Schools want to drop LC physics, chemistry, economics

shizz

Dostoevsky wrote: »

Not for me, or hundreds of thousands of other former Irish students - all of whom were "forced" to learn what, for us, has been of no use to our careers. The only maths most of us need is an ability to calculate, which we've learned before the LC. The rest is not necessary and indeed things like trig, theorems etc are of no use to most people. Likewise with English, we were forced to learn it for LC when we all knew how to read and write before it, the two things which are useful to everybody. If people are going to single out Irish as being "useless" and "forced upon them", they'll have to do a lot better in terms of honesty in this argument.

The fact that it didn't help you in your career is simply because of the career you chose. If it wasn't "pushed" on students there would be no students wanting to go into further maths studies, and if they did they'd be up **** creek.

Whether you like it or not those aspects of maths are vital to the way we live now. They've helped build our civilisation. What has Irish done? If you want to name the amount of jobs that can be obtained by using Irish over maths, we all know which subject will win that. I don't even think you need to explain how English is more important than Irish.

The main gripe I had with Irish is the way they teach it just like English. I'm in a international University at the moment and when I tell people how I had been learning Irish for around 12 years yet can't hold a simple conversation in it, they are shocked. I'm not alone here either. I would love to be able to speak Irish. Just conversationally. Nothing more nothing less. But that is not how it is taught.

vamos!

partyatmygaff wrote: »

English does all of that as well (Barring culture and heritage). The only difference is that English is actually useful for communication.

The recent change in LC Irish is ridiculous as far as i'm concerned. 40% for the oral exam, no more stáir and less literature has made studying LC Irish a complete and utter waste of time.

The only thing I valued in LC Irish was learning about the history of Ireland and reading Irish literature. The rest of it... writing essays about "Young people in Ireland", reading comprehensions, listening comprehensions and the oral exam were wastes of time as far as i'm concerned.

Nowadays, there are no advantages and many disadvantages involved in using Irish to communicate. With that in mind, trying to change the course to make it more communication-orientated and less heritage-orientated is a bad move.

English is obviously the main language in Ireland. That cannot be refuted. I cannot understand how being able to communicate as Gaeilge has many disadvantages though? I am not proposing to eradicate English and teach everything through Irish. I am all for not cutting any of our subjects and keeping our broad education system. Obviously, Irish is a controversial one as people tend to feel very strongly about it, but it really isn't as simple as cutting Irish and RE t in order to create a nation of scientists. What would we do with the Irish teachers? How long would it take until people regretted that they no longer had their cupla focail and sense of cultural heritage and pride?

shizz

vamos! wrote: »

English is obviously the main language in Ireland. That cannot be refuted. I cannot understand how being able to communicate as Gaeilge has many disadvantages though? I am not proposing to eradicate English and teach everything through Irish. I am all for not cutting any of our subjects and keeping our broad education system. Obviously, Irish is a controversial one as people tend to feel very strongly about it, but it really isn't as simple as cutting Irish and RE t in order to create a nation of scientists. What would we do with the Irish teachers? How long would it take until people regretted that they no longer had their cupla focail and sense of cultural heritage and pride?

Its funny. I find that it's when Irish people are abroad as a group, that they want to be able to converse in Irish.

vamos!

shizz wrote: »

The fact that it didn't help you in your career is simply because of the career you chose. If it wasn't "pushed" on students there would be no students wanting to go into further maths studies, and if they did they'd be up **** creek.

Whether you like it or not those aspects of maths are vital to the way we live now. They've helped build our civilisation. What has Irish done? If you want to name the amount of jobs that can be obtained by using Irish over maths, we all know which subject will win that. I don't even think you need to explain how English is more important than Irish.

The main gripe I had with Irish is the way they teach it just like English. I'm in a international University at the moment and when I tell people how I had been learning Irish for around 12 years yet can't hold a simple conversation in it, they are shocked. I'm not alone here either. I would love to be able to speak Irish. Just conversationally. Nothing more nothing less. But that is not how it is taught.

