The Irish language is failing.

my teapot is orange wrote: »

It raises the bigger question of should we be teaching it at all. I read on another forum recently how foreign science students in Ireland are amazed that first year of undergrad degrees is spent bringing everyone up to the level that they were at in school. There isn't much ICT or technology teaching in school and I think nowadays more and more people are going to need this even where it isn't there core role. That 40 minutes every day could be put to better use. The education system should be preparing students as best it can for the world they live in today, not pandering to the sentimental or political ideas from the past.

To be honest it's not the worst thing to be learning. I'd to learn 3 text books of crap for junior cert religion. I don't mind a class a week on our own religion but I don't give a crap where the Muslims meet up for the annual booze up.

Why couldn't that time and effort have been spent learning how to computer program. would have made college a hell of a lot easier. Also wasting time learning English poems and stories (same with Irish).

And history. Tone it down a bit. nobody really gives a **** what houses looked like 5 thousand years ago. So much pointless **** was forced into my brain for the junior I'm still trying to clear some of it out until this day.

God school could have been so enjoyable if they dumped history and religion and tone English down to simply reading and writing skills plus irish to reading and writing only.

Still can't to this day understand how computer programming is not mandatory across all students for the junior cert. There is massive job potential and future growth in this area.

RoyalCelt wrote: »

To be honest it's not the worst thing to be learning. I'd to learn 3 text books of crap for junior cert religion. I don't mind a class a week on our own religion but I don't give a crap where the Muslims meet up for the annual booze up.

Why couldn't that time and effort have been spent learning how to computer program. would have made college a hell of a lot easier. Also wasting time learning English poems and stories (same with Irish).

And history. Tone it down a bit. nobody really gives a **** what houses looked like 5 thousand years ago. So much pointless **** was forced into my brain for the junior I'm still trying to clear some of it out until this day.

God school could have been so enjoyable if they dumped history and religion and tone English down to simply reading and writing skills plus irish to reading and writing only.

Still can't to this day understand how computer programming is not mandatory across all students for the junior cert. There is massive job potential and future growth in this area.

I've heard the (conspiracy) theory that school, particularly primary school, is more of an instrument to indoctrinate kids into wider society than a place where they go to learn valuable skills that couldn't be learned elsewhere. A place where they go to essentially be babysat while their parents work, where they learn to work to a schedule, accept authority figures and cooperate with peers outside of their family/community, and take in a world view as mandated by the state. Skills pertaining to the interests of the individual, or many practical everyday skills can wait until later, in or around adulthood, it would seem.

Reading and Maths are the two basic things that most kids take out of primary. Ideally, primary education would feature a larger component to stimulate the individual interests and curiosities of kids while also teaching some practical skills. This, of course, would lead to chaos in the curriculum. In the connected age, it's harder and harder to understand where school really fits as an educational tool as a child can hop on a computer (with the requisite reading and writing skills) and learn whatever they want and with much greater accuracy and depth than most of us ever had access to as kids.

Dughorm wrote: »

I did chemistry in the LC, got an A in it and have never used it since. Have used irish more .

Not convinced by your argument that a science subject should be mandatory.

Did Physics and got an A in that. Haven't used it since. Have used Irish less.

tipparetops wrote: »

So you do not walk or run?

Do no chemical processes happen inside Dughorm's body?

Grayson wrote: »

I did latin in secondary school. The weird thing is that I was actually more comfortable with it after a year than I was with Irish

I did Latin too. I'm not too sure if many schools do it today. I loved Latin and

Irish, but then again I love languages. I was very lucky in the fact that the

secondary school I went to valued languages. We did French, German, Irish and

Latin in first year. You chose the languages you wanted to learn at the end of first year.

Actually Latin is a brilliant language to explore. I obviously can't speak Latin

as we were taught it as a dead language.

But I do have a greater understanding of English having been exposed to Latin.



Learning Irish has many benefits too. At the ripe old age of 40 I went to UCG to

learn Italian. Before I did the course you could write on a postage stamp the

amount of Italian I knew. It was an exam course. I am very competitive so I

wanted to do well.

Irish helped me no end to learn Italian. Sounds weird but it's the truth.

So to add to the thread, maybe learning another language might help to learn

another?