CTYI makes the papers!

skanger666

This was handed to me when I came in last night. I thought some people might like to see it, so I have typed it up, complete with bad punctuation and mistakes.

Evening Herald, Monday 2 August 2004

Centre for Talented Youth is a Class Act for Gifted Children

We’re all concerned about our children’s education. We worry if they can’t read or spell as well as others; and those in favour of testing seven-year-olds say it’s vital to pick up on children with problems early.
But what about children found to be years ahead of their peers? Have you ever thought that they might need help to deal with being “different”?
It can be tough at the top. Gifted children get bored in class, and this often makes them disruptive.
It’s tough for the child who may find it hard to make friends; it’s hard for the teacher who’s trying to cope with a class of 35, hasn’t the time to give a gifted child extra work and attention; and its not much fun for the parents either.

Outlet
And that’s why the Irish Centre for Talented Youth was set up back in 1983.
Based in Dublin City University the centre provides an outlet for children who are gifted academically, to relieve their boredom at school, and give them a appetite for subjects such as astronomy, philosophy and law.
“It helps the students in many different areas,” says the director of the centre, Sheila Gilheany.
“It feeds their interest, gives them confidence, enables them to study something new, and to meet someone who is a bit like themselves. They may have many friends elsewhere, but there is something special about someone who is reading the same type of book as yourself. ”

Courses
The centre started with 177 students, and now caters for around 2,800 a year. “Over 18,000 people have taken courses with us,” says Ms Gilheany. “We now have centres in Cork, Letterkenny, Athlone and Waterford and another will open in Galway in the autumn.”
The centre caters for children from 6 to 16, and runs Saturday classes as well as the summer residential courses.
Fifty per cent of the children are referred to the centre at the school’s recommendation; the rest by parents.
The children are assessed by means of a SAT test, and those reaching a prescribed level are taken on.
We tend to see all our children are brilliant, so does the centre attract pushy parents?
“Most of them would be cringing at the idea of being pushy,” says Gilheany. “They would be underplaying their child’s achievement rather than overplaying. The pushy are by far the minority.”
Where once schools seemed to dismiss the problems of a gifted child, now they ask advice from the ICTY. And there are easy strategies they can adopt.

Projects
Where once a child might be moved up a class or two, they are now kept with their peers.
Instead they are given extra projects to work on, or are moved up for key subjects.
That’s not the only way the ICTY help schools.
“The courses themselves help from the school’s point of view,” says Gilheany, “Even coming once a week makes it easier for a pupil to cope with life at school. It changes the whole way they view the regular classroom.”

Oisìn Collins (16), has just returned from the International Conference of Young Leaders held in Vienna, Budapest and Prague. There were representatives from New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore and everywhere in Europe.
“It was awesome,” says Oisìn. “I was the only Irish representative, and I ended up chairing the final summit of 400 people.”
Without CTYI, he says, he would never have had the confidence to do it. “Without it, I would have been overwhelmed.”
Oisìn, from Wexford, first joined CTYI as a shy 12-year-old. His great friends, Aisling Keatly and Cork-based Owen Power joined two years later. Owen, in particular, was horrified at the idea of spending weeks of his precious summer in a classroom.

Rubbish
“I thought it would be rubbish really. But I enjoyed it,” he said.
And that’s because they were taught by people with a huge knowledge who treat them as equals. As Oisìn says it’s not “sit down, learn this and do that. It’s a chance to take a subject to the next level of learning.”
That first year Owen studied archeology. “I enjoyed the field trips but it was a bit boring and the next year I tired engineering; but that didn’t suit me either. This year I’m doing physics and I’m not sure that’s for me. I think I’ll study medicine at college, but I’m still not certain.”
If you had have expected to meet academic stereotypes up at DCU you’d have been disappointed. Oisìn Owen and Aisling are regular 16-year-olds who love sport, music, and in Aisling’s case dance and yoga.
They enjoy the craic of the discos, talent competitions and table quizzes held at weekends here as much as the college style courses.
But there is a special bond between them. All admit they make their closest friends through the scheme.
“But we’re cool,” says Aisling. “We have friends at school too.”
But what do her friends from St. Mary’s Convent in Dublin think about Aisling subjecting herself to academia in the holidays?
“At first they said, ‘that must be a mad,’ but now they’re jealous. They really want to go too.”
Currently studying Philosophy, Aisling hopes to be a writer but fears that she’ll have to teach for a living and write on the side.
Oisìn would like to go into politics. He’s taken his Leaving Certificate and is off to college in the September. However, for the others, it’s into 5th year at school.
Isn’t that totally boring for them?
They swear it’s not. Owen says he’s chosen subjects- applied maths and physics- that will challenge him, and Oisìn points out that school is just different.
Owen sums up his attitude to the learning process: “School is goal focused. You go in there and do your five or six years and get your Leaving Certificate. But you come in here and really learn.”