This is kind of going off topic but I am interested in how you seem to be comparing Irish to Maths... they can coexist. It is not an either or situation? And as for 12 years of education leaving you unable to hold a simple conversation in Irish, some of the shortcomings lie with you and either your attitude towards the subject or ability. I, and other like me, had the same education and was taught in a similar style, and am well able to hold a conversation in Irish. Nothing shocking about it. I still don't know hoe simultaneous equations or differentiation works though. Is it because it was taught just like calculus or because I hated maths and didn't see the point of it?

shizz

vamos! wrote: »

This is kind of going off topic but I am interested in how you seem to be comparing Irish to Maths... they can coexist. It is not an either or situation? And as for 12 years of education leaving you unable to hold a simple conversation in Irish, some of the shortcomings lie with you and either your attitude towards the subject or ability. I, and other like me, had the same education and was taught in a similar style, and am well able to hold a conversation in Irish. Nothing shocking about it. I still don't know hoe simultaneous equations or differentiation works though. Is it because it was taught just like calculus or because I hated maths and didn't see the point of it?

Well it's not really? Were talking about the worth of subjects if there is a need to get rid of some?

I do agree a lot of it is due to my attitude towards Irish, but I'm not alone in this. I would say and I think you can agree that the majority of people can't hold a conversation in Irish. I'm of the opinion that it is how it is taught. They teach it at the same standard as English, completely disregarding that we are brought up speaking English so it is not right to teach them at the same level.

There is no need to have to decipher poems, remember stories and write essays in Irish the same way we do in English. If it's going to be taught it should be strictly at a conversational level. The rest will follow. I mean There is far more interest in a language if you can speak it. We're thrown in the deep end by doing it by reading poems and stories.

IMO aural and oral are far more important and should be a consistent part of the class.

danslevent

Immaculate Pasta wrote: »

Don't agree with either of these choices. Studying Religion is akin to learning about History or Geography. It's an important humanities subject. Irish, while questionable whether it should be compulsory or not, is still our native language and must be made an option.

The real answer is none of these subjects should be dropped. Dropping any of the Sciences is criminal. So anybody who attends these schools would have no chance of ever becoming a Doctor or a Pharmacist etc. Economics is also essential as it teaches people how the world really works.

Religion would be as beneficial if it was actually taught that way. We just had Catholicism lessons, didn't learn about any other religions. I know some schools actually teach it as a proper examined subject but for the most part, it's just a doss class.

I remember I had three classes of religion a week which was taught by a nun and all we did was read from a book where the moral of every story was if you didn't obey some crazy moral rules you would definitely go to hell. Would have loved to have learned about different religions etc but instead it was just a waste of time.

dlofnep

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Why do they speak them? Two words. They're useful. Why is Irish a better language for us to communicate in and why is it better than English? What's the benefit in learning a language that only a few thousand can understand let alone use?

Irish is useful. I use it daily. Being bilingual has only advantages over being monolingual. And it's not only a few thousand that can understand it - please don't engage in hyperbolic nonsense to put across your point. 130,000 people in the state use it on a weekly basis. That's more than a 'few thousand'.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Why? With regard to communication, Irish offers nothing over English. In fact, it's extremely limited in comparison to English.

Why speak Welsh? Why speak Basque? Why speak Hindi? English is probably the de facto international language, and probably the most 'useful'. That doesn't mean you can't use both. The idea of being bilingual seems to be lost on you.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

It's like any other "old" language. Take Ancient Greek for example. People don't learn Ancient Greek to communicate with each other. They learn Ancient Greek to study Greek history and culture.

Another logical fallacy. We're not speaking Old Irish. We're speaking modern Irish. Just like the Greeks are speaking modern Greek. Irish is a living, modern language - which has very old roots. There is a difference.

GaryIrv93

vamos! wrote: »

I have seen arguments for the removal of Irish and Religion (not that I agree with them for the most part). Why should languages be removed? It makes no sense to me? Surely lack of FL skills is an area in which Ireland falls down? We have an economy where multinationals play an important role and fairly poor language skills.

