School patronage

Corkfeen

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I suggest, in all seriousness, that you visit a couple of weekend masses (where you'll get a sermon) in the next month or so and listen to see what kind of message is being given. Also, talk to some parents with children in RCC run schools and ask them what message is being given to their children. Please come back and let us know what you heard. You MAY find some reason to be less unhappy about the current state of affairs.

Or try dropping in during the run up to a same sex marriage election, I'd be surprised if the pulpit wasn't used to attempt to sway a 'no' vote. But they are inclusive to the 'intrinsically disordered'.

Brian Shanahan

lazygal wrote: »

And I happen to know many teachers in the school who loath having to do indoctrination on the church's behalf, and get annoyed when their lesson plan for the day is disrupted because the parish priest calls in for an unannounced visit, or who resent having to exclude non catholic children from art and music in sacrament years.

I remember doing a week at the local National School a few years ago when I was thinking about going back and getting the H. Dip. and talking to the then principal (who taught me in 1st & 2nd class) and it was her contention that the biggest problem facing primary schools was the lack of time spent on core subjects. Of all the extra-curricular stuff, such as sports, arts & crafts and a few other things, the only extra-curricular subject that she saw no need for was religion.
Preparing for communion took a whole month out of two years' curriculum cycles each, and then you've the added 2.5 hours a week (to illustrate the school had just 8 hours a week to teach English, Irish, Maths, History and Geography) of religious instruction (having gone through the Irish education system, and seen the modern books it's all instruction) every child got no matter their religion, despite the fact that the school is now truly multi-ethnic and multi-religious (and still rural!). To illustrate, a non-religious child attending a religious state school gets 732 hours (183 days divided by 5 to get the school weeks in the year, multiplied by 2.5 to get religious instruction per year and then multiplied by 8 for the grand total) of religious instruction from Junior Infants all the way up to 6th class. Bloody ridiculous.

robindch

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

To illustrate, a non-religious child attending a religious state school gets 732 hours [...] of religious instruction from Junior Infants all the way up to 6th class. Bloody ridiculous.

732 hours maps to ~150 five hour days, ~30 weeks, an uninterrupted seven months of uninterrupted five-hour days. And all to make innocent kids think that some nasty fairy tales are true.

Quite apart from anything else, what a dreadful waste of imagination.

I Heart Internet

robindch wrote: »

732 hours maps to ~150 five hour days, ~30 weeks, an uninterrupted seven months of uninterrupted five-hour days. And all to make innocent kids think that some nasty fairy tales are true.

Quite apart from anything else, what a dreadful waste of imagination.

It is a tragic waste when these children could be better employed honing their practical skills to better toil in the gleaming call-centres and secular admin hubs of the future. Every day they waste on impractical, non-core subjects is a dent in our future productivity. If anything has turned these kids bad, though, it's all that free time spent playing......ugh.

PopePalpatine

You're not even trying to engage in this debate, are you?

robindch

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It is a tragic waste when these children could be better employed honing their practical skills to better toil in the gleaming call-centres and secular admin hubs of the future. Every day they waste on impractical, non-core subjects is a dent in our future productivity. If anything has turned these kids bad, though, it's all that free time spent playing......ugh.

What on earth are you talking about? Did you get a head start on the rest of this evening down the pub or something?

Delirium

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It is a tragic waste when these children could be better employed honing their practical skills to better toil in the gleaming call-centres and secular admin hubs of the future. Every day they waste on impractical, non-core subjects is a dent in our future productivity. If anything has turned these kids bad, though, it's all that free time spent playing......ugh.

Ironically it's not religion that will help people avoid working in call centres but rather a good education. Education gives a person more choices in what career they might decide to take up.

bumper234

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It is a tragic waste when these children could be better employed honing their practical skills to better toil in the gleaming call-centres and secular admin hubs of the future. Every day they waste on impractical, non-core subjects is a dent in our future productivity. If anything has turned these kids bad, though, it's all that free time spent playing......ugh.

Would rather my child did ANY of those jobs than become a priest!

eyescreamcone

bumper234 wrote: »

Would rather my child did ANY of those jobs than become a priest!

When you said child you meant boy didn't you?

Girls can be presidents or astronauts but they are only good enough to be the parish priest's housekeeper.

