Standing up to the Pesky Unions

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Well done to our Minister for Education, Jan O’Sullivan.

She has had the guts to face down the Secondary School Teachers Unions and is pushing ahead with the pet project of her predecessor Ruairi Quinn.  (Junior Cert Reform, with teacher assessment)

So, she has faced down our strikes, and is holding fast. So she has courage – well done, Minister, take a bow.  Her stand is all the more impressive as she is adamant that all this for the good of the students.

Let’s ignore for a moment the implicit bit that suggests that teachers are not interested in students.

Instead let’s celebrate that we have a minister who is willing to stand up to vested interests.  A minister who is willing to risk popularity in order to do the right thing for students.

Therefore…

Minister, I look forward to the day when you will do the following to support our students:

Reduce class sizes.  This is an incredibly simple measure, but one that has a huge impact on the dynamics of any classroom.  I wrote before about how my daughter was for a time in a class of 34.  This is a ridiculous situation and one that should never be allowed to happen.  This does have the downside of costing money, but the minister has assured us that the evaluation farce was not about money, so maybe there’s room for maneuver. Call me cynical, but I won’t hold my breath.

Restore Guidance Counsellors.  This is another incredibly simple measure, and again has a huge impact on students.  Our guidance counsellors do incredible work with students.  Apart from the obvious help in subject and college choice, guidance counsellors sit with students in times of crisis.  Again, this one would happen to cost money, but I’m sure that the minister will stand up for what’s right, yes?  Actually no.

Restore School Budgets.  Again, a simple thing to do.  Schools get a budget to operate, and this budget is based on the number of students enrolled.  For the past few years this budget has been cut, with a further 1% cut due in September.  Another simple thing to reverse.  But again this isn’t about the money, is it?

Restore resources for Students with Special Educational Needs.  Another simple thing. Really, isn’t this not only simple but ethical?  Are those with special needs already at enough of a disadvantage in educational terms?

Have an effective budget for book rental schemes, and IT in the classroom.  OK.  This is more complicated, and requires some real thinking and procedures to go into place.  Some real work required here.  But it is so necessary.  Books are incredibly expensive, and each new school year brings stress to many families trying to dig out extra money for books and uniforms.

As regards IT – there is no cohesive policy, and what you get from school to school can vary radically.  So our students do not have a level playing field when we talk about ICT in the classroom, and technology in education generally.

So, so much is just about money, and we have a minister who is willing to stand up to others.  So surely she’ll stand up for these principles?

Surely, now that the Minister has shown her mettle in standing up to the unions she will show equal courage standing up to the bean counters?  She will stand up to those who have a view that education can be budgeted down to the minimum possible, and then blame the teachers for failing?

But let’s be honest – the minister is showing little enough care for the reality of life for so many students from disadvantaged areas.  It is about the money, and there’s no point in pretending anything different.  The Minister is failing us, is failing our students – and trying to shift the blame.

 

 

Voting Yes

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On May 22nd in Ireland we will be asked to vote on  whether to add to the Constitution that “marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex”

And this is causing something of a fuss.  A lot of groups are having a say in this, with some coming out (sorry) in favour of a ‘yes’ vote, and some promoting a ‘no’ vote.

The ‘No’ camp have a number of arguments that they feel are compelling:

 

Every Child Is Entitled To A Mother And A Father

On the face of it, this can look lovely.  An idyllic world where we all have a mum and dad.

Of course it does tend to gloss over a few uncomfortable facts of life.  Men and women can be cruel, spiteful people.  Some are incompetent, and some should never have become parents. Sometimes children are better off without said mother (or father).

So, while they may cry that somebody should ‘think of the children’, a bit more thinking could change their point of view.

 

This Will Undermine Marriage

As I see it, I married for love.  Pretty sure my wife is of the same opinion.  Marriage is a bond between two people who love each other.  Two people who love each other.  Simple as that.

The argument sounds familiar.  Could this be because we heard the same thing when divorce was leglaised in 1996?  And yet, marriage still seems to be a choice for a lot of adults.  Not undermined yet.

 

This Will Promote a Homosexual Lifestyle

Oh we could have so much fun with stereotypes here.  Will Irish men be forced to become better groomed?

Really, this argument displays an incredible ignorance of the nature of sexuality.  Some people are hetero, some are gay.  Most of us would agree with the concept that sexuality is not based on choice.  If I spend time talking to a gay friend, then I don’t think that time spent will end up in my going… “hmmm, I wonder if…”

If the referendum passes, I don’t think that we’re going to be faced with gay peoples canvassing straight couples (or singles) trying to get them to shift camp (sorry again)

 

Marriage Is About Having Children

For many people this is true.  Lots of people get married and want to go on to have children.  Relatively few decide to go through life without ever having children.  And yet this happens.  Not having children is an incredible burden on those who would love to be parents.  Again, the ideal world does not match the reality of the world in which we live.

Denying marriage to a couple simply because they will not conceive together is unjust.

On that.  Gay couples are recognised by Tusla (the child protection agency) as being potentially good foster parents.