People can still pay for language classes with their own money and in their own time. I know a lot of people who do that. It's probably better than learning it in school, as you can learn them in your own way. If they don't get removed, they should be removed as compulsory subjects.

dfx-

The core Leaving Cert chemistry course is given at first year chemistry third level courses anyways, so you could get away with that way. I had second year students in a lab last week that couldn't calculate concentration by first principles which is really basic stuff, but they used the leaving cert style plug-the-number-into-the-formula instead.

Given the standard of practical knowledge of chemistry (use of basic equipment, pipettes and burettes) is appalling at LC level it wouldn't make much difference either to the workload in labs too. But at least it is some sort of filter of people - seriously, chemistry dropped?:eek:

vamos!

GaryIrv93 wrote: »

People can still pay for language classes with their own money and in their own time. I know a lot of people who do that. It's probably better than learning it in school, as you can learn them in your own way. If they don't get removed, they should be removed as compulsory subjects.

Apart from Irish, languages aren't actually compulsory. As for your suggestion that people could learn them in their own time, surely the same is true for all subjects? I am completely biased here as I am a linguist, but I really do believe that languages are just as important as sciences to improve our economy. I still think it would be wrong to make our LCert shorter, as a broad education is best for most people. It would be silly to focus on one aspect now just because there are jobs in science and IT and leave us clueless on everything else. I think it's funny that people are all for cutting subjects that they don't/didn't like when we really should be outraged that our teenagers are losing the option of choosing subjects that are right for them and will affect their futures, all because RQ is happy to use the education budget as an easy target. The teenagers don't have votes yet so he remains safe.

partyatmygaff

dlofnep wrote: »

Irish is useful. I use it daily. Being bilingual has only advantages over being monolingual.

Being bilingual in general is advantageous. That is not what's being discussed here.

When we become specific about the languages in question, the extent of the advantage depends on the languages in question. In the case of having Irish as a second language, the advantage is so negligible that it's almost non-existent. Irish speakers have no tangible advantage over non-Irish speakers.

And it's not only a few thousand that can understand it - please don't engage in hyperbolic nonsense to put across your point. 130,000 people in the state use it on a weekly basis. That's more than a 'few thousand'.

130,000 of almost five million who claim they use Irish at least once a week compared to the entire population who use English every single dayof the week. Much like Latin, Irish is a niche language that's nice to know but far from essential.

Why speak Welsh? Why speak Basque? Why speak Hindi? English is probably the de facto international language, and probably the most 'useful'. That doesn't mean you can't use both. The idea of being bilingual seems to be lost on you.

I can speak many languages (Including Irish). I appreciate that being multilingual is a good thing. I just don't see why such a huge amount of money is being spent on teaching people what is essentially a niche language while other more mainstream subjects are being "dropped".

Another logical fallacy. We're not speaking Old Irish. We're speaking modern Irish. Just like the Greeks are speaking modern Greek. Irish is a living, modern language - which has very old roots. There is a difference.

You misunderstand me. I was comparing Irish to Ancient Greek not on the basis of their age but on the basis that both are relatively obscure, niche languages.

bnt

I was last at school many years and thousands of miles away, and have no kids, so I don't know what's going on in Irish schools in any detail. That doesn't stop me from having an opinion, of course. Let me try a bit of logic:

IF
too few pupils are taking some "hard" subjects at some schools;
AND
the cost of employing teachers for so few students is a problem;
THEN
why not use technology to bridge the gap?

Let students attend "virtual classes" using video conferencing. The technology is not new or expensive any more, with broadband internet. One good teacher, teaching dozens or hundreds of students spread out across the country, reaching all the way to that little school in darkest Connemara with the one Physics student.

Ditto for exams: it's time to drop the "sit in a room with pen and paper once a year" model of assessment. Break it up in to smaller tests, do them more regularly, online, and give students a chance to fix problems with a subject before they become fatal. What about the cost of developing a curriculum? For science-related subjects you could buy it in from the UK, change the headings, and no-one would notice. Only a few subjects need any Irish input.

