School patronage

SpaceTime

recedite wrote: »

Ken Loach's new movie "Jimmy's Hall" explores some of these issues.
Basically James Gralton was deported at the behest of the RCC for being "subversive". Way back in the 1930's, and that set the tone for how far you could push against church authority before you faced the full force of the State against you. He was the only Irishman ever to have been deported from Ireland, despite being a veteran of the war of independence.

I'm sure if we had lived in the 1930s we'd probably all have been castigated as heretics or something.

If you ever get a chance, take a leaf through Ireland through European Eyes. It's a book by Mervyn O’Driscoll, Dermot Keogh, and Jérôme aan de Wiel published by UCC Press last year.

It gives some excellent insights into how European Departments of Foreign Affairs viewed Ireland. Some positive stuff we're largely unaware of like Ireland's humanitarian aid to European countries in the aftermath of WWII, but a lot of puzzled people wondering why the country was so pre-modern in its outlooks. It looks at 1945 to 1973 rather than the independence struggle or older periods of history and it doesn't really look at it from a UK-IRL relationship perspective either which is quite different.

Interesting read though - http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/product-p/9781859184646.htm

Just an interesting browse in the context of looking at 'why we are where we are' in terms of things like secularism etc.

I Heart Internet

SpaceTime wrote: »

I'm sure if we had lived in the 1930s we'd probably all have been castigated as heretics or something.

Or we'd all go along with the crowd.

I think people overestimate their ability/willingness to be counter-cultural.

SpaceTime

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Or we'd all go along with the crowd.

I think people overestimate their ability/willingness to be counter-cultural.

Or, we'd be in New York or something... I think a lot of people with aspirations for a more liberal lifestyle in the past just left for the US in particular. Some of our leading cultural lights ended up in France too.

At least Ireland's opened up enough now to retain a population of artists, writers, social commentators, outrageous actors etc. We used to run them out of the place in case they might 'spread filth'.

lazygal

We've more than a handful of family members who emigrated to get away from Catholic Ireland. The older I get and the more I see religious indoctrination creeping into my children's lives the more I consider if anything will really change.

SpaceTime

lazygal wrote: »

We've more than a handful of family members who emigrated to get away from Catholic Ireland. The older I get and the more I see religious indoctrination creeping into my children's lives the more I consider if anything will really change.

Well, yeah I think most families probably will find they've some members who emigrated because they had a marriage breakdown in particular - divorce in Ireland wasn't legal. Also plenty who got pregnant and went abroad too to avoid 'shame'. While it was similarly a big deal in the UK or the US at the time, Ireland really took it to another level entirely.

You'd also have to wonder how many gay and lesbian Irish people went abroad in that era as there was no option of being 'out' in Ireland until the late 1990s really, so we were a good 30+ years behind even Britain which wasn't exactly very forward thinking on gay rights in the old days either.

robindch

lazygal wrote: »

The older I get and the more I see religious indoctrination creeping into my children's lives the more I consider if anything will really change.

Popette looked after my kid (aged seven and a half) last night for a couple of hours. I think Snowflake was a little traumatized by the event as she wouldn't go to sleep for ages afterwards, telling me stories about the weird things that she'd heard and that she'd eventually had to put her hands to her ears and start singing.

Towards the end, and in a more reflective mood, she turned around and said "You know, poppy, some religious people love their gods a lot more than they love their friends or their family".

Sad but true in this case.

SpaceTime

The worst aspect of the education system I remember here was confession. I just remember this endless fuss over first confession and trying to come up with sins to tell some priest.

I actually had to make up sins just to keep the old dude happy as I was about 7 and didn't really do anything you'd call sinful.

All in all though, I can't say it did a lot for the self-confidence!

That and being called a 'heathen' and threatened by a priest when I was about 11 or so for not going to Mass. I basically didn't know the gospel as my household wasn't religious at all but I was in a catholic school in Dublin. The priest who took us for religion classes now and again made it a bit of a mission to annoy me as I didn't know a lot about 'religious stuff' and I was a bit 'foreign' I guess. So, anyway it ended up with him telling me that I wouldn't be allowed to go to secondary school (which really upset me at the time) and implying that my parents were unfit and that I would need to discuss this with the principal.

I ended up figuring out how to predict the gospel readings and just feeding him nonsense every week.

But for a long time I was making up illnesses and not going to school on days I knew I had that class.

The other one that I found 'weird' was being hauled out of class and told to go stack chairs during religion. It was like some kind of punishment for not participating. Everyone else would have religion class and I would be left cleaning the lunch room or stacking chairs in the sports hall or helping out the janitor. It was really annoying to put it mildly. (This was after my parents had excused me from the classes)

There was a further showdown when I refused to take "the pledge" when I was a kid... the teacher didn't like it at all.