 

It Offends God

The bible is a pretty big book.  And, if you read it, there is a lot to be learned and valued there.  Lots of stuff about loving neighbours, looking after people on the edges of society, forgiveness.

Not so much stuff in there about the evils of homosexuality.

 

It’s Against My Faith

Ok.  That I can go with.  Many of us have our own religious beliefs.  Many of us try to live our lives by a moral code that has been informed by our faith.

But, I need to recognise that many Irish people are not Catholic, or Christian for that matter.  Should I be forcing my beliefs upon them?

A face for radio

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January 22nd was an interesting day for those of us striking outside my school.  We got a heads up on the 21st that there would be a journo from the Irish Examiner (Niall Murray) there, as well as Paschal Sheehy along with an RTE camera.

I arrived in school about 11 AM to find the Journalist there already along with an examiner photographer and the RTE cameraman.  All very exciting, and a little bit nerve wracking.

The whole process is actually very interesting.  Niall Murray went around to all the staff who were happy to talk to him, and did his interview thing, using shorthand.   Really, I have never seen anyone using shorthand for real.  A little bit of witchcraft right there.

Along with Niall Murray was Denis Minihane, the Examiner photographer for the day.  He took hundreds of photographs.

And lets not forget RTE.  Their camera man took around about 45 minutes of footage, including one interview with yours truly.

So.  What did all this lead?

Niall Murray distilled his 8 or 9 interviews down to this article.  Quite a skill to take thousands of words and summarise the main ideas you’re after.

Denis Minihane’s photographs?  One of them ended up in this article.  That strikes me as a hard way to earn a living.  He also gave a few of us a chance to give a little speech on video, and some of that is in the first article linked.

And RTE?  Paschal Sheehy impressed us with his ability to interview in two languages.  The Irish language interviews were aired on TG4 and Nuacht.  But as for the English language interviews?  Not on the RTE news.  There was a 5 second clip of us picketing the school gate, but no interview.  That was saved for the Radio news.  So there you have it.  Even RTE thinks I have a face for radio.

Doublespeak

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George Orwell’s ‘1984’ scared me.  Yes for the references to Big Brother, and yes, for all the totalitarian references and the image of a world at war.

But  1984 also scared me for the concept of ‘Doublethink’.  Orwell nailed it when he had his politicians twist words so as to make their constituents think whatever it was they were supposed to think.

One who had displeased the party became a ‘nonperson’ and all reference to them was wiped out; the Ministry of Peace tested hand grenades on prisoners; and newstalk was used to indoctrinate the population.

The book is listed as fiction, but seems to have been taken as an instruction manual in the political life of ‘The Best Small County In The World To Do Business’.

Take our successive Education Ministers.  To listen to them, life is only getting better for our students, and they think that we should be happy to swallow their bitter pill.  I think they are hoping for a version of the last line of 1984 where the protagonist, Winston, ‘loved big brother’

Why am I even talking like this?  Lets take a few examples.

Guidance Counsellors.

Guidance Counsellors, for decades, were an important part of Irish schools.  Guidance Counsellors have helped hundreds of thousands of students in subject choice, college choice, and ultimately, career choice.  But that is only part of the work they do.

For years now Guidance counsellors have also done a huge amount of counselling work.  They have helped students who have suffered abuse, bullying, depression, suicidal thoughts, rape.  They have supported, they have referred and they have grieved.

And just like that the government got rid of them.  2 years ago in the budget.  Hidden in the nitty gritty, with the stroke of a pen.

And now that we are told the recession is over, Minister O’Sullivan has no plans to reinstate guidance.  And she calls this good news.  She believes “that it is desirable to give schools some discretion on how to use these increased resources” .  She conveniently forgets to mention that to put in guidance, schools need to lose a teacher in another area.  But that’s ok, because the schools have discretion.

It’s pure Doublethink.  Change the story, and repeat it so much that you believe it yourself.  Minister O’Sullivan also referred to the 2015 budget as being the first budget increase in Education in many years.  More Doublethink.

Why?

Here’s the spin.  Yes, there is an increase in funding, but it’s in the capital spend.  There has been a raft of new building measures proposed (because we love property).  This extra capital is only to ensure school buildings meet increased population demands.  This extra spend does nothing to improve pupil/teacher ratios.  It does nothing to reverse cuts to those who have special needs.

The downside of the budget is that it was published in a year that schools have their capitation budgets cut, and have been promised, wait for it, another cut next September.

So the Minister talks about an increase in the Education Budget and hopes that we all forget the ongoing cuts and buy the party line.

Sadly, in our media driven society, those who can keep their message going loudest and longest will be the ones remembered.  Successive Ministers for Education seem to have taken this lesson to heart.

Striking Again?

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I reckon Minister Jan O’Sullivan is beginning to think that us teachers are an ungrateful lot.  She’s in the job less than a year, and we’re heading towards our second strike.  Why?

Well that’s the core question.  Why should we go on strike again?  Why not just accept what the minister referred to yesterday as her ‘fair and reasonable compromise’?