Instead of dropping subjects, you can make the whole business of teaching and assessment much more efficient, and save costs that way.

partyatmygaff

bnt wrote: »

I was last at school many years and thousands of miles away, and have no kids, so I don't know what's going on in Irish schools in any detail. That doesn't stop me from having an opinion, of course. Let me try a bit of logic:

IF
too few pupils are taking some "hard" subjects at some schools;
AND
the cost of employing teachers for so few students is a problem;
THEN
why not use technology to bridge the gap?

Let students attend "virtual classes" using video conferencing. The technology is not new or expensive any more, with broadband internet. One good teacher, teaching dozens or hundreds of students spread out across the country, reaching all the way to that little school in darkest Connemara with the one Physics student.

And what will people do when it comes to lab experiments? You're also forgetting that outside of Dublin, broadband access is not guaranteed.

Ditto for exams: it's time to drop the "sit in a room with pen and paper once a year" model of assessment. Break it up in to smaller tests, do them more regularly, online, and give students a chance to fix problems with a subject before they become fatal.

People can very easily cheat in an online exam. It's not a robust enough for a national examination.

Seachmall

bnt wrote: »

Let students attend "virtual classes" using video conferencing. The technology is not new or expensive any more, with broadband internet. One good teacher, teaching dozens or hundreds of students spread out across the country, reaching all the way to that little school in darkest Connemara with the one Physics student. .

But then you have to cope with that awkward moment when you realise half your class are masturbating furiously during your lessons.

Jimoslimos

If students are unable to pick up Irish by 2nd level, (or alternatively if teachers are unable to teach it), then there isn't much hope for students learning French, German, Chinese or whatever the flavour of the month foreign language is.

Irish isn't the problem here. It shouldn't be seen as a subject that takes the place of other languages - you'd probably find students fluent in both Irish/English going into secondary school would pick up other languages much quicker.

dlofnep

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I can speak many languages (Including Irish). I appreciate that being multilingual is a good thing. I just don't see why such a huge amount of money is being spent on teaching people what is essentially a niche language while other more mainstream subjects are being "dropped".

They are not being dropped because Irish is a core subject. I'm not sure why you keep bringing up that point. If they are being dropped, it's because 130 million euro has been cut from the education budget - and because of growing numbers of students, and lack of available resources. To make the Irish language a scapegoat is absurd.

partyatmygaff

dlofnep wrote: »

They are not being dropped because Irish is a core subject. I'm not sure why you keep bringing up that point. If they are being dropped, it's because 130 million euro has been cut from the education budget - and because of growing numbers of students, and lack of available resources. To make the Irish language a scapegoat is absurd.

Spending cuts should translate to change. What i'm saying is that before we consider trying to save money by dropping subjects such as physics/chemistry or music we should try other changes such as making Irish optional.

iwasonbwh

Last weekend, my school attended a Transition Year competition known as 'Euroscola' in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. We met 500 students from another 23 european countries, and I had to present our aschool and country to the parliament in a foreign language. I chose french, and made my presentation, but could only do so because of the help of my dad, who is a French teacher (I wouldn't be able to have a conversation in it). When we were conversing with students from other nations, our lack of abiity in a second language scared us, as they could speak english much better than our curse ridden style.

There was also a group from Wales representing the UK, and we asked them could they speak Welsh. We found that they only began to learn it at 13, and they hated it. It reminded me of our attitude to Irish. I love Irish and trying to converse in it, but that is probably because my dad is fluent and always encouraged us.

In short:

We need a strong second foreign language

• Students in Wales have the same attitude to their language as we do i.e. the majority of them hate it. I think we need it, but I'm an exception I suppose.

Seachmall

Jimoslimos wrote: »

If students are unable to pick up Irish by 2nd level, (or alternatively if teachers are unable to teach it), then there isn't much hope for students learning French, German, Chinese or whatever the flavour of the month foreign language is.

