish language, but it’s to give children a basic or rudimentary education at as little cost to the State as possible.

I understand it’s entirely possible I phrased it badly which would lead you to conclude that it’s reasonable to assume I’m arguing that the current situation should continue. I wasn’t.

Mé

Tú

Sé/Sí

Sinn/Sibh

Siad.

IMO the above is everything wrong with how is Irish taught in schools.

To this day 14 years after doing the LC I could get by with a few basic phrases in Spanish. But hold a conversation in Irish? Not a chance. But rattling off the above, no problem.

Pretty sure a good chunk of people could read written Irish aloud with decent pronunciation, but have absolutely no idea what they're saying.

Making it optional, I don't know. Personally I think so as I hated studying it. But nobody is taught how to speak Irish, just pass an exam.

The averae student takes seven subjects fo r heir leaving. If a school offers eight subjects, then the student has choice or someone is pickjing the subjects, And I'm pretty sure the vast majority of schools offer at least eight.

No, it';s not a logical conclusion. The logical conclusion would be that I'm in favour of offering choices within the range available.

So we're back to square one: give me one reason why letting the student choose their subjects from the range available is a bad idea. Without te strawman, this time please.

Not biting on the Irish constitution one because I've explained clearly what I mean, have you misinterpret it, explained a second time, had you misinterpret it a second time, explain a third time and then you dropped the subject only to have you're first interpretation reappear again. Not debating it.

It is though..

It is in its eye. It's indoctrination and an indoctrination that has failed and failed spectacularly over nearly a century.

It’s not indoctrination as the Irish language isn’t a belief system. You’d have a better argument that the Irish education system itself constitutes indoctrination as it promotes an education in the Liberal Arts in accordance with the system of education Ireland inherited from the British. The intent of the Stanley letter was clear that Irish education would be provided without any adherence to any particular religious denomination. That didn’t quite go as planned -

In line with the letter's suggestions, a Board of Commission of National Education was established which disbursed funds for school building and the hiring of teachers and inspectors and which provided grants for schools. The Board tried to mix Catholic and Protestant students by favouring applications for 'mixed' schools. However, in the years after the 1830s, different religious denominations begin to apply separately for control of schools. Even in 2010 approximately 1 percent of Irish schools (34 out of 3,279) are not under the control of a religious organization, with the remaining 99 percent under religious control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_letter

If that’s how you quantify failure, I’d love to know how you quantify success! 😳

(that’s even before any discussion of the influence of religion in Irish society among organisations such as the GAA, Scouts, etc, every facet of Irish society, even in the national media the local priest is still approached for comment on a tragedy within the community)

The Dept of Education is also proving to be incredibly resistant to patrons other than the old reliables being given patronage of new schools, and that’s notwithstanding the recent agreement between the Church and State to pay rent to the Church for the use of Church property -

https://www.teachdontpreach.ie/2022/03/state-rent-school-buildings/

I would suggest that had successive Irish Governments put anything like as much effort into promoting the Irish language as the Church has done in promoting religion, there would be far greater interest in, and use of the Irish language today on comparable levels with other countries use of their own language whether it be French, German, Spanish, Italian, etc. Instead of promoting the Irish language, successive Governments appeared to be more interested in ensuring it’s rapid demise. I’ve no explanation for their abysmal failure to maintain the Irish language other than the fact we’re a pissant little country on the periphery of Europe where Irish just has no utility whatsoever as a business language.

Load of nonsense. The constitution doesn't even mention secondary education at all. For most of the 20th century the Irish state didn't even provide free secondary education. There is no constitutional imperative to provide secondary level instruction in any subject whether that be Irish or anything else.

The worst part of my day, every weekday, for 12 plus years was Irish class.

The only reason I can think of for not making it optional is that I want the youth of today to suffer like I did.

Of course, it is really about employment and money for those fluent in Irish.

