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bike thief arrested

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    #92
    tomasrojo
    Registered Users Posts: 11,769 ✭✭✭✭tomasrojo


    I don't know. Taking private schools out of it is taking quite a lot of the education system out of the equation. And the expectations and attitudes of your classmates inform your world view too. The experience of being a fish out of water in college is tricky too, from what I've been told.

    A girl I knew in TCD who came from Ballymun flats was talking to a Freshman (Freshgirl?) from County Clare and she asked her how she was finding life in Dublin. It's ok, she said, but I find it hard to orientate myself; everytime I get on a bus I'm afraid I'll end up in the flats in Ballymun!

    I have taught informally in a non-private school in Finglas, and it was a good school, so I assume that by and large the schools are at least ok.


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    #93
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 49,618 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    ThisRegard wrote: »
    Taking private schools out of the equation, I believe it is. The standards may not be equal across the board, but the opportunity to get into 3rd level education if the will is there I think is.
    the will is clearly important - but also support from family has to make a big difference. will have to try to remember where i read it - may have been an american context - but i was reading a few years ago that one thing that separated kids who did well in school from the kids who didn't do so well, was that kids who did well tended to be more often from families where some sort of education or encouragement to learn was maintained during the summer months - so the biggest factor in the kids falling behind was not necessarily the quality of the school, but the fact that the (unfortunately, usually better off) kids were coming back with several months more learning under their belts. and leaving the other kids behind. they maymake similar progress for nine months of the year, but it was the other three which were important.

    it's another anecdote, but i was talking to a taxi driver recently who was saying the number of journeys he makes bringing kids to school at 10am and later is scandalous. because the parent is clearly not in a fit state to bring them there.


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    #94
    ThisRegard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,833 ✭✭✭✭ThisRegard


    tomasrojo wrote: »
    A girl I knew in TCD who came from Ballymun flats was talking to a Freshman (Freshgirl?) from County Clare and she asked her how she was finding life in Dublin. It's ok, she said, but I find it hard to orientate myself; everytime I get on a bus I'm afraid I'll end up in the flats in Ballymun!

    I saw similar from a clown from Sligo in one of the DITs in the 90s. He had never been to Dublin but started hassling a student who was from an area he had read about in the papers for less than glorious reasons. After a couple of weeks of this he eventually got a dig in the head for his troubles, the other guy not doing much for the stereotype, but it ended the hassle there and then.


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    #95
    tomasrojo
    Registered Users Posts: 11,769 ✭✭✭✭tomasrojo


    The girl from Clare was mortified when she found out. The two were pretty friendly after that, so no harm was done, but these things can't be easy.


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    #96
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Yeah, I had a country girl renting next door who was always waking me up at three in the morning to come in and inspect all the presses and under the stairs and check the back door, convinced that The Scrotes were coming to get her. She really thought this nice suburb in an axis exactly between working-class and upper-class in Dublin was full of The Robbers. She moved back to Mayo (I think it was), where I'd be petrified to live, reading as I do about people breaking into isolated houses and beating the tripes out of old farmers for their supposed millions in savings.


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    #97
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,754 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    ThisRegard wrote: »
    Taking private schools out of the equation, I believe it is. The standards may not be equal across the board, but the opportunity to get into 3rd level education if the will is there I think is.

    Not really though. Say you've got two people with equal abilities, one from a well to do background, one from a poorer background. The kids from the well to do background are more likely to be among a peer group where the expectation is to go to college, the teachers are preparing them for this, and the funds from parents will be available to do so. The kid from the poorer background may be in a peer group where very few people will be going to college, there are fewer honour classes in any subjects as a result, and the parents may have made it clear that the funding to pay for college won't be available. The opportunity is not equal, the kid from the poorer background will have to work much harder to get a 3rd level education.

    I've been through this to some extent myself, while coming from a middle class background my folks were in the process of splitting up when in 6th year, and knowing that college was not affordable didn't exactly motivate me to study. It took a few years of hard graft to get the funds together to eventually get to 3rd level, so I'd definitely be of the opinion that money affords opportunity in this instance, or rather lack of money denies it.