By JC I could easily hold a conversation in German but would be hard pushed to tell you the colors of the rainbows in Irish.

In TY I had many of the basics of Japanese down, but still couldn't describe my house in Irish.

Now I could translate an essay into Esperanto but I've still absolutely no understanding of Irish.


It's not the language that's the problem, it's how it's taught. And the general lack of interest in it.

partyatmygaff

iwasonbwh wrote: »

• Students in Wales have the same attitude to their language as we do i.e. the majority of them hate it. I think we need it, but I'm an exception I suppose.

Why do we need Irish? It's a nice language and fair enough if you're interested enough in it to learn it but why do you need the language?

Duggys Housemate

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Why do we need Irish? It's a nice language and fair enough if you're interested enough in it to learn it but why do you need the language?

WE don't need lots of stuff, education is not about producing functional workers but educated humans.

Powerhouse

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

While the drop Irish/Religion thing is as populist as it gets, the other subjects simply don't have the take-up in schools to justify them when numbers are being cut.

16 year-olds don't give a t*ss about economic recovery when making choices.

bnt

partyatmygaff wrote: »

And what will people do when it comes to lab experiments? You're also forgetting that outside of Dublin, broadband access is not guaranteed.

Labs? Field Trip! Take the students to the big school in town with the good lab facilities, rather than duplicate everything in every town.

Broadband: I'm talking about schools here, not kids sitting at home. The government could spend a little on their schools to save a lot in the long run. They can say "schools must have broadband" and make it so - isn't that the kind of thing a government does?

partyatmygaff wrote: »

People can very easily cheat in an online exam. It's not a robust enough for a national examination.

I'm talking about revisiting the assessment system as a whole, not just transplanting a paper exam to an online exam. There are ways to assess a student's performance on a continuous basis, rather than having it all come down to an exam. I thought I said so before, but I guess I wasn't clear enough.

What does it mean to "cheat", anyway? Having your notes in front of you, so you don't have to remember random things? There already are open book exams designed to test understanding rather than rote memorisation. Besides, in remote locations you can still have a person in the room, monitoring the students. That person doesn't need to be a dedicated maths teacher to monitor a maths exam - or even a teacher of any sort.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Your objections are all based on old pedagogical thinking, while I propose re-thinking all aspects of the system to make best use of limited resources.

Zab

partyatmygaff wrote: »

...

You can complete the entire exam without so much as mentioning Christianity if you so desired.

I know having a popular rant and getting thanked for it is great... but sometimes knowing what you're talking about can save a lot of embarrassment.

Well, I looked and you can't finish Unit 2 without mentioning Christianity. Of course, most of the conversion about religion in this thread is referring to a non-LC subject, even though the article linked is talking about LC subjects. How many schools even offer religion as a LC subject? The numbers of those taking the exam on examinations.ie are all low but rising, 352 in 2006 to 778 in 2008 then up to 962 in 2010. This is still a low % of students.

So, I would suspect (without knowing any stats) that dropping religion isn't going to help many schools with their budgetary problems, and the ones that are religion heavy aren't going to consider it anyway.

For the purposes of this discussion I'd support changing the compulsory subjects to English, Maths and History. Also, if it was an actual choice between dropping physics or religion then I'd drop religion and it wouldn't be close. However, the obvious answer is to look to alternatives that don't involve dropping subjects.

benway

ScumLord wrote: »

The looney left, to the looney right, shake it up, shake it up, its all right. The lines are drawn in the sand, cooperation and compromise have been thrown out the window. It's time to do battle... Over.. something.. or other.

Over this, pretty much:

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Surely the fact that public schools are being forced to drop the most important subject is one more reason to support privatisation. The government have always being terrible at providing services and it isn't going to get any better anytime soon.

Was probably a bit keen to make a pre-emptive strike, but I don't think that OP makes any secret of his/her ideological bias, even if it hasn't been openly stated on this thread.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that we're going to see a lot more stories of funding cuts impacting on services being spun, for ideological reasons, in to tales of Public Sector Inefficiency™ and cited in support of privatisation.

