Stark fight for Irish language school to stay
April 21, 2015
WINTER is coming for a Game of Thrones actor whose school in Donegal is threatened with closure.
Art Parkinson, who plays Rickon Stark in the fantasy series, said he would have to travel for almost two hours to the nearest Irish language school if his secondary school in Buncrana closed.
Colaiste Chineal Eoghain, the only Irish language secondary school on the Inishowen peninsula, is set to shut because of low student numbers. Some critics of the decision suggest that it is a result of internal disputes at the school.
“Last week the chief executive of the ETB [Education and Training Board] contacted us to say the school is not sustainable,” said 13-year-old Art. “It’s very annoying. I want to keep learning in Irish — a country without a language is a country without a soul.”
Full story available on the Sunday Times website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/article1545920.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2015_04_18
Think Tank: We need to educate the whole child
October 18, 2010
The primary school curriculum is falling short and blunt one-size-fits all homework assignments can quash frustrated pupils’ desire to learn.
There is little evidence to suggest that homework as we currently know it has any real benefit. Serious concerns exist among principals and teachers about its impact. It is becoming evident that the role of homework in our education system requires serious analysis. Homework can cause a lot of stress between parents and children and can erode the quality time they have in the evening. It is often based at a challenge level suited for average to high achievers. This results in many children being frustrated by the difficulty it presents. Inexperienced teachers may sometimes over-prescribe homework and the more a teacher gives, the more valuable teaching time is lost correcting it.
Some teachers admit they give homework because they feel parents expect it; while some parents consider a teacher who gives a lot of homework to be good. But effective teaching in the classroom, which differentiates both children’s learning styles and learning abilities, far outweighs the value of repetitive homework that is not pitched at the child’s ability or individual learning style. The teaching of Irish also needs to be viewed afresh. We have decades of experience in failing to deliver even minimal standards of proficiency. As a starting point, a national policy towards the Irish language is required and must, in the first instance, deal with the default negative attitude in society towards the language. Children come to school full of enthusiasm. Within a few years, the negativity they have absorbed puts an end to their desire to learn.
Suggested strategies could include spending less time in formal teaching of the language, teaching physical education exclusively through Irish (benefiting both subjects) and separating Irish culture from the language as an academic subject. Culture, a compulsory subject, should include drama, songs, music, stories, seanfhocail, jokes, games, humour and slang. Social, personal and health education is currently allocated an inadequate 30 minutes a week in primary schools. It is probably the most important subject for children in today’s world of early sexualisation, negative body image, eating disorders, drugs, alcohol, bullying, depression and family dysfunction.
The Stay Safe programme has been well funded, with teachers trained to deliver its content over the past 18 years. Yet a recent survey shows that more than 10% of schools do not teach the programme. This is unacceptable given all we know now in relation to child abuse. Physical education is allocated one hour a week, which is also inadequate. There are still poor facilities in many schools and no facilities in some. Childhood obesity and its related illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, are on the rise in Ireland. There is a need for a national strategy to deal with obesity and, while schools have a part to play, they cannot be the full solution. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that girls, in particular, drop out of playing sport after leaving primary school. This needs to be addressed by the sporting bodies and by PE experts at second level.
The subject titles Irish, English, maths, history, geography through which the curriculum is organised have not changed much since the 19th century. Curriculum integration is a familiar concept at primary level. However, the Junior and Leaving Certificate examination system continues to exert a downward pressure on the upper end of primary school. The time has come to find new ways of structuring the curriculum. Categorisation into traditional subject headings does little to enhance the education of the whole child. Of course it is the ideal model when success is measured by a child’s ability to reproduce information that has been learnt by rote. This blunt model does not prepare children to play a meaningful role in society, however.
While acknowledging that some aspects of curriculum continuity between primary and post-primary schools are being addressed, there is still an overall lack of continuity, not just in the area of content, but also in timetabling, pupil-teacher interaction, pastoral care and teaching methodologies. This begs the question of whether the school is meant to serve the educational needs of the child or if the child is meant to fit into various schooling systems.
The Sunday Times – Pat Goff
17 Deireadh Fómhair 2010
Concern over ‘literature-lite’ Irish syllabus
April 26, 2010
Pat Carey, the gaeltacht minister, has expressed concerns that higher-level Irish will be dumbed down under a new “literature-lite” Leaving Cert syllabus being introduced in September.
The new curriculum, at higher and ordinary level, awards half the marks for oral and aural tests, and reduces the marks for literature from 30% to 16.7%. The amount that pupils have to read on the higher-level course is being cut to 79 pages of prose extracts and poetry.
“I am anxious that the approach being taken could have an impact on our objective in the 20-year strategy for the Irish language to have 250,000 speakers — three times the current level — using Irish daily outside of the education system,” said Carey.
“If we don’t set high aims now, it is going to be difficult to achieve that. If all you have to do is study 70-odd pages of extracts, it would almost be possible to memorise that amount of pages without having any understanding at all of the context in which they were taken.”
Reuben Ó Conluain, an Irish-language teacher at Dublin’s Alexandra College, said that higher-level Irish students currently study 13 poems and at least one book or work of prose. Under the new curriculum, they will only study 10 poems and an extract from a work of prose. “The student with a more advanced level of Irish will go through the system now oblivious to the fact that we have wonderful literary achievements in Irish,” said Ó Conluain.
“I accept the need to reduce the marks allocated to literature in order to award 40% to the new oral exam [plus 10% for aural comprehension], but I am disappointed because there will be a drop in the quality of the material studied by students at higher level.”
Carey said concern was building among gaeltacht communities that the course will not challenge students from Irish-speaking homes. Representatives of the gaelscoileanna movement have voiced concerns that Irish-speaking pupils from non-gaeltacht backgrounds would not be sufficiently stretched.
Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú, chairman of an Oireachtas sub-committee on the 20-year language strategy, said: “This threatened dumbing-down of the Leaving Cert course is causing a great degree of concern because the Irish language has a strong literary base. If this is implemented, it could be difficult to change.”
Sunday Times – Stephen O’Brien
25 Aibreán 2010