An interesting article on how Irish schools came under control of religion

[SevenStars]

I went to the Institute. Its is a really bad school. They don't actually know who gets what in their leaving Certs. They send a form out to all their ex-pupils after the results come out to ask what they got. Naturally people who do badly don't reply so when they(the Institute) claim to have great results they are basing their claims on inaccurate information...

Okiedok.

What I meant is that it and similar places seem like education "factories" without any interest in actually forming in their pupils any type of wider "character"...With the focus just on "results, results, results" rather than the handing on of culture, civilization, blah, blah, blah...

[Cato]

Garret's article is focused on primary schools, where indeed, since 1972, religious indoctrination is no longer confined to a certain period of the day, but is instead meant to permeate the entire school day and curriculum.

In secondary schools this is not the case. There are set religious indoctrination classes. While not present in the rest of the curriculum, the teachers are supposed to exemplify the values of the school's ethos. In the secondary school I attended, a diocesan college, we had to stand and say a prayer at the beginning of every class and we two/three periods of religious indoctrination a week.

[skev]

Okiedok.

What I meant is that it and similar places seem like education "factories" without any interest in actually forming in their pupils any type of wider "character"...With the focus just on "results, results, results" rather than the handing on of culture, civilization, blah, blah, blah...

Yeah I agree with you... I just went on a little rant while I was agreeing...

Is this not the correct place to come for a little rant?? ;-)

I'm a firm believer that schools should develop kids skills and develop their personalities. I don't believe that academic results are indicative of how good a pupil each kid is. In fact I'd like to see schools put much more emphasis on sport, art and other extra-curricular activities.

[hopi watcher]

Yes. I read this article yesterday and it is a typically excellent piece of social history by Garrett.

I'd be careful with the plaudits for Garret's competence as a social historian. When asked, on the recent documenatry about the riots at the British Embassey in Dublin during the hunger strikes, did he contend that all the marchers were intent on trouble, he emphatically replied 'yes'. That was either a lie or a gross distortion of the facts. The vast, vast majority of the 20 odd thousand on that march were there to demonstrate peacefully. The fact is that the reaction of the govenrment was way over the top and will always serve as a source of suspicion regarding FG's committment to things such as freedom of speech etc.

[factual]

I went to the Institute. Its is a really bad school. They don't actually know who gets what in their leaving Certs. They send a form out to all their ex-pupils after the results come out to ask what they got. Naturally people who do badly don't reply so when they(the Institute) claim to have great results they are basing their claims on inaccurate information...

Why would people pay for it if it is a bad school, skev?
I am not saying I favour private schools - in fact I do not.
I believe that education is very important in redressing the imbalances in society and that state resuorces should be channeled into schools especially those in deprived areas.

[foreignfield80]

I read the article and it is interesting but I fail to see the point. In practice non Catholics attending Catholic schools, primary and secondary, have always been exempt from RE classes and activities related to preparation for first communion and confirmation. That continued after 1972.

What does "permeate the whole curriculum" mean?

Drawing on this assertion, in 1971 the Department of Education, under Padraic Faulkner, issued new rules for primary education based, “on the following theses . . . that the separation of religious and secular instruction into differentiated subject compartments, [which had been a key element of the system since its inception] serves only to throw the whole educational function out of focus”.Thenceforth, religion was to permeate the whole curriculum.


I could understand if Garret was referring to 1872 and not 1972. I would suggest that the spirit of liberalism that engulfed the Catholic Church after Vatican 2 would have undermined the conservative moral values that Garret himself was trying to change and this would have been reflected in what was taught in the schools. Indeed my research indicates that little or no religion was taught in Irish secondary schools from the 1970s onwards. Would those of you who have been through the Irish secondary school system like to comment on this? How much time did the schools spend on RE compared to other subjects?

IIRC I had 3 classes of 40 minutes each every week called Christian Doctrine, it was always rather slanted to a conservative Catholic agenda and remember getting a full on anti divorce referendum class followed by our own mini referendum. The result of which was divided sharply along gender lines, wouldn't mind hearing some of my former class mates views now.
Also had to attend a mass once a week too.

[Mitsui2]

I went to the Institute. Its is a really bad school. They don't actually know who gets what in their leaving Certs. They send a form out to all their ex-pupils after the results come out to ask what they got. Naturally people who do badly don't reply so when they(the Institute) claim to have great results they are basing their claims on inaccurate information...

Wow! I daresay there are such schools elsewhere, but for some reason this calls to mind the phrase "an Irish solution to an Irish problem".

[skev]

Why would people pay for it if it is a bad school, skev?
I am not saying I favour private schools - in fact I do not.
I believe that education is very important in redressing the imbalances in society and that state resuorces should be channeled into schools especially those in deprived areas.

Personally I would like to send my kids to private school. Not just any private school but there is a school I'd like my sons to attend.

The reason they pay for it is they believe their kids will do better when they see the results the school gets but as I said before the information they gather to compile their results is far too skewed to give an accurate reflection.

Also when you see the amount of kids that go from the institute to Trinity or UCD you think wow thats great but remember there are over a thousand 6th years in the institute which is more than double what other schools have.

Also many of the students are mature foreign students in their twenties who are doing the leaving cert before going onto the Royal College of Surgeons. These peoples results can't be compared to a 17 year old doing the exam for the first time.

[Foghorn]

It is well past time that we took religious control out of our schools.

Historically, we'd have had none if it weren't for the Church. And it was our ecucation that gave us Freedom.

[goatstoe]

Just asked an Irish friend about this. Their RE was one hour a week and consisted mainly of general discussions about ethics i.e. how to be a good person. And that was in a Jesuit school? I have a lots of time for Garret because he is one of the more honest politicians but where does he get his ideas from?

The Jesuits!

I realise you are being flippant there, but in actual fact you could be hitting the nail on the head. Garrett Fitzgerald like the rest of us has been heavily influenced by the primary school system that we have been brought up in. I read his article it was interesting and informative and tells us among other things that there was an intention to set up a non denominational primary school system but this became sidetracked and channeled by certain vested interests.

We have all been influenced by our primary school education. Our kids are smarter than we are. Religion should be part of their education, but it is unnecessary for our kids to endure the endless hours of preparation for sacrements that we had to endure. Our kids should be taught and exposed to religous and moral views on society, but the dedicated religous doctrine or prep for sacrements of any particular religion should be provided for in an extra-curricular time framework. If we can achieve this then we can return to the original intention for our primary schools system which Garrett Fitzgerald alludes to in the Irish Times article.