Seeing as this thread has turned into just yer standard Gaeilge / Catholicism bashing, I was probably being a bit hasty.

Duggys Housemate

I don't really care about physics, as I doubt that secondary school physics is even up to date with modern particles ( i.e. quarks). That needs to be re-taught anyway. Far more important for someone who wants to do university physics is higher level maths.

c_man

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

I don't really care about physics, as I doubt that secondary school physics is even up to date with modern particles ( i.e. quarks).

It had quarks on the course as part of one of the advanced options when I did LC physics back in 2002.

Powerhouse

Deleted User wrote: »

I think schools in general should provide as wide a range of subject choices as possible.

In practical terms this is a meaningless aspiration. Schools have ever decreasing numbers of teachers to choose from because of cutbacks - some obvious, others not so obvious to those outside schools but still affecting numbers - and the same number of classes per week to provide.

Choices have to be made and inevitably the axe will fall on subjects that might previously have been provided to small numbers. I know of one school that had six in a Leaving Cert physics class in very recent years. It's not sustainable for schools to keep subjects with such low take-up in senior cycle when Principals have to make choices between teachers/subjects.

Icepick

Actually, teachers' salaries should be cut by at least 1/5 instead.

80% of the education budget is spent on staff. Madness.

Powerhouse

Icepick wrote: »

Actually, teachers' salaries should be cut by at least 1/5 instead.

80% of the education budget is spent on staff. Madness.

As an appeal to the masses this is up there with 'get rid of Irish'. However, like getting rid of Irish it is naive to think that this would make a significant difference. How do I work that out? Well, teachers' salaries have been cut by around 15 per cent in the last three years and not one extra teacher has been employed as a result. In fact numbers have been dropping.

It also does not alter the reality that schools have only a finite timetable to operate under and there's not a lot of point in offering 279 subjects for the sake of it when in practical terms many schools are equipped to teach 7 or 8 properly.

kincsem

I'm retired.
Subjects I think should be compulsory:
maths; physics; chemistry; applied maths; english; business*; biology; one european language (not Irish); computer programming.

*business: general education on how business and finance works. It could skim over accounting and economics. Also a simple intro to personal finances. It might stop people acting like morons when the next boom arrives.

Non-technical subjects like Irish, arts, social studies, religion, politics should be taught on Saturday morning imo. I had school on Saturday morning.

Powerhouse

iwasonbwh wrote: »

We need a strong second foreign language

This is debatable. One of the reasons Europeans go so big on English is because of its importance. Relatively speaking the average Irish person will have far far less use for, say, French or Spanish than they would English. And the reality is that Irish people tend to emigrate predominantly to the Anglophone world anyway.

The numbers that drop the likes of French before Leaving Cert bolster this view and if it was not a requirement for some third-level colleges the drop-offs would be higher.

Is it culturally desirable that people would have access to a European language in schools. Absolutely. Should they be thought? Absolutely in my view. But are they needed? Certainly not I would say. Very few things, if any, that are taught in schools are needed. They are merely desirable.

Powerhouse

Seachmall wrote: »

By JC I could easily hold a conversation in German but would be hard pushed to tell you the colors of the rainbows in Irish.

In TY I had many of the basics of Japanese down, but still couldn't describe my house in Irish.

Now I could translate an essay into Esperanto but I've still absolutely no understanding of Irish.


It's not the language that's the problem, it's how it's taught. And the general lack of interest in it.

Esperanto? FFS?!

I'm not sure how Irish was taught to you. Was the teacher in a different room at the time? Even Foundation level students would have a fair rattle at describing their house after that many years. Not to mention someone that judging by your claims about other languages would seem you have a remarkable facility with languages. Maybe you need to take some responsibility for your own shortcomings with the language and stop implying that your experience should somehow inform policy on the language.