Dublin in the early 90s! So, eh, yes I do have a chip on my shoulder about secular education and I think I am 1000% entitled to have one.

robindch

SpaceTime wrote: »

I can't say it did a lot for the self-confidence!

That's the point

Cabaal

SpaceTime wrote: »

There was a further showdown when I refused to take "the pledge" when I was a kid... the teacher didn't like it at all.

I didn't take the pioneer pledge at all, i was the only one in the class that refused and i was singled out for it too but both students and the teacher.

I grew up in a pub and was likely more aware of drink and its affects on people then anyone else in the class, had no interest in it then and still have feck all interest in it now and I didn't need some silly pin to show I had no interest in it.

Funny thing is, from my observations over the years I was likely one of the last if not the last in my class to actually drink alcohol.
:rolleyes:

SpaceTime

I refused on the grounds that it was 1) ridiculous (spent a lot of time in France as a kid and never saw wine as anything other than something you might occasionally have with dinner) and 2) At age 11 you can't contract to anything, making it a moot point.

(I was a fairly legally aware 11 year old lol)

Banbh

In the reshuffle, if Ruairi Quinn is moved from Education it will make no difference to non-religious parents. He made no effort to challenge the Catholic Church near-monopoly of our schools and there is little liklihood that whoever might replace him will do anything.
Until we get a new Government, there is little hope of change through the political process.

Hotblack Desiato

Don't expect either Sinn Fein or Fianna Fail to do anything, either.

Banbh

Fianna Fail/ Greens gave us the blasphemy law and the write-off for the abusive religious orders.

I don't know what Sinn Fein's attitude or policy is in these matters but will look it up.

The independents are a mixed bag and may contain people from the religious right as well as socialists and progressives.

And we know that Labour / Fine Gael have done nothing and have no plans to do anything in their time remaining.

In the end it is public and voter pressure that will change things.

Banbh

Found this on the Sinn Fein website, from their Education spokesman:

Ruairí Quinn or his department are not responding quickly enough to the demand that exists from parents for an education choice for their children.

No policy on the issue as far as I can see. Here's the link
http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/23873

Cabaal

Banbh wrote: »

And we know that Labour / Fine Gael have done nothing and have no plans to do anything in their time remaining.

thats not really accurate in fairness,
I'm in no way a supporter of FG but FG def said the strongest words against the catholic church over the sex abuse, quinn has been the most progressive education minister for sometime....even if things are moving slowly.

In the end it is public and voter pressure that will change things.

You're hoping for far too much,
How do you propose the voters change things when 80% odd of them consider themselves catholic (even if they don't go to mass etc), many see catholic ethos as "sure its grand".

You've trashed FG (even though they've done some stuff), Greens, Labour & FF. But the remaining biggest party of SF appear to have no policy's for changing things, so where exactly do you expect the change to come from?

SpaceTime

Banbh wrote: »

Fianna Fail/ Greens gave us the blasphemy law and the write-off for the abusive religious orders.

I don't know what Sinn Fein's attitude or policy is in these matters but will look it up.

The independents are a mixed bag and may contain people from the religious right as well as socialists and progressives.

And we know that Labour / Fine Gael have done nothing and have no plans to do anything in their time remaining.

In the end it is public and voter pressure that will change things.

I'm still annoyed about that and it puts me off voting Green and probably will do for a very long time. At the time I emailed several Green Party people at the time and got some very wishy-washy responses.

I actually voted for them with a misplaced notion that they would be strong on so called 'liberal agenda' issues. Clearly I was a bit naive!

That blasphemy law was actually internationally embarrassing for Ireland and I think it really did serious damage to our overseas reputation. At the time we were starting to emerge as being seen as a young, more forward thinking country and people were seeing us as a bit progressive for a change.

Then out of the blue "Ireland Passes Blasphemy Legislation".
I actually had a French journalist asking me was it OK to visit Ireland as she'd published some material that could be deemed "blasphemous" in the past and she didn't want to be arrested!]

It's not as ridiculous a question as it sounds as Greece had attempted to extradite an Austrian cartoonist who had never actually set foot in Greece on the basis that he'd published what they deemed to be blasphemous material and she'd no idea if we were going to take this law very seriously or not as most countries that still have a reference to it (like Austria) would just have it there as some ancient legacy, not as recently enacted legislation.

http://blasphemy.ie/2009/06/07/artists-to-face-extradition-for-blasphemy/

So overnight they put us from "Celtic Tigre Liberal" to "Possibly a bit like Iran" and definitely a bit like Greece both economically and socially.