And when I said housekeeper - I meant "housekeeper" ;-)

swampgas

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It is a tragic waste when these children could be better employed honing their practical skills to better toil in the gleaming call-centres and secular admin hubs of the future. Every day they waste on impractical, non-core subjects is a dent in our future productivity. If anything has turned these kids bad, though, it's all that free time spent playing......ugh.

Dare I ask what a "secular admin hub" might be - is this another name for "an office", by any chance?

Hotblack Desiato

eyescreamcone wrote: »

When you said child you meant boy didn't you?

Girls can be presidents or astronauts but they are only good enough to be the parish priest's housekeeper.

And when I said housekeeper - I meant "housekeeper" ;-)

Back in the day when Fr Michael Cleary used to vehemently condemn condoms as ineffective I always wondered was it from personal experience :pac:

Turned of course out he was a 'father' in more ways than one...

alaimacerc

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

I remember doing a week at the local National School a few years ago when I was thinking about going back and getting the H. Dip. [...]

I apologise for the sidetrack (though, I see IHI is posting in this thread, so there'll be a few of those regardless! -- will take it elsewhere or to PM if people would rather, though), but I'm curious as to protocol of such. Are schools generally able and willing to make use of volunteer labour/pre-qualication teaching assistant/whatever they're having themselves on that sort of basis? And wouldn't it make more sense to do so at a secondary, as that's the teaching the Dip is targetting as a qualification?

Of course, it's no longer the HDipEd but the Masters of Something More Important Sounding, but I assume the same would apply regardless.

alaimacerc

robindch wrote: »

Nobody cares what "occupies its thinking" most of the time.

What pisses people off is that these are the public policy issues that it chooses to go to war with the rest of us over.

Exactly.

IHI flew this particular kite in another thread, and it doesn't seem to be making its way into the "extensively refuted arguments that Apologists shouldn't use" file any time soon (and not for the lack of extensive refutation). That "secularists" were the ones "unhealthily obsessed" with reproductive rights, sexual orientation, and marriage, rather than it being any sort of reoccupation of RCC. Because of course the 6-1 News is always flying in extra-jurisdictional speakers from atheist organisations to speak on such, they picket the Dail like flies, and so on.

alaimacerc

jank wrote: »

Many can provide an answer to what their religion is and isn't but one is not interested in the answer, they just want to provoke a response and poke holes just for the fun of it and sake of it. At the end of the if you are an Atheist, who gives a crap?

This "respect" lark is sounding like a bit of a one-way street already...

Look, if your views on transubstantiation, the mystery of the trinity, Marian doctrine, etc, are a purely private matter, you have no interesting in making them the basis of public policy, and don't wish to discuss them outside of a "safe space" for such, that's all good. The issue arises when you want to go "cafeteria" on that package.

Now, before you go off on the whole "school patronage" thing

... what with that being the thread topic...

I am surprise you that I agree that people should be offered choice and that religion in state schools should be taught after hours and only by the patents consent. I am very much in the separation of church and state on that one.

Excellent! Then we're done here!

Dave!

wowowow

Sir, – I think Ruairí Quinn’s proposal to reduce and soon eliminate the teaching of religion in schools is brilliant! With absolutely no moral education, future generations of Irish jail inmates will be able to read and understand Ulysses, while simultaneously counting the number of years they will be “inside”. – Yours, etc,
MARY O’MAHONY,
Bawnard West,
Midleton, Co Cork.

I don't even.....

Hotblack Desiato

And right beside it...

Sir, – With regard to Bill Bailey’s suggestion (January 28th) that increased religious education is some kind of panacea for the inherent dishonesty, corruption and general lack of integrity throughout the elite of the country, let us not forget that the Catholic Church had a moral monopoly in this State for much of the last century, a period during which our elites (including the Catholic church) hardly covered themselves in glory.

It is also worth noting that, according to the world ranking on corruption perception in 2012, the least corrupt country out of 174 was Denmark, a country which emerged as the third least religious country out of 143 in a 2009 Gallup poll on the importance of religion (18 per cent of Danes said religion was important; 80.5 per cent said it was unimportant), while the most corrupt country was Somalia – the fifth most religious country in the 2009 poll (98.5 per cent of Somalis said religion was important; 1.5 per cent said it was unimportant).

