How's School?

Spog

only problem with ty (unless you're in my school and have a bolox for a yearhead) is that you go into 5th year afterwards and by golly is it hard to adjust! (heh heh, by golly! funny)

take me for example. spending ages on the internet last year would have caused me no guilt at all whereas no i'm simply procrastinating to avoid the mountains of homework the teachers have piled on. Ok, so they're not mountains but it seems like loads after last year.

But i'm actually glad to be back to having some structure to my day and being forced to be social and stuff like that. i need it, cos otherwise i'd never talk to anyone (testament to that is the fact that talked to/met a grand total of 3 of the people that i'm friendly with all summer until a party a week before goin back to school!), or do anything (except mooching) and i'd become a useless slob lazing about doing fek all!

Hurray and huzzah for school!!



But dammit! I can't wait to be out!

Crash

AHAHAHHA ....damn i'm bored. sitting round doing nothing....another month till lectures start...whatever shall i do?!

Raphael

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, **** you college boy

Anyway, your gonna die before us, so HA!

It wasn't me!

We've all heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Aonghus has just invented the self-negating prophecy!

Raphael

.......

That's the most entertaining/original post I've seen here in months. Bravo Dave

purplepolkadot

AHAHAHHA ....damn i'm bored. sitting round doing nothing....another month till lectures start...whatever shall i do?!

you should take up my hobby of working very little so that you can indulge in much shindiggery and wastedness to lament the passing of your time in secondary school, and celebrate the onset of the summer of your youth.
or something like that. we wrote it down somewhere...

I'm in 6th year, but I love school. I do my work, do my Student Council stuff, play rugby, hang out with friends...In 6th year the teacher-student relationship seems to be less of a superior teacher / inferior student one but rather an equal relationship based on respect and trust...If you act like someone with half a brain, have some manners and extend your teachers the respect and trust they deserve then I find school to be an entirely happy easy going affair. Disliking your school / teachers is utterly pointless before you're 16 because you have to go to school. Disliking your school / teachers after you're 16 means you deserve the death penalty. You are a horrible waste of space, if you dislike it so much then leave you horrible cowardly twats...

i agree COMPLETELY with all that, very well said there. when you've done the junior cert./TY (most people are pushing 16 round then i gather) if you hate school and are just acting like one of the ignorant **** who just annoy the entire class and result in a whole lot less getting done, then just QUIT. no one cares that you hate school, and your whole class never needs to know so don't make a point of disrupting the place just because you're bored. please.

i loved irish once i got a good teacher and in fairness, it IS our national language, the bunreacht and all that jazz is as gaeilge (afair...) and it's nice to keep a bit of diversity and culture going on. i only have a very basic command, put if you but in a wee bit of effort at the essays and such you can do well no problem. i had ****e teaching for it in primary, and did nothing up to junior cert., but i copped myself on and i got a B1 in the written part of the leaving (hons.) there (although my god-awful oral did bring it awhn down to a B3).

go go irish!!

Crash

Ah see i just did the smart thing - i moved school. gave me a renewed love of various subjects (maths and technical drawing for instance), made much better friends than i had ever made and made me a hellofalot happier.

/me thanks Tess and david for being class teachers, even though they'll never see this.

believe me you'll never realise how good class can be until you really get a teacher you can a)talk to and b)slag the crap out of

for instance

Neil makes smart comment under breath
Tess: sorry did you have something to contribute to the class?
Neil: oh no not at all, i was just making a smartass comment, dont mind me tess.
*silence*
Tess:so productive as always then? *she laughs*

imagine a year of this witty banter teh win.

StupidLikeAFox

its true in 6th year the student/teacher relationship does develop trust and whatnot, but what if the teacher is actually a w*nker, who still looks down their nose at ya? doesnt do much for ya then.
And if people hate school it doesnt mean they're horrible people, i dont like school but its the only way to get me where i want to go, so it has to be done. I dont whinge about it and work hard enough (most of the time ;-)) but it doesnt make me like it any more

Caoimhe

OrangeRhino wrote:

[Off topic] Clontarf, eh? What school are you in I go to Pauls.

I go to Holy Faith, I've no doubt you know half the people in my year

pinkpimp

when i was doin the irish jc oral the examiner left the class, and we all gave our papers to smarter(ie fluent) people. one bloke ended up doing 3 tests. and i got someones pass exam, the question was cèn scannan atà ar siuil? and the tape said Lord of the Rings. THATS NOT AN IRISH EXAM ITS ENGLISH.

anyway, that was probably irrelivant cos i just stopped reading a few pages ago. point is, the Junior is a joke.

