Looks like the teachers aren't so lazy...

mariaalice

Rubberchikken wrote: »

Its not something to be proud of.
A teacher has a job to do. Some dont do it very well. Some skate by abd the short school year takes care of many noticing.
Why such a big deal on reading? By the time they enter secondary, how good are kids at reading novels, maths, music, science whatever?

No, im not impressed with the statistic nor the quality of irish teachers.

What a mean spirited reply, it is something to be proud of. It is a big deal because reading is the foundation of so much of other areas of education. We have excellent primary education in Ireland and a very good secondary education systme.

Permabear

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Noveight

Kids doing well? Parents contribute a lot at home.

Kids doing poorly? Focking useless teachers in our schools.

Tigger

nice_guy80 wrote: »

reading is the foundation of everything
even the ancient Sumerians understood this when they came up with the cuneiform alphabet in 4000BC

of course home schooled kids can be more advanced. its almost 1-to-1.
most parents don't have that luxury

whats a bc do you mean bce ?

Tigger

Permabear wrote: »

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whas i candt beilie d that is tru

The_Kew_Tour

Chrongen wrote: »

All of them. You HAVE to be able to speak Irish to do the Inter Cert (and that's at age 15) and while few will be fluent and a certain percentage will probably fail lower level Irish the majority will have a functioning verbal grasp of the language.

wow shut down the internet

server down

Permabear wrote: »

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Empirically though, it isn’t. Is it. Hence the thread.

I have no idea how you are testing those child geniuses of yours against Irish 8 year olds but maybe you should actually get them formally tested rather than assume the best.

server down

Permabear wrote: »

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Of course that statistic can’t stand in isolation. What’s the functional illiteracy of the normal 15 year old worldwide. I know that Irish 15 year olds do better than most in the PISA results.

byhookorbycrook

Deleted User wrote: »

I'd be embarrassed if my kids couldn't read or write before they start school.

And I'm embarrassed for you. Children need lots and lots of pre-reading work before they begin formal reading. And "writing" taught before school is often with the incorrect grip and with letter malformation. Let the children be children before they begin formal schooling, they will be in that system long enough.

byhookorbycrook

Permabear wrote: »

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A child can only work to their ability, Hot housing a child will work for a while but then as they get older, unless they have exceptional abilty, they don't keep the early "gains."

PowerToWait

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

A child can only work to their ability, Hot housing a child will work for a while but then as they get older, unless they have exceptional abilty, they don't keep the early "gains."

It hardly need be said this poster's offspring are gifted. And beautiful. Like something from an Ian McEwan novel.

ThisRegard

Permabear wrote: »

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It's not. And I'm sure you're not a bit biased in making that declaration.

mariaalice

Permabear seems to have a weird obsession with the Irish education systme despite appearing to have greatly benefited from it himself.

evolving_doors

Oh look another teacher thread in AH


Is it poppy wearing season yet?

Avatar MIA

mariaalice wrote: »

Permabear seems to have a weird obsession with the Irish education systme despite appearing to have greatly benefited from it himself.

Self taught no doubt.

Thargor

How is Russia so high up? I dont think they have much cash to pump into schools these days.

evolving_doors

Thargor wrote: »

How is Russia so high up? I dont think they have much cash to pump into schools these days.

some countries choose what schools are assessed.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/01/04/are-the-pisa-education-results-rigged/#c0bc87e15614

Strange... It's so unlike Russia to cheat at anything though!

Thargor

Thats what I was thinking seeing as the story that immediately followed it on the News was them getting kicked out of the Winter Olympics but would they really be that blatant about it? Bump themselves up to 5th or 6th or whatever but second place?

Are Am Eye

I like that AP test all the kids in US high schools do.
They identify the most talented in the country and make sure they go
to the best colleges. Scholarships and sorting out money, jobs, moves etc for family.

mikeysmith

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

A child can only work to their ability, Hot housing a child will work for a while but then as they get older, unless they have exceptional abilty, they don't keep the early "gains."

not sure about that

i think they keep the gains in reading and arithmetic

byhookorbycrook

mikeysmith wrote: »

not sure about that

i think they keep the gains in reading and arithmetic

I can't agree, a child can reach the pinnacle of their ability and not keep the "gains"- eventually intellect levels out early achievement. I've seen children whose parents tell me are reading at a 1st class level before they start school. initially, they will appear to outstrip their peers, but level out later on. The exception is, of course, those children who are exceptionally able or gifted.