Scanlas The 2nd

There is no need to cut irish. Just teach it for 1 year like linguaphone teaches you and you'll be fluent. Easy.

micropig

bnt wrote: »

What does it mean to "cheat", anyway? Having your notes in front of you, so you don't have to remember random things? There already are open book exams designed to test understanding rather than rote memorisation. Besides, in remote locations you can still have a person in the room, monitoring the students. That person doesn't need to be a dedicated maths teacher to monitor a maths exam - or even a teacher of any sort.

:eek::eek: :D:D

bnt wrote: »

Do you see where I'm going with this? Your objections are all based on old pedagogical thinking, while I propose re-thinking all aspects of the system to make best use of limited resources.

+1 new pedagogical thinking needed across the system

Icepick wrote: »

Actually, teachers' salaries should be cut by at least 1/5 instead.

80% of the education budget is spent on staff. Madness.

Cut out the older teachers and employ the newer, cheaper teachers


They could run Irish & religion classes for 6 weeks in the summer

Powerhouse

kincsem wrote: »

I'm retired.
Subjects I think should be compulsory:
maths; physics; chemistry; applied maths; english; business*; biology; one european language (not Irish); computer programming.

Nine compulsory subjects? The failure rates at Leaving Cert level would be astonishing given the narrow aptitude those subjects appear to be gearing towards. Students with strong verbal reasoning need not apply and while students would be fairly strong on their square roots and the temperature various liquids freeze at, it seems they'd have little knowledge of many aspects of the world. So presumably it would gain a lot of support.

Though it would be folly to think that people made bad decisions because of not studying enough Business at school. Many bankers were highly trained in finance and they made the worst mistakes in recent years.

oppenheimer1

bluewolf wrote: »

If it were, students might actually have a full choice of subjects instead of this messing around

And what choice would the students whose parents couldn't afford the fees have?

token101

Sure we don't need accountants and economists. I know f*** all about accounting or economics, and I can tell you the country is f***ed. We'll need religion, because we'll be needing a lot of praying to all the gods, Jebus included, to get us our miracle!

4zn76tysfajdxp

Why have any compulsory subjects at all, I ask?

Sergeant

Gregory Scrawny Vial wrote: »

Why have any compulsory subjects at all, I ask?

OMG, LIKE LOLZ!!

Zab

Gregory Scrawny Vial wrote: »

Why have any compulsory subjects at all, I ask?

I guess it's a reasonable question for the leaving cert, although the reasons at junior cert level are more obvious.

I suppose the argument would have to do with them being fundamental subjects to knowledge and understanding. English, Maths and History would cover a broad range of thought and analysis. There's also the concept of schools having a remit beyond the subjects themselves, such as turning out respectable members of society, and they may use core subjects to do this rather than let students specialize too early. Another option would be compulsory choices from a set, such as at least one language and one maths subject etc.

Seachmall

Powerhouse wrote: »

Esperanto? FFS?!

Problem with Esperanto?

I'm not sure how Irish was taught to you. Was the teacher in a different room at the time? Even Foundation level students would have a fair rattle at describing their house after that many years. Not to mention someone that judging by your claims about other languages would seem you have a remarkable facility with languages.

I have average facilities with language, which is my point. I'm not alone in having conversational German by 3rd year (most would after 3 years), nor picking up some Japanese (most would after a year). And Esperanto is intentionally easy.

And I would debate that foundation level Irish students would have even the foundations of Irish. I wasn't the only one in my class with as good as no Irish. In fact I'd say I was representative of most of my class, even most of my Pass level year.

Maybe you need to take some responsibility for your own shortcomings with the language and stop implying that your experience should somehow inform policy on the language.

Where did I suggest any policy on language based on my experiences?


And for the record I got an A in Irish (albeit Ordinary level). But it had more to do with memorisation than actually learning the language.

Zab

Seachmall wrote: »

I have average facilities with language

You have given many reasons for me to doubt this statement.

Seachmall

Zab wrote: »

You have given many reasons for me to doubt this statement.