Caoimhe

The whole Irish course from 1st to 6th year is a joke. Its the most poorly taught subject I've ever come across.

pinkpimp

it is true, the system of teaching Irish in this country sucks. Its not the spoken language, so they shouldn't treat it like that. But I will not allow the badmouthing of the actual language. Tis the best damn language I've tried (and Ive tried English, Irish, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuigese, maybe more...) Tis bloody good. Just look at the way to describe things, and the phrases... beutiful. Tis a more romantic language than french, and more noble than Italian. Without the grease. In conclusion GAILGE ROCKS.

PurpleFistMixer

I hope you're being sarcastic because any language with a sound similar to the "ch" noise in Irish just isn't good. At all. Let alone romantic or nice sounding.
It's really all a question of personal tastes, though.

pinkpimp

Not being sarcastic. Its a beautiful language. And that sound is made in most languages. especially French, which is supposed to be the most romantic language.

Caoimhe

I gotta agree with Colm, its a brilliant language and I love speaking it, its just so badly taught in school I hate the subject itself, not the language. Its the same with German, I don't have a very good teacher so I dislike the subject but I think its just the most fun language EVER

PurpleFistMixer

Okay, I admit it isn't the WORST language ever... But I have heard nicer sounding ones... of which examples are eluding me right now.
German is pretty cool too. But it was either German or Art so...

Aoibheann

Caoimhe wrote:

I gotta agree with Colm, its a brilliant language and I love speaking it, its just so badly taught in school I hate the subject itself, not the language. Its the same with German, I don't have a very good teacher so I dislike the subject but I think its just the most fun language EVER

you're right, german is a fun language. I have the added bonus of having a great teacher.
pretty much the same for irish.

Kitsune

The whole Irish course from 1st to 6th year is a joke. Its the most poorly taught subject I've ever come across.

Yeah, they should take the model of the French (or German) syllabus and apply it to Irish. After 4 years and a week of French and 10 and a bit of Irish, I know less French, but what I know is a hell of a lot more relevant and useful and I'd now be more comfortable living in France than in the Gaeltacht.
It's a shame though because I really like Irish (as a language, not a subject in school) I sometimes slip into Irish when i'm tired . I was in the gaeltacht two years ago and I started thinking in Irish for a while and it was cool. Yay for Irish! (but It's still the bane of my school going life)

got someones pass exam, the question was cèn scannan atà ar siuil? and the tape said Lord of the Rings.

Hehe... I love the ones with the pictures on them to explain the questions

LiamD

Re the way everyone is talking bout people hating school and disrupting class I don't think there is anything wrong with having a laugh in class the odd time.As long as it's not too bad and I think some teachers do just bring it upon themselves.However I do see the point about trust with teachers and I'm glad to say I've got that with most of my teachers.It's good to get the balance but some of the best laughs I've had are in certain classes (e.g. religion) even though sometimes it's at the teacher's expense.

pinkpimp

Kitsune wrote:

I sometimes slip into Irish when i'm tired . I was in the gaeltacht two years ago and I started thinking in Irish for a while and it was cool.

yeah, im constantly thinking in irish. and french, after i went out with an exchange student for a while. good times i remember i once kept thinking 'whats the irish word for còfra?'

doonothing

OrangeRhino wrote:

[Off topic] Clontarf, eh? What school are you in I go to Pauls.

you go to pauls? well you're not john, david or barry.... so are you that guy i vaguely recognise from s1 last year?

Piste

Irish Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 'Tis the best damn language this side of the Universe! (The second of course being Globtrob) My Irish teacher is cool too. Today in class he was like 'Right, what personality traits have we done so far? Does anyone not know what a personality trait is?' One girl puts up her hand 'Ok, I'm Kind. I'm the kindest person in the world. Now what personality trait is that?' Me: 'Sarcasm?'

Barry Aldwell

doonothing wrote:

you go to pauls? well you're not john, david or barry.... so are you that guy i vaguely recognise from s1 last year?

We have spoken of him several times

Scarinae

I'm enjoying school so far this term. I don't think the whole "you're in 6th year" message has kicked in yet... And I'm getting Maths homework for the first time since third year, cos I moved classes, yay!

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

[donothing: I haven't attended CTYI as a student since 2002, session 1... I've visited a few times since but you probably don't recognise me from session 1 last year, no.]