Incidentally, the fact that Blasphemy exists in Ireland's legal system as an offence also (like Austria) means that countries where it's actually taken seriously (like Greece) can apply for European Arrest Warrants against our citizens.

Banbh

Fine Gael / Labour (and their Minister Ruairi Quinn) have done nothing to change the near monopoly of the Catholic Church in education. I think that is a fair and objective comment. Also, I haven't 'trashed' all the parties but can see no policies or action that suggests any of them will change the Church's control.

I looked to the SF website for a policy but found little other than the posted remarks of their spokesperson.

As regards a way forward for non-religious parents, I think that Atheist Ireland is pursuing action through international bodies and this is one way. We (most A+A posters) can continue the campaign through radio, TV and press phone-in etc and politically by letting public representatives know where we stand. With the swing to SF and Independents, I think it is important that we get our viewpoint on the agenda and hopefully adopted as a policy.

There is also individual action at the school where parents can insist on their constitutional rights.

I share your despair but things can and will change.

SpaceTime

I think we actually need a 'secular education platform' which brings some non-atheists on board too.

There are many open-minded people who wouldn't necessarily be atheist but who wouldn't necessarily want the school system that we have at the moment either and I just have a little bit of a concern that people are confusing "atheist" and "secular" a lot (often deliberately) when arguing against secular schools.

There's a lot of social, educational and economic positives for 'An Open School System'.
1) Socialisation of kids of different genders, different religious backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds.
2) Reduced costs and improved services due to removal of duplication of services and reduction of administrative overheads (every small school has a principal and management structure, buildings etc)
3) Improved subject choices, better equipment and support services become possible.
4) Avoid ghettoisation of Irish society as it becomes more diverse.
5) Avoid a demand for lots more fragmentation as society becomes more diverse - you cannot really expect Muslims, Evangelical Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, Hindus etc to all just go along with the 95%+ catholic school system and not want their own schools. Who is going to pay for those?

lazygal

We asked local election candidates what their position on school patronage was and all said they didn't have one. There's newly elected people to our county council that will be running for TDs seats in the next general election. I asked them what a non religious family can do to prevent their children from facing active and passive discrimination in the state funded system and they all said stuff about the local schools being 'inclusive' and other platitudes. Not one gave me any hope that should they be elected to national office that they'll do anything but maintain the status quo.

lazygal

SpaceTime wrote: »

I think we actually need a 'secular education platform' which brings some non-atheists on board too.

There are many open-minded people who wouldn't necessarily be atheist but who wouldn't necessarily want the school system that we have at the moment either and I just have a little bit of a concern that people are confusing "atheist" and "secular" a lot (often deliberately) when arguing against secular schools.

I agree. I know plenty of parents who are half assed about religion but baptise as an 'insurance policy' in high demand areas, especially for second level schools. I've talked to plenty of parents who don't give a fiddlers about communions and want the whole preparation for sacraments done at home and in churches.
I also think - I know I'm harping on and on about the teaching unions - that the union members need to get their unions to lobby for the removal of provisions that allow teachers to work under the threat of being fired for being outside an 'ethos'.

SpaceTime

That's because most Irish people who grew up in that school system think school is something religious.

To your average Irish person school = a place where you wear a uniform, say a lot of prayers, probably don't see anyone of the opposite gender other than maybe the odd staff member. If they're older it probably also includes Sister Asumpta chasing you around with a big stick too.

It's like trying to argue for secularism in Iran at times or democracy in China. People in power don't even see what the problem is because they ARE the system.

Also remember a very significant percentage of our legislators over the years have been teachers and many teachers are very 'institutionalised'.

If you become a primary teacher for example in Ireland the usual route is:
8 years in a religious primary school
6 years in a religious secondary school
3 years in a religious teacher training institution
Teach in a religious school.
You are promoted by towing the line, not by standing up for change, especially if that change means abolishing the agency that is effectively your employer (even if it doesn't fund your salary really at all).

Secondary teachers at least have had the experience of being in a secular university usually.

I actually think the strongest arguments to be made for this though are economic.

1) We need more value for money from education.
2) Reduce duplication of overheads.
3) Improve service delivery - SNAs, psychologists, computers, sports halls, libraries, PE teachers etc.

lazygal

There's a huge 'its always been this way factor' combined with a fair whack of parents happy to have a bit of the nice bits of the religion they grew up in thrown in here and there, and then the nice days outs for communions and confirmations.
I'm still encountering people my age who actually don't know you can get married outside a church. Not baptizing a child is completely alien to a lot of people.

lazygal

SpaceTime wrote: »

I actually think the strongest arguments to be made for this though are economic.

