We spend more on special needs education than higher education

Leper said:

1. First I heard of it.

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Well you can read all about it here

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The term used is “Wellbeing” rather than “Wellness”

Leper said:

2. You're entitled to your opinion. You're wrong, but entitled to your opinion.

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Thanks for that. However I am not clear what your reason for disagreeing with me maybe. The reason for my opinion, that Irish language teachers are useless, is simple. With tens of thousands of students exposed to 12 years of teaching Irish few become fluent. That is abject failure by any reasonable standard.

1. I read through the document. Most boring I have ever read and probably of what I will read in future.

2. Why confine your criticism to teachers of the Irish language? Why not the other teachers too? I don't see loads of Irish people winning on television quiz programmes on General Knowledge, History, Geography, etc etc.

Leper said:

2. Why confine your criticism to teachers of the Irish language? Why not the other teachers too? I don't see loads of Irish people winning on television quiz programmes on General Knowledge, History, Geography, etc etc.

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Good point; how many of us know how to do algebra or trigonometry or even know the difference between a verb and an adverb? (this is a rhetorical question so nobody need feel the need to show how smart they are by answering)

Strangely I think we all remember how an oxbow lake is formed; the positive impact of visual aids in learning!

Leper said:

I don't see loads of Irish people winning on television quiz programmes on General Knowledge, History, Geography, etc etc.

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Are TV quiz shows now an accurate performance indicator of the school system? Should our schools dedicate more time on UK celebrity gossip so that our future generations might fare better in UK shows?

Leper said:

1. I read through the document. Most boring I have ever read and probably of what I will read in future.

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Well it is the single largest element of the new Junior cycle at second level.

Leper said:

2. Why confine your criticism to teachers of the Irish language?

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Why indeed. Teachers of Irish are just my starting point. Because an objective assessment of their performance can be made. Thousands of students, 12 years of Irish, few become fluent.

No similar objective assessment of the performance of say history teachers is possible. However I see no reason to believe that it would be any less damming.

Leo said:

Are TV quiz shows now an accurate performance indicator of the school system? Should our schools dedicate more time on UK celebrity gossip so that our future generations might fare better in UK shows?

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I never mentioned celebrity gossip. However, General Knowledge, History, Geography, Science, Languages, Politics, Sport etc are regular subjects on televised Quiz programmes. Surprisingly, many people who appear on the programmes are found wanting regarding correct answers. Quiz programmes are not a bad barometer of general knowledge to those who have gone through our schools. If you doubt what I am saying how often have you cringed on hearing some of the answers given to relatively simple questions. The whole education system has become a race for points for university places, very little more. Education and cop-on have little to do with it, I regret to say. I'll even go further and say most people are merely interrupting their education to attend school. Ask any teacher.

Leper said:

I never mentioned celebrity gossip. However, General Knowledge, History, Geography, Science, Languages, Politics, Sport etc are regular subjects on televised Quiz programmes.

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Celebrity / entertainment knowledge is often tested in these quizzes too. And what TV quiz are you referring to where Irish people go up against people who have gone through other educational systems?

Leper said:

Quiz programmes are not a bad barometer of general knowledge to those who have gone through our schools.

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Quizzes, TV or otherwise are actually a very poor barometer of an education system. They merely test someone's ability to learn lots of facts on a diverse range of topics by rote. While the ability to do that well has some value, that alone won't get you far in the real world.

HI Leo, I think you're missing my points:-

1. There is no difference in the performance of teachers teaching Irish than those teaching say history, maths, geography etc. Somebody pointed out that Irish teachers had failed because we are not all speaking Irish.
I merely pointed out that graduates of our education system are not great at any other subject either.
Quizzes are not a bad barometer of this i.e. when you see somebody asked what river flows through Dublin or what countries make up the Iberian peninsula and the wrong answers are given. I know this says more about the contestant than the teachers. It doesn't matter what tv quiz programme. Generally, contestants are not great on any of them.

2. Our Secondary School Education is all about points for university places - very little else. You don't have the points then you cannot study what you want at 3rd Level. A sad fact, I know - but what alternatives are there?

3. Very few (if any) finish Secondary School with knowledge of how to get along properly in life or the Real World if you like. Furthermore, very few finish 3rd Level with the ability to set out in life too.

Leper said:

HI Leo, I think you're missing my points:-

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Yes, to a point I was picking on the quiz piece, and I do get and agree with much of what you are saying. But I strongly disagree on TV quizzes having any merit in assessing the success or otherwise of an education system. Go to any of the regular pub quizzes and you'll often see the people winning are the teams that do lots and lots of quizzes. So these people have retained a vast amount of factual information, they'll know all the chemical elements, but have no idea of chemistry, know the value of pi or the gravitational constant, but have no idea of their application, etc.. I'd do poorly enough in geography myself, I can't blame the education system for that.

An education system that attempts just to fill students heads with facts has already failed. When I interview engineers, there isn't a general knowledge round.

Leper said:

Generally, contestants are not great on any of them.

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Generally, TV quiz shows aren't great, and the contestants aren't representative a broad range of any society.

Hi Leo, I take your point. But, for a moment let's look at quizzing from the other end. In a former employ of mine a member of senior management went onto a television quiz programme. This guy sat on many interview panels including those for competitions for junior posts. Obviously, he failed most junior wannabe managers and developed quite an unwanted reputation for his inflicted failure rate. Some of these interviews were unimportant and were proficiency in this or that. Again he failed most participants.


. . . . . and then he appeared on a television quiz show . . . appeared confident as a Kilkenny hurling team at the start of the Leinster Championship. Before a question was asked he emitted shades of "Look at me, I'll pulverise the opposition." Early on he was asked something like "What is the square root of 49?" He gave a wrong answer and after that his efforts went steadily down the tubes.

Next day in work he became the laugh of everybody who failed any kind of interview. The manager set himself up merely by appearing on the tv show and landed himself a place in infinite stupidity by losing dreadfully and with some silly answers. What was to be a fun event for him turned pear shape and he became the butt of every joke in the job for years.

So you see, tv quiz shows can have an influence in how other people perceive you.

Good story Leper, though Kilkenny aren't the power they once were.

I still fail to see how that person's performance on a TV quiz show is a meaningful measure of the education system as he experienced it.