Religion and Engaging with the Teacher

Strange isn't it? Bit of a contradiction no? Moaning about Catholic schools being built on State land "in recent years" but then putting forward the excuse that the Department won't fund any schools as there are excess places.

Do something positive with your life rather than being constantly bitter and putting your effort into trying to drag others down.

Honestly, go back and look at your own swipes at parents who simply don't want their kids to be indoctrinated before you preaching on standard tropes and slogans.

Your advice is about thirty years too late. Been there, worn the t-shirt, seen the new school built, and very clear on the substantial difficulties involved. There's no reason for it to be that hard. Govt policy doesn't recognise the urgent need for more non-denom schools. We need policy and priorities, and urgent action. And I don't mean the cake sale and the sponsored walk - we're a bit past that stage now.

But sure then I'm happy for you. You have your alternate option. Which shows that the policies and systems are there and do work if the genuine need and want is there. If you want your family to attend that school, then now you can. If someone else wants to send their family to a local Jewish school (if there is one) then they can. If someone else wants to send their family to the local Catholic school (if there is one) then they can. I'd encourage positive solutions.

Most people though don't really care about how many schools are there - their main intention is to express their anti-Catholic bigotry through trying to obstruct anything they do. They'd sooner have no schools than have one Catholic one and ten non-Catholic ones. If you yourself just wanted a diferent type of school, then you should be happy. And you should help other posters on here to show them how to do it

Do you think the existing schools magically appeared out of thin air? 🤣

People did the work and set them up. If you want an alternative one, set it up. Don't be a scrounger existing only by leeching off the efforts of others

"Likely"

You have no idea.

There is no fundamental law of nature that there has to be a Catholic school closest to every person in the country. If there is one close to you, it there due to demand and the efforts of people in the past. But there could also be another denomination, or none, most convenient for you. If a parent is a Catholic and they live right beside an Educate Together, they aren't entitled to force that Educate Together to change to Catholic Ethos just because the nearest Catholic denomination school is a couple of miles down the road.

You had your chance. You've said that schools (plural) in your area were extended to satisfy local demands. Those schools obviously had competent boards of management and put forward well formed and realistic plans to the Department.

If you were really arsed about it, you could have done the same. Actions speak louder than words. Given all that, if you actually want to effect some change, why don't you learn from your mistake and start now and get yourself a committee of like-minded individuals and be ready the next time new capacity is needed?

Well stop leeching off those who you claim are leeching off the state so.

Go out and set up your own organisation/school and forget all your bitterness rather than taking what the church schools give to you for free.

Well you are all over the place here. Either you and your family went to non-denominational schools (in which case you have absolutely no right to try to prevent others from having the option to attend denominational schools) or you did in fact attend denominational schools and leech off their efforts and facilities.

Parents pay taxes, taxes pay for schools. Parents are not "leeching" off schools by enrolling their children, that is a totally stupid thing to say.

However churches are leeching off the taxpayers by using teachers, whose salaries are paid for via the state by taxes, to indoctrinate children.

Fairly twisted logic there. It tends to be a common trait that scroungers tend to justify that scrounging. The parish which supplies the premises and additional funding to attempt to educate your child is leeching by allowing the state to pay teachers to teach your child there 😂

It's a pity you don't do less of the moaning and be a bit more positive and do a similar "leeching" by fundraising and buying premises and setting up and running schools with government salaried teachers. Like the Educated Together leeches do.

I guess your lack of anything positive, coupled with your perpetual moaning, and taking advantage of those facilities all the while bitching about those who provide them to you for free, is simply a manifestation of your unwillingness to become a leech.

Simple. You don't want denomination schools to exist. If they don't exist then people can't attend them.

Churches provide facilities for department paid schoolteachers to teach. And they organise and run the schools. And they also fundraise to build schools and provide other facilities (I know my local parish here paid over 100k for some property adjoining a local national school recently so that they could extend the playing area for the kids)

If you accept their generosity, the least that you can do is acknowledge it. Instead, what you are doing is, taking advantage of those organisations, but then turning around and bitching about them. It is unlikely that you will be "giving back" to them either (Or maybe you contribute to your local parish collections???). So you are using those facilities which others are paying for, yet you are contributing nothing. I think that that would come under a reasonable definition of leeching.