I said what myself exactly? Because I know I didn’t say that that the Irish language is irrelevant based upon the tiny number of Irish speakers there are, nor did I compare it to the prevalence of other languages to argue that it should be an optional subject as opposed to it’s current status as a compulsory subject. The reason we make Irish mandatory and we don’t make other more commonly spoken languages mandatory should be obvious. Apart from English which is also recognised as our national language an official language and is mandatory in Irish schools, other languages are not recognised as our national language.

The importance of the Irish language isn’t just reflected in the number of people who speak it, it’s reflected in the number of people who consider the Irish language as important to them. In a survey done in 2018, the majority of students asked wished to maintain the status of the Irish language as compulsory at both primary and secondary level education, while at the same time they were critical of the way the Irish language is taught in Irish schools -

Asked whether Irish should remain compulsory in both primary and secondary school, 67 per cent of those surveyed said it should be a compulsory subject in both. Just over a quarter (26 per cent) felt it should be compulsory up to the Junior Certificate while 7 per cent felt Irish should be optional throughout.

Of those who attended English-medium schools, 63 per cent said Irish should be a compulsory throughout, 29 per cent said it should be compulsory up until Junior Certificate level while 8 per cent said it shouldn’t be compulsory at any stage.

This compared to eighty per cent of respondents who attended Irish-medium schools outside of the Gaeltacht who felt Irish should be compulsory, 16 per cent who felt it should be optional after the Junior Certificate and 4 per cent that indicated it should be optional throughout.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/report-reveals-student-support-for-compulsory-irish-1.4510604

None of that addresses anything in the post you quoted? I’ve read both my post and yours a couple of times now and I’m not seeing how they’re related or what point in the post you quoted that you’re actually referring to or addressing.

It’s entirely Governments fault. It is the State which has the responsibility to promote Irish culture, heritage and the Irish language, and they’ve done a piss poor job of it up to now. Making the Irish language optional in Irish schools is not going to address the issue that the Irish Government have failed miserably to promote the Irish language, culture and heritage. There are far more people outside of Ireland are familiar with Irish culture, heritage and the Irish language than there are people in Ireland who can say the same. It’s not limited solely to Irish emigrants and their descendants either, so it’s certainly not that people aren’t arsed, they’re just not arsed with the way the Irish language is taught in Irish schools.

Making the Irish language optional does nothing to address that, and because I just can’t see Government, or the DES or the NCCA demoting the status of the Irish language to an optional subject any time soon, the least they could do to promote the language is reform how it is taught in Irish schools, because outside of Irish schools is where it appears to generate the most interest, even among immigrants to Ireland who wish either to learn the Irish language themselves, or they wish for their children to learn it and be able to use it.

It’s not a matter that people don’t want to learn the Irish language, it’s that they have issues with the way the Irish language is taught in Irish schools. It’s taught badly, and the way it’s taught in accordance with the Irish curriculum is basically like trying to teach Latin or Arabic in a modern classroom - learners can’t relate to it as it’s not anchored to anything, it’s simply learning by rote with the aim of passing an exam in the subject, as opposed to anchoring it to Irish heritage and culture and teaching it as a living language which learners can relate to. I didn’t learn languages very well in school either, apart from French, and that had everything to do with the fact that my teacher was a native speaker (she was an Irish national, also a native language speaker), who didn’t limit herself to the curriculum or focussing on just what might come up in the exams, she had us completely immerse ourselves in French culture, literature, history, heritage in the French language. Irish was, well, I think we’re all familiar with how Irish is taught, which explains why many people couldn’t wait to see the back of it and would rather it was optional so they didn’t have to suffer through it unnecessarily!

It’s similar to the way in which the DES were crying out for male teachers long before there was ever an overall teacher shortage, and even my mother tried to convince me to take up teaching - while I’m passionate about education, I have no interest in becoming a teacher in an Irish school because it’s not long before any enthusiasm or passion for education is sucked out of them given the overwhelming amount of work and politics involved that is completely independent of any passion for education, not to mention the pay and conditions are just shyte! Becoming a teacher in Ireland is not the kind of career choice for anyone who is actually passionate about education, that’s for certain.