To contend that there is a correlation between religiosity and reduced dishonesty and corruption is not borne out by the evidence. – Yours, etc,

Hotblack Desiato

Pro-life loons giving lie-filled talks to captive audiences of schoolchildren - without the knowledge or permission of parents.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=88778064#post88778064

I Heart Internet

bumper234 wrote: »

Would rather my child did ANY of those jobs than become a priest!

I'd rather they do what made them happy.

(There's nothing at all wrong with working in a call centre btw, but structuring a childs education to promote only core/essential/necessary skills is missing the point of education.)

I Heart Internet

swampgas wrote: »

Dare I ask what a "secular admin hub" might be - is this another name for "an office", by any chance?

Yes. But a futuristic one where employees are encouraged not to think of beautiful things or "trivial" things or personal things, lest it spoil productivity.

Sarky

Please tell me how replacing religion with science, history, art, English, French or something else will lead to your future kids working in call centres instead of cutting-edge research laboratories, universities, leading engineering firms or anything besides whatever the hell you think constitutes a "secular admin hub".

It will be a shock to the half-dozen utterly godless friends of mine working away in art college or as professional artists, but they need the truth, damn it!

Hotblack Desiato

I Heart Internet wrote: »

(There's nothing at all wrong with working in a call centre btw, but structuring a childs education to promote only core/essential/necessary skills is missing the point of education.)

Utter strawman nonsense.

Banbh

Worship my god or bad things will happen to your kids.

PopePalpatine

Who here has suggested that we scrap all but the core subjects?

Brian Shanahan

alaimacerc wrote: »

I apologise for the sidetrack (though, I see IHI is posting in this thread, so there'll be a few of those regardless! -- will take it elsewhere or to PM if people would rather, though), but I'm curious as to protocol of such. Are schools generally able and willing to make use of volunteer labour/pre-qualication teaching assistant/whatever they're having themselves on that sort of basis? And wouldn't it make more sense to do so at a secondary, as that's the teaching the Dip is targetting as a qualification?

Of course, it's no longer the HDipEd but the Masters of Something More Important Sounding, but I assume the same would apply regardless.

It was the local school, I was known to all the teachers, and most of the parents (and quite a few of the kids for that matter), so there never was any talk about vetting or anything like that. Also when I meant the H. Dip. I was thinking of the 18 month course in primary education offered by Mary I.

Zamboni

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said he believes the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Louise O'Keefe case changes the view, held in Ireland up to then, that the school patron was responsible for running certain schools and not the State.

Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Mr Gilmore said the implication of the ruling is that that relationship is likely to change.

He said that he supports the review of the State's relationship to school patronage - initiated by Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn - and added that he believes the court judgment adds to the urgency of the matter.

This week, the European Court ruled that the State was liable for abuse that Ms O'Keeffe suffered as a primary school pupil in 1973.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0202/501762-echr-okeeffe-ruling/

alaimacerc

The sad thing is that it takes European courts, the touchstone of all that's great for whipping up a ton of outrage in the tabloid press at short notice, to poke the Irish state into resolving a relationship that's blatantly a 19th century hangover of epic proportions. Should have been changed a long time ago!

lazygal

alaimacerc wrote: »

The sad thing is that it takes European courts, the touchstone of all that's great for whipping up a ton of outrage in the tabloid press at short notice, to poke the Irish state into resolving a relationship that's blatantly a 19th century hangover of epic proportions. Should have been changed a long time ago!

See also abortion law; decriminalization of homosexuality.

alaimacerc

lazygal wrote: »

See also abortion law; decriminalization of homosexuality.

If only that was all that it took, especially for the first of those...

swampgas

alaimacerc wrote: »

The sad thing is that it takes European courts, the touchstone of all that's great for whipping up a ton of outrage in the tabloid press at short notice, to poke the Irish state into resolving a relationship that's blatantly a 19th century hangover of epic proportions. Should have been changed a long time ago!

It feels like the government now have an incentive not to fix anything themselves, and to wait until they are pushed by the European courts instead. That way they avoid dealing with contentious issues directly, avoiding any political fallout, and can then claim their hands are tied when the European courts find against them. It's a poor reflection on the Irish political system.

expectationlost

Catholic pupils to study other religions under radical new plan http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/catholic-pupils-to-study-other-religions-under-radical-new-plan-29973466.html

great will this be anything like the hibernia online course