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    #98
    ThisRegard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,833 ✭✭✭✭ThisRegard


    I think though that for Dublin based students as an example that want to go to college in Dublin, the funds required is not too big an issue as they can stay living at home, so they don't have the biggest cost, rent, that people coming to Dublin would have.

    However my experience is all from the early/mid 90s so I'm out of touch with all the costs involved, and anything I've studied in the 2000s I was lucky to have funded by my employer.

    I've similar experience with honours subjects, when I was doing them honours Irish and Business has to be done either at lunch or after school. Asking an enthusiastic student to do that, never mind a student you're trying to push, is a tough task, I bailed on Irish myself. As for maths, there simply was no honours class for the handful that wanted to try it.


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    #99
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 49,618 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    tomasrojo wrote: »
    It's ok, she said, but I find it hard to orientate myself; everytime I get on a bus I'm afraid I'll end up in the flats in Ballymun!
    reminds me of the time i was getting off the bus in UCD with a friend, and some kids got off at the same time and asked us the way to a building they were looking for. we didn't know the building; they were heading there for some open day. turns out the building they were looking for was in DCU.


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    #100
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    I know the figures on free university (when it existed) were that it benefited the middle class disproportionately. This was not my experience in interviewing entrepreneurs, however. I spent the 1990s and 2000s interviewing young entrepreneurs and suddenly, instead of Daddy and Clongowes and leafy seaside privilege, it was Da was a milkman and gritty Crumlin and Finglas. It made a huge difference.

    In this thread, on another matter, we're rather conflating working-class - typically formal people with high expectations of their children - with workless class, where kids have little or no chance of anything but repeating their parents' lives.


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    #101
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 49,618 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    getting a little back on topic, it'd be interesting to know how many people it takes to create a bike theft crimewave.
    sounds a little like a junior cert maths problem - 'if one person can steal one bike per day, and has a 5% chance of being caught, how many bike thieves are operating in dublin if the average length of time your BT win bike will last locked outside drumcondra railway station is 90 days?'


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    #102
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    getting a little back on topic, it'd be interesting to know how many people it takes to create a bike theft crimewave.
    sounds a little like a junior cert maths problem - 'if one person can steal one bike per day, and has a 5% chance of being caught, how many bike thieves are operating in dublin if the average length of time your BT win bike will last locked outside drumcondra railway station is 90 days?'

    And adding to this, what about the buyers. How many buyers does it take to create a market for a bike theft crime wave? There will be no crime without a buyer.


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    #103
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 49,618 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    not necessarily. i related it here in a different thread, but my wife was on the bus recently and overheard a conversation along the lines of 'what fool would buy a bike? if you need one, steal it, get home, and trash it'.


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    #104
    listermint
    Registered Users Posts: 33,979 ✭✭✭✭listermint


    tomasrojo wrote: »
    Another working-class quirk I noticed among my friends (a bit off-topic) is, if you do go to third-level education, pretending that your part-time job is your real job, so people don't realise you're at third level, and think you're getting up yourself. Relatives also pretend to their neighbours that your part-time job is your real job. It's a very different mindset.

    Sorry ive never heard of this nonsense in my life. Having gone through third level with 'working class' people and second level with 'working class' people.

    pretending you are not in College....

    Never once in my life have i come across this and frankly i dont believe it happens outside of some microcosm of 1 person you met


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    #105
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Politicians - Quit throwing money at me, Cut the 5h1t and Start talking Services #FutureOfTheCountry

    I like this sig!


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    #106
    tomasrojo
    Registered Users Posts: 11,769 ✭✭✭✭tomasrojo


    listermint wrote: »
    Sorry ive never heard of this nonsense in my life. Having gone through third level with 'working class' people and second level with 'working class' people.

    pretending you are not in College....

    Never once in my life have i come across this and frankly i dont believe it happens outside of some microcosm of 1 person you met
    To put the most charitable construction on your bracing turn of phrase, yeah, probably I'm overselling the notion. I heard about it in two distinct sets of people I know from several years apart, and I was struck by it, but maybe it's a coincidence, and peculiar to those two sets of people. I'm not an expert, and I hope I wasn't implying I was. My in-laws are all working class though, so I'm not making stuff up. Or lying, to put the less charitable construction on your turn of phrase.


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