Having a laugh in class is fine, it's the godbaws that don't know when to stop that annoy me. Regarding Irish, I'm proud of my heritage and of my country but I really don't believe Irish should be a mandatory subject, at least not after the Junior Cert. - the way it is in most schools everyone is required to do at least 2 if not 3 languages as part of their Leaving Certificate program.

For a student who finds languages incredibly hard yet sails through science subjects it isn't fair that they should have to do 2 if not 3 languages. After the Junior Cert. I think it would be ideal to have no mandatory subjects but that probably won't ever happen so I believe Maths and English should be the only mandatory subjects however all schools should be obliged to provide Irish classes at both ordinary and higher levels (foundation is not required although I am in two minds as to whether it should be scrapped altogether).

I realise a change like this would require a change to the entry requirements of almost every third level institution in the country as well as a fundamental change in the Irish seconday school system but I think it's definetely going to have to happen eventually. Sooner or later, for various reasons, the Department of Education and Science will be handing out so many exemptions from Irish that this will just be the logical step forward.

Joycey

I would be one of the idiots then who always causes **** in class and stuff that suposedly everyone hates because they do cause ****. No one has ever asked me to stop doing it. People are always lookin at me in class when theyre bored and tellin me to "do something funny". I then do it, manage to get away with it, and have more people tellin me to do stuff. No one in my school seems to have a problem with it. Everyone laughs. So if everyone seems to be badly affected then why are they laughing and asking me to do more stuff?

With regards to liking school i would have pretty much the same view as colm holligan. I thought hard earlier this week even about dropping out and getting a trade (I was thinking electrician or mechanic or something). Then i realized that however bored i am in school. If my head doesnt get challenged at all in later life, then im going to be bored all my life, whereas if i go to colledge i will get an acidemically challanging career.

So i see school as an anavoidable path through life which i hate, but stay in because it is the only route which is satisfactory for my needs.

Caoimhe

I can see where Joycey is coming from on the challenge thing. I think people act so badly in my Irish class because they're extremely bored by the lack of challenge. I mean, take the Stair na Gaeilge we have to learn - answer 2 parts out of 8 and all you have to do is copy down a short piece of writing you've learned off by heart. Which, by the way is incredibly unfair to very gifted students that simply have trouble learning passages off by heart, it brings their grades down an awful lot in some cases. I just can't see the benefit of doing that, you aren't actually learning anything because you don't really have to understand or think about what you're learning off so really you're accomplishing nothing.

article6

I love Irish. But I'm not going to start typing in Irish now, because I want to be off this computer quickly (strain on my feeble immune system and all that). The reason so many people dislike Irish in school is because it is taught wrongly. This will be a long post, because I care about the subject, and know a bit about language teaching. Bear with me.

It is taught wrongly because it is taught in a near-similar way to English. The presumption is that the child is taught English and Irish from the cradle. This is not realistic nowadays for at least 90% of children in Ireland, and it is this very 90% who need better Irish teaching than natural Gaeilgeóirí in the first place. Rather than teaching to suit the 10%, we need to teach to suit the 90%.

Teach it as you would teach French or German. Use the modern Communicative Method of language teaching rather than the outdated Grammar-Translation Method. Without being too technical, this means teaching students to use the language in realistic situations and accepting the occasional lapse, rather than making them learn off verb tenses and a few stock sentences. And the curriculum ought not to presume prior knowledge of the language. Irish is like a foreign language for most 12-year-olds in this country, never mind most 6-year-olds.

If the Government adopted this system, they could justify compulsory Irish classes.

The possible disadvantage of the system is disruption in Gaeilscoileanna, due to boredom being instilled in those students who already have Gaeilge liofa. But look around many non-Gaeilscoil classrooms during Irish teaching and you will see the same disruption repeated. I earned my Honours B in equal parts because of Irish class and in spite of it.

... Pretty long post, much longer than I'd intended. Eh, I've nothing else to do until I get to Dublin (on-campus accommodation - w00t)

jono087

Irish is like the most pointless subject we do, I mean besides the obvious exceptions of the guards, Irish teachers (vicious circle), civil servants (supposedly, however I can't see a reason for them needing it) no proffession needs it, and yet not only do we have it on our curriculum, but it's a core subject. English and maths understandably have this status, but why Irish!!!???

PurpleFistMixer

It's a question of culture, and it being our language. If we stop getting taught it at school it will most likely die.