Let’s take the question a step further.  Why go on strike when so many schools already had a day off yesterday?  At least that’s what this tweet suggests:

tweet

So there you have it.  The strike is about having a day off.

Seriously?

There is one core principle at stake in this strike.  That of assessment.  In Ireland the final assessment of a student’s grade is absolutely impartial.  It is a core value of our system.  And our government wants to squander this in a money saving exercise.  (more on that later)

Our state examination system is one of the few things in this country that we can truly say is impartial.  Money can’t buy grades or favours in the system.  When an examiner starts reading scripts, the only identification he or she will get is the exam centre number, and the candidate number.  Race, Gender, Ethnicity, Wealth, Sexuality or even Behaviour are not factors when it comes to having your exam corrected.

The same could not be said of a teacher correcting his or her own students’ work.  All of us teachers are human.  Any of us can end up liking one student over another for the simplest or stupidest of reasons.  And this could affect that student’s grade.

Let’s talk about the money.

At our first strike I was asked if this was about pay.  Would teachers accept the change if more pay was offered?  It was a fair question, and I probably didn’t give the best answer at the time.  But I’ve had time to think about it.

The strike isn’t about pay – but resources are part of the picture.

Schools, have suffered a brutal regime of cutbacks in the past six years, and our most recent budget had even more cutbacks in store.

  1. Remove Guidance Counsellors from secondary schools
  2. Increase the pupil/teacher ratio
  3. Cut capitation grants to schools
  4. Again, cut capitation grants to schools (and again for next year)
  5. Reduce supports for students with Special Educational Needs

Supports for students are constantly being cut.  Resources are being cut.  Student welfare is being cut.  And in the middle of all this the minister is trying to sell us a flawed product.  And she is trying to sell us something when our resources are being decimated.

The new Junior Cycle Programme is flawed.

One of the sad things about this situation is that the unions and the National Council for Curricular Awards (NCCA) had agreed a new Junior Cert in 2011.  All this trouble could have been avoided.

However, even if the Minister accepts our principle that teachers should not correct their own students’ work, and proceeds ahead with a productive vision of a new Junior Cycle, then she would then need to provide the proper resources to implement it.

The Junior Cert is flawed.  It does need to be revised, rebuilt.  But it needs to be done properly.  The current programme is not the way forward.

And that is why we teachers will again go on strike next week.

Next week I will stand proudly with my colleagues and we will make our opposition to the minister’s plans known.

 

More articles on the New Junior Cert:

The New Junior Cert

I don’t want to go on strike.  I need to go on strike.

Now you see it…

The Narrow Focus of Assessment

Education and Equality

6 Reasons why we’re going on strike

 

“Today is tough … but I also know that I have much to give”

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This is a very difficult time of the year for many people.
This article gives an insight on what it is like to suffer from depression.
Worth a read.

ancailinrua's avatarAn Cailín Rua

“I believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that there’s a stereotypical definition of someone who suffers from depression…That stereotype is completely inaccurate.”

Somebody I know got in touch and asked me to share the below piece they wrote, with the hope that it might resonate with someone; that it might just help someone. It’s candid, and it’s courageous, and it can’t have been easy to write. I’d ask that if it strikes a chord with you, you might share it. And try to remember that no matter how low you feel, how despairing, that chances are, you too have more to give.

Thanks to the writer for entrusting me with his words, which I have reproduced in full below.

“I’ll miss Doggy when I die”….The first words I heard this morning when I walked into my daughter’s bedroom. She was in floods of tears. I comforted her as best I could…

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Diaries reveal Jewish suffering during Holocaust in Hungary

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I like this – An interesting view from someone who lived under Nazi occupation, and managed to keep diaries the whole time.

econdon01's avatarMs. Condon's Blog

An interesting history and religion resource

In December 1941, when Hungary severed relations with the US following America’s entry into the second world war, Maria Madi, a doctor in Budapest, started keeping a diary for her daughter, who had just immigrated to Louisiana.

Madi did not know if her daughter would ever see her words. But she wrote anyhow. About the war. About the Nazis. About the suffering of Jews. And about the two people she hid in her apartment, at times behind a large mirror when visitors came to call.

By war’s end, Madi, who was not Jewish, had filled 16 notebooks in handwritten English that serve as a grim portrait of the Holocaust in Hungary and of a defiant woman sickened by its cruelty.

“I am going to see, to hear, to witness everything,” Madi wrote, adding later, “it may happen of course that neither myself nor my…

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A Digital Worksheet is Still Just a Worksheet

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Ultimately, the challenge is to engage students and help them learn. The tech is just a tool.

jonathanwylie's avatarJonathan Wylie

coffee-iphone-macbook-air

Recently, there have been a number of tech tools that have been created to help enhance teacher productivity and improve assignment workflows in the classroom. Take, for example, the excellent OneNote Class Notebook Creator. It is an ideal app for Office 365 schools who want to quickly distribute materials to a whole class, have students work in a paperless environment, while also providing a collaboration space for the whole class to work in.

Google Apps schools are flocking