You accuse the churches of leeching because government employees (teachers) get paid? That makes no sense. Do you not know how jobs work? If you are a teacher, you get paid directly to your account. They don't send the salaries to the churches and let the churches decide if the teacher should get anything. Teachers aren't employed by churches. How much "profit" do you think a denomination school makes per kid? Because the Educate Together schools that I know of don't seem to be able to balance the books without additional fundraising.Do you think that maybe:

1) They give less to ET schools?

2) The ET schools aren't run as efficiently? Perhaps some incompetence leading them to losing money?

3) The ET patrons are siphoning off money into their own pockets?

The real answer is that schools are not funded enough to allow them to do what they would like to do. Which is why all schools fundraise. Now if organisation X is running a school and they aren't been given enough to do it, how do you conclude that they are making money on it?

There is no binary thinking here. If you want to go to school with Ethos X or none, then you can. You may have to go to the next village or town over, or you might have to move to a bigger town/city where there is more choice. All possible if you really want to do it. If you could be arsed to make an effort. Or get together with like minded individuals and set up one within walking distance of yourself.

It's usually not helpful to feed trolls, they're either trying to get a rise or not very clued into how the system they try to perpetuate actually arose, so letting them bawl themselves hoarse in their little echo chamber is a good rule of thumb.

Let's be specific now. What exactly did I get wrong there?

Just why is it that posters like DT feel so threatened by the idea that non-catholic parents should be able to access non-catholic schools?

The fact that 90% of primary schools are still of catholic ethos makes the aggression and paranoia even more ridiculous.

You can access all you like. There are plenty of options for you. Given the evidence of the absence of the most basic of facts in your other posts, then perhaps I might suggest a thing called "google" which will help you find them

Whatever there is demand for, let people choose and let them build it. Catholic, Protestant. Muslim, Jewish, French, Polish, Non-religious. If what you like isn't there, you are free to create your own and the same supports are there for you as for anyone else. To get back to the topic of the thread, if you deliberately decide to go to a school with a Muslim ethos for example, then don't be surprised when you find out that it has a Muslim ethos. If people want to set one up in your area, then I'd say good for them. Maybe you hate Muslims or maybe you hate Jewish people and don't want them to have schools where they can keep their traditional cultural community values. That's up to you. I certainly don't. I'd say more power to them. Same to athiests if they want to quit the whinging and actually do something positive for a change. Give them the same support as everyone else.

Unfortunately though for yourself and similar minded posters, your bigoted and discriminatory desires are prevented from being effected by the Constitution. Freedom of religion (or none) is guaranteed and the right to an education is also guaranteed. Despite your overtly and proudly displayed intolerance, the State must apply the same rules to Religious and non-religious schools. And regardless of how special you (think you) are, there isn't a prevision in the Constitution that only choices deemed worthy by HotBlack Desiato (or AndrewJRenko) can be supported.

Live and let live and don't be threatened just because others are happy and you are bitter.

Actions speak louder than words. If 90% of parents are choosing to send their children to religious schools then that is their choice and it is not your right to deprive them of that choice.

I mean you are all over the place. You're moaning about (mainly Catholic) schools but then you turn around and claim:

That's kind of funny to be able to hold such dichotomous views at the same time. Cognitive dissonance. You're whining about denominational schools but then saying that they don't run the schools. So too many schools are being run by the churches, but the churches don't run them...........ok..........

Would you support a school with a Jewish ethos being built in your area? How about one with a Muslim ethos? (Hypothetically, assuming there is enough demand for them. When I say enough demand, I don't mean that you personally want it. Other people's preference also count too!). Would you be against them getting state funded teachers?