Zounds

wow, we actually come off kinda well

mentalimplosion

oh god i haven't laughed so loud in weeks....

skanger666

It's better than the last time when we were all called precocious...

mentalimplosion

although aisling may have messed it up by insisting we're still cool....

Zounds

yah, thought that myself but it probably sounded better when she said it

skanger666

it sounded slightly desperate to be accepted...

NeoSlicerZ

roflmao...

Oisín Collins

I think the three of us did a damn sight better than last years fiasco with network 2. aislings statement was actually prompted by the interviewer but didnt sound that bad at all, and to be honest i still dont think its that bad.

End of the day we made it sound like fun, which it is so job well done i gotta say *pats self, owen and ais on the back*

P.S. stop laughing, its immature and i didnt see any of ye volunteering to do an interview so keep it to yourselves

Raphael

China still cool! You pay later, later!!
</simpsons quote>

Seriously though, its one of the better brushes we've had with the media....which doesnt really say much, does it?

Raphael

Oisin, as regards that "fiasco", STFU

You werent there for that interview, everything said was twisted completely, as Duddy and co parodyed

skanger666

I would have volunteered but i didnt hear about it. *sulks in the corner for a while*

Oisín Collins

doesnt make a difference, at least the three of us were careful not to say anything that could even possibly be twisted. i stand by my use of the word as it was a fiasco! we came off terribly and while network 2 deserve most of the blame, people who are interviewed have to be careful and watch what they say or it WILL be twisted. thats a lesson for later life

skanger666

also to consider is the way in which the interviewer's opinion will be noticable in the article; whether through direct statement or the way in which the article is phrased...

Oisín Collins

precisely, well noted. its always pretty clear what they're trying to ge you to say during an interview as well and the less you give them the less they can use. In other words if you only talk about what a great place it is they cant make it sound like a pile of rubbish!

skanger666

true, but I don't think they intended to... look at the headline.. its very positive and if they wanted to make it negative they could have called the article something like "nerd camp?" or something so that people are automatically negative towards CTYI. It did bother me, however, that they kept calling it ICTY.

Raphael

They're obviously putting it in alphabetical order for convenience

Zounds

well it is more often referred to as The Irish Centre for Talented Youth then The Centre for Talented Youth, Ireland; even though CTYI is the official acronym

Oisín Collins

eh, irish centre for talented youth, could have been worse.

buffalo

It was hard to keep reading after that first " the Irish Centre for Talented Youth was set up back in 1983." but still, good job everyone!

skanger666

I know, I'm just very pedantic and anally-retentive...(except about spelling :P)

Zounds

i think that's actually correct, they just didn't start the courses till 1993

skanger666

perhaps a pilot study, fundraising and general organising filled the first 10 years?

buffalo

From http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/summer/general/introd.htm


"In 1992 the Irish Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) was established at DCU"

skanger666

fair enough

PurpleFistMixer

Although I hate to remember, I'll bring it up anyway, but we were in the paper during session1. And.. damn, I can't remember the name of the paper. But it was awful, this one is immensely better.
There was also a thing about us on the Six o clock news couple weeks back, if anyone from sess1 remembers the cameras around the place. I actually have the tape and may put it up at some point for people to see... It was pretty messed up though, they kept talking about the babyCTYI and showing shots of us... and spitalians, for who knows what reason.

Zounds

based on the 10th annivesary thing they had up in DCU last year (i think) talk of a CTYI began in the early 80s

Raphael

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

Although I hate to remember, I'll bring it up anyway, but we were in the paper during session1. And.. damn, I can't remember the name of the paper. But it was awful, this one is immensely better.
There was also a thing about us on the Six o clock news couple weeks back, if anyone from sess1 remembers the cameras around the place. I actually have the tape and may put it up at some point for people to see... It was pretty messed up though, they kept talking about the babyCTYI and showing shots of us... and spitalians, for who knows what reason.

It was the indo, articles on the net

*searches*

Zounds

it was pinned up on the wall in the office, i read a bit of it, looked like the ussual rubbish

PurpleFistMixer

Hm, damn. I had cut it out and now I've completely lost it.

The part which caused most outrage was, after they had finished commenting on how we "sail effortlessly through exams", calling us "whiz kids" and saying we like going back to school during the summer, they said we're normal teenagers which is apparent from the "ordinary" (yes, QUOTATION MARKS) way we socialise.

Pah.

Zounds

i gave up after the first mention of the words "whiz kids"

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