No I haven't. Conversational German after 3 years is normal, surely*. And the basics of any language after 1 year is essentially guaranteed, even for the most difficult of languages.

And Esperanto, well, it's Esperanto.


My point is, if people have better German than Irish by JC, which many do (at least at a pass level), would that not indicate an issue with how Irish is taught?

* More people sit Honours languages than Honours Irish. And they do better too.

thecornflake

I have a way of cutting the school budget by ~ 1/6. Get this, we kill the transition year.

RMD

Powerhouse wrote: »

I'm not sure how Irish was taught to you. Was the teacher in a different room at the time? Even Foundation level students would have a fair rattle at describing their house after that many years. Not to mention someone that judging by your claims about other languages would seem you have a remarkable facility with languages. Maybe you need to take some responsibility for your own shortcomings with the language and stop implying that your experience should somehow inform policy on the language.

You'd be surprised. The class I was in last year could barely describe their house in any form of respectable detail yet we all passed the paper. Even though I had an atrocious level in Irish I still managed an OC3. In comparison, my level of French is far superior to my level of Irish. It's in how it's thought, most ordinary level classes these days have an awful level of Irish as the basics are ignored and instead the curriculum focuses on stories / poems / short films. If again they ran through grammar and vocab repeatedly like what is done in the European languages students would have a much better hold of the language.

I'd been taught French for 6 years and I'd been taught Irish for 14 years yet my level of French is far far superior to my level of Irish.

thecornflake wrote: »

I have a way of cutting the school budget by ~ 1/6. Get this, we kill the transition year.

I know many schools do it very poorly but of my 6 years in school, transition year was the one that taught me by far the most practical stuff in school. The work experience, community care placements and extra-curricular stuff did a lot more for me than most of the stuff I was thought in school.

laoch na mona

not all schools even do all the subjects mentioned in this thread
why would we drop irish?
and since agri-food is our largest industry surly ag science and biology are the most important subjects

micropig

thecornflake wrote: »

I have a way of cutting the school budget by ~ 1/6. Get this, we kill the transition year.

Why should pupils suffer because of the budget cuts? The facilities and resources in schools are bad enough as it is. Why are the longer serving teachers salaries not been looked at?

15 Feb 2012 Ruairi Quinn Cost of transition year per student

"The average cost of a teaching post for a transition year student in a fee-charging school is €3200 and the estimated annual cost is €13.6m.

The average cost of a teaching post for a transition year student in a school in the Free Education Scheme is €3368 and the estimated annual cost is €88.5m.

My Department also provides funding by way of a programme grant of €95 per Transition Year pupil to schools in the Free Education Scheme. The estimated annual cost of this grant is €2.5m."

Zab

Seachmall wrote: »

No I haven't. Conversational German after 3 years is normal, surely*. And the basics of any language after 1 year is essentially guaranteed, even for the most difficult of languages.

And Esperanto, well, it's Esperanto.


My point is, if people have better German than Irish by JC, which many do (at least at a pass level), would that not indicate an issue with how Irish is taught?

* More people sit Honours languages than Honours Irish. And they do better too.

Well, by my possibly incorrect calculations the average points gained from Irish is less than 40, which makes your 50 or 60 for the ordinary level A above average. The fact that you got the max that you could have from ordinary also leaves the possibility that you under-achieved.

I suspect most TY students would come out of TY Japanese with virtually no Japanese at all, having simply spent the year not paying any attention. Where would you rank yourself in your Japanese class? Apart from that, you said you can translate an essay into Esperanto. The fact that you learned any Esperanto leads me to believe that you at least like languages, and then you stuck with it long enough to at least gain some proficiency in it. Learning Esperanto is very far from the average person's mind.

Of course, all of that is just the feeling I get from your posts. If you're still going to say you're only average at languages then I'm not going to argue with you as I know very little about you in reality.

In any case, I agree with you about Irish.

SeanW

karma_ wrote: »

Save your faux rage, if you had your way all education would be privatised.

Yes, and then (combined with a voucher system for the poor or something) it might actually work to benefit the students.