Who ever said the BOM sets ethos? The BOM thing started because another poster randomly interjected that they can't join the BOM because the poster didn't have a child at the school. Which was in response to me pointing out that it is open to anyone to set up a new school if they get enough support. I never suggested to them that they could join a BOM to change the ethos of an existing school. I think I was quite clear that, even though some of ye appear to want to swoop in a seize others work, that you cannot do that.

If you can't be arsed to either bring your kids to a different school a little further away, or "putting your money where your mouth is" and setting up one locally, then don't disguise that lazyness as some kind of dystopian injustice forced upon you at gunpoint. Make your own choices based on your own preferences. Live and let live. If you decide that you can't be arsed enough to remember your principles when reality bites, then that is your choice.

Do you not realise that people can choose to go to a certain school based on other things rather than a commitment to the religion of its ethos? I actually had a few friends in college from Catholic families who went to (shock horror) Protestant boarding schools. 😲😲😲 Amazingly, it didn't turn any of them into Ian Paisley replacements. I had a few Protestant friends who went to Catholic schools as well. It didn't turn them into Pope worshipers.

You're the one here who wants discriminatory and oppressive measures against a certain grouping in society. And you avoided my question about the hypothetical Jewish or Muslim school in your area. If it was me, and they had the numbers and the support, then I'd say fair play to them and I'd expect the State to fund them equally and fairly. If you have a particular hatred or Jewish people, or Muslim people (or both) and their traditions and cultures then that is on you.

Anyway, we still don't know whether these schools you have issues with are run by churches or by the lay Principals, under the pay of the State. It's like the Schrodingers cat of education 😁

No . There aren't "plenty of options".

No point in reading beyond the first line of that garbage.

The liars and deniers won't acknowledge the fact that it's NOT open to anyone to set up a school - well, not unless they're a multi-millionaire. Dept of Education approval and funding is essential for everyone else, and they are VERY reluctant to approve a non-religious school. They will literally exhaust every other possible option. Dept of Education is stuffed full of religious conservatives pursuiing their own agenda, ask anyone involved in the ET or other non-religious school movements.

"90% of schools in Ireland are religious" - it's actually worse than that, Renko. 90% are catholic, about half of the rest are Church of Ireland, ETs and minority religions make up the rest.

What exactly are the "advantages" of a catholic education? A free guilt trip? Why are we allowing a child raping church to control schools they don't even pay for?

Non pushy, religion as a safety net indeed

Mickey Joe was pushy enough when it came to telling women how to manage their reproductive health.

This is the guy who requires all team members to join him at mass before the match?

Exactly the kind of proselytising catholic we don't need thanks.

Well Octopod, despite how special you think that you are, you actually don't get to decide for everyone else. Most people tend to learn that well before adulthood, although apparently it's not uncommon among boards posters for that idea to persist. It is a bit mad how some people remain so self-centred!

If there is a library in your town, you don't get to land in, bawling like a three-year old that it must be immediately converted to something else to suit your own temporary whim and feck everyone else.

The State owns very few schools. The vast majority are privately owned by different groups. Including many Educate Together schools which are privately owned by a limited company (did ya know that?). Property rights, like protections against discrimination and access to education I referred to above, are protected by the Constitution.

You can't really go up and protest outside Croke Park and expect to be successful in demands that it be immediately turned into an ice-hockey arena because you decided today that you like ice-hockey and you think your preference is more special that all of the people who are happy with the GAA.

Libraries don't run religious events though, requiring their non-religious users to sit through them. Libraries don't impose their spiritual and moral values on their users and their staff. It's a bit different.

More 'Let them eat cake' stuff here. Families are now supposed to up sticks and move house because Donald and others want to continue using state funding to impose their religious values and practices on others. Not the most realistic of solutions there Donald. And the 'do something positive' is of course outside the bounds and powers of most families, who have a not unreasonable expectation that the State will provide suitable education for everybody, not just for those who follow a particular religion.

So is there any religious body in Ireland that actually objects to libraries holding books? We know your beloved catholic church had a long history of trying to impose their views on media, but does that include libraries today? Regardless, I was referring to particular impositions on staff and users, the well-established practices of the catholic church in relation to schools. Like I said, it's not quite the same thing.