Gbear

Permabear wrote: »

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Everything else being equal, you'd kinda expect even an untrained parent to do a better job educating their own child than a teacher who has to split their time between 25 of them.

Education has a lot of inertia behind it coming from an era when we were getting children out of the fields and factories and trying to educate everyone.

School as it is was designed to do a decent job of getting nearly everyone up to a minimum standard.

It's no great shock that we've moved on in the past 100 years to a point where that same 1 size fits all approach is no longer satisfactory.

The tricky part is that there's so many interconnected parts to education now that any major changes are unlikely.
There's the set up of society being built around a particular time of the day, there's all the infrastructure set up to facilitate education - buses, teachers, the 3rd level institutions that train them and so on - and even beyond the practical, there's the cultural entrenchment about education falling within a certain paradign that'll be hard to shift.

There's no particular reason that education needs to be 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, 9 months a year, in one place, with one organisation, following one form of curriculum, the core of which was developed for a society almost unrecognisable from ours today.

Permabear

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Autochange

If they had 2 months off during the summer me might get up to 2nd.

StinkyMunkey

Permabear wrote: »

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I like most parents take a keen interest in my child's education, but the fact remains I simply don't the time my children need to be educated properly. I struggled in school myself and know for a fact I neither have the skills or expertise to educate my children in a proper manner.

Home schooling isn't gonna work for the vast majority of the population, most people don't have the time to to it because they work full time.

You obviously don't hold teachers in high esteem, where as I do. I realise that not all teachers are great at their job, but that's the same in any profession.

As I've said before, the majority of the people on boards owe their education to these "experts" as you put it. Your essentially saying anyone one who was educated in public schools in the country is mediocre, which covers most the people in this thread.

Most of us never had the opportunity to be home schooled or go to a private school.

meeeeh

I can tell you feel strongly about home schooling. I feel just as strongly about kids building friendships witb other kids. There is this idea that high achievers are most successful, actually it's usually kids who are good at cooperation and team work and those that are able to absorb from different sources and use information.

You also seem preoccupied by comparing your kids to their older cousins and there is no need for that. I went to fairly demanding secondary school (different school sytem and I was far from top student) and suddenly you have kids who have been excellent in primary schools struggling because hard work wouldn't be enough. We had kids pleading for higher grades afraid of their parent's reaction, some under severe pressure and one committing suicide. There were kids who were reading and writting way before others and yet in high school they were far from exceptional. Kids who is high achieving at 4 is mostly just an ego boost for parents. It's important to encourage their creativity and challenge them but from my experience it makes no difference at 18 who was or who wasn't reading at 4.

Edit: I was replying to Permabear.

Permabear

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Permabear

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meeeeh

Permabear wrote: »

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And why do you think home schooling would make any difference if his parents already gave up?

freshpopcorn

Permabear wrote: »

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I'm not sure but I think you might be going down the home schooling route.
Just out of interest what will you do if one of the kids totally rebels against maths/English/etc in a few years?

StinkyMunkey

Permabear wrote: »

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If you don't mind me asking, why the animosity towards teachers?

Permabear

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Permabear

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the_syco

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

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A lot of male teachers leave because of the way people view them. And other men are put off because of the way society view men who want to teach children.

Permabear wrote: »

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You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink the water. There'd be 25 other kids in the class; why bother with the one that won't try.

IMO, the parents should have him tested for dyslexia, hearing, etc, but I'm guessing they gave up a long time ago.

Permabear

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the_syco

Permabear wrote: »

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IMO the unions are to blame for this, as the bad eggs seem to be unsackable.

Permabear

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Brian?

Permabear wrote: »

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His parents are at fault. Simple.