1) We need more value for money from education.
2) Reduce duplication of overheads.
3) Improve service delivery - SNAs, psychologists, computers, sports halls, libraries, PE teachers etc.

Similar arguments are put forward for getting rid of crap local hospitals, then you get local representatives and interest groups hopping on the bandwagon about how they want improved services but they don't want anything to change in their hospital. I can see the same happening with schools, especially in areas where there's a clear 'we' go to this school and 'they' go to that school mentality.

SpaceTime

Watch over the coming years as the school system becomes unsustainably expensive due to fragmentation due to lack of a secular alternative and demand for all sorts of new religious schools.

Sure the same thing happened with decentralisation projects that failed due to extremely remote locations.

You could have decentralised services to Cork, Limerick, Galway and maybe a few other places where you'd a pool of suitable graduates due to the presence of a university. However, when you sent services to every influential backbenchers' constituency large numbers of civil servants wouldn't/couldn't move and there were server recruitment difficulties for specialist staff as they weren't prepared to move to some of the new locations.

Everything's about grabbing national resources and giving them to a particular TD's very local constituency (geographically or politically / culturally) and it results in quite poor allocation of resources and insanely expensive public service provision costs when things are organised totally irrationally.

Banbh

A Secular Education Platform seems like a good idea.

I've just attended my first Mass in many, many years. It was built into the graduation ceremony for the Leaving Cert class at my local state-funded school - a very clever trick of the Principal and his priest pal. I noticed that the ceremony has almost vanished from the bells and solemnity that I remembered to a mindless string of cliches - none of the effortless chalice work that you see on Fr Ted.

Anyway I digress. Can we draw up a list of proposals for a Secular Ed Platform and present it to future candidates? I know that Atheist Ireland and the Humanist Assoc have similar demands but the more the merrier.

I Heart Internet

Banbh wrote: »

A Secular Education Platform seems like a good idea.

I've just attended my first Mass in many, many years. It was built into the graduation ceremony for the Leaving Cert class at my local state-funded school - a very clever trick of the Principal and his priest pal. I noticed that the ceremony has almost vanished from the bells and solemnity that I remembered to a mindless string of cliches - none of the effortless chalice work that you see on Fr Ted.

Do you mean the local, Catholic Church owned and run school, funded by the state like all other privately owned schools in Ireland? That one? It would be remarkable if catholic liturgy was not evident in a catholic school throughout the year, no?

The Mass has changed in the last half century. Some changes for the better, some for the worse (imho). But that's a different discussion.

Banbh

It would be remarkable if catholic liturgy was not evident in a catholic school throughout the year, no?

Indeed it would but as one of the non-Catholic parents I have insisted on my right not to have the religious line pushed at my kids. On this occasion there was no alternative - the ceremonial graduation was interwoven with a Mass.
As a child who was suffered to come unto Jesus, as they used to say in those days, Mass is not what it used to be. I presume the magic is the same - turning bread into a body, sacrificing it and then eating it. Thank reason my kids would not believe anyone who tried to sell them that line.

PopePalpatine

Banbh wrote: »

A Secular Education Platform seems like a good idea.

I've just attended my first Mass in many, many years. It was built into the graduation ceremony for the Leaving Cert class at my local state-funded school - a very clever trick of the Principal and his priest pal. I noticed that the ceremony has almost vanished from the bells and solemnity that I remembered to a mindless string of cliches - none of the effortless chalice work that you see on Fr Ted.

Anyway I digress. Can we draw up a list of proposals for a Secular Ed Platform and present it to future candidates? I know that Atheist Ireland and the Humanist Assoc have similar demands but the more the merrier.

The graduation ceremony for my brother was the same, there was a very strong Catholic influence on it.

One part I found especially creepy was, "I can teach you about sex, but I cannot keep you pure." :mad:

I Heart Internet

PopePalpatine wrote: »

The graduation ceremony for my brother was the same, there was a very strong Catholic influence on it.

Was it in a catholic school by any chance? Cos that might explain it.

I Heart Internet

Banbh wrote: »

Indeed it would but as one of the non-Catholic parents I have insisted on my right not to have the religious line pushed at my kids. On this occasion there was no alternative - the ceremonial graduation was interwoven with a Mass.

I see. So there was no option of attending only the actual graduation part, even if you wanted to.

Banbh wrote: »

As a child who was suffered to come unto Jesus, as they used to say in those days, Mass is not what it used to be. I presume the magic is the same - turning bread into a body, sacrificing it and then eating it. Thank reason my kids would not believe anyone who tried to sell them that line.

Yeah, the nature of the mass has never changed, just the rubrics and language.