No school system can balance out poor parenting.

the_syco

Permabear wrote: »

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The system would be more of a joke if time was wasted on someone who didn't want to be taught, at the expense of those that did.

evolving_doors

Permabear wrote: »

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Source?

uck51js9zml2yt

I'm just back from India.
Schools there are 830-5pm 6 days a week from junior infants.
Colleges are 7 days a week with a friend's son telling me he gets home at 9pm every evening.
They have 1 months summer holidays and national festivals.

At 10 years old kids were speaking 3 languages in a school my friend runs.
The kids were polite and disciplined.
When visitors enter the class, they stand up. Something we did here once upon a time.

nice_guy80

Allie White Lemonade wrote: »

I'm just back from India.
Schools there are 830-5pm 6 days a week from junior infants.
Colleges are 7 days a week with a friend's son telling me he gets home at 9pm every evening.
They have 1 months summer holidays and national festivals.

At 10 years old kids were speaking 3 languages in a school my friend runs.
The kids were polite and disciplined.
When visitors enter the class, they stand up. Something we did here once upon a time.

when we were relatively poor and submissive to any authority?
children don't need that to be respectful

children's span of attention, quality of work, ability to complete tasks to a satisfactory degree has deteriorated in the last few years (especially in the senior classrooms) - smartphones and tablets are to blame imho

Wanderer78

Allie White Lemonade wrote:

At 10 years old kids were speaking 3 languages in a school my friend runs. The kids were polite and disciplined. When visitors enter the class, they stand up. Something we did here once upon a time.

Sounds a bit like authoritarianism to me!

Tom Mann Centuria

My kids have all loved their time in National school, they look forward to going and are happy and doing quite well academically. That's good enough for me to know what a great job the staff are doing at my children's schools.

It's a shame now one is in secondary school, the learning seems to have turned into a memory test for facts and figures rather than any actual development of knowledge. (don't think this is the teachers fault, it's the system)

Wanderer78

Tom Mann Centuria wrote:

It's a shame now one is in secondary school, the learning seems to have turned into a memory test for facts and figures rather than any actual development of knowledge. (don't think this is the teachers fault, it's the system)

I'm delighted that your kids are enjoying some elements of our educational system, as education should be fun, it should be a happy place, but as you also explained, and I completely agree, its mainly a systemic failure. Sadly we have a system that fails many very badly, particularly those that have memory issues, amongst other issues, and is a wide scale memory test actually education?

Brian?

Allie White Lemonade wrote: »

I'm just back from India.
Schools there are 830-5pm 6 days a week from junior infants.
Colleges are 7 days a week with a friend's son telling me he gets home at 9pm every evening.
They have 1 months summer holidays and national festivals.

At 10 years old kids were speaking 3 languages in a school my friend runs.
The kids were polite and disciplined.
When visitors enter the class, they stand up. Something we did here once upon a time.

Which is why the Indian education system produces graduates who struggle to think for themselves.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Permabear wrote: »

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But the vast majority of children don't react to school the way your nephew has. So really, using him as a benchmark to which to compare your home schooled children isn't really logical.

My nephews and niece are all very bright, read constantly, have a great vocabulary and excellent writing skills - and they all go to the local national school. They also enjoy taking part in school plays and concerts and all the other stuff that goes with school life. In their case, they are definitely better off going to school, than being home schooled.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Allie White Lemonade wrote: »

I'm just back from India.
Schools there are 830-5pm 6 days a week from junior infants.
Colleges are 7 days a week with a friend's son telling me he gets home at 9pm every evening.
They have 1 months summer holidays and national festivals.

At 10 years old kids were speaking 3 languages in a school my friend runs.
The kids were polite and disciplined.
When visitors enter the class, they stand up. Something we did here once upon a time.

Do you seriously think this is a good thing? When do these children get time to play, to do family stuff, etc.

And what kind of lives do college students have? No time presumably to develop outside interests and become well rounded people.

Life isn't all about exam results.

SeanHarty

Noveight wrote: »

Kids doing well? Parents contribute a lot at home.

Kids doing poorly? Focking useless teachers in our schools.

just gonna quote this to give it a bump, don't think it got nearly enough praise.

Wanderer78

Noor Hallowed Telegram wrote:

Life isn't all about exam results.

Maybe this should be explained to many of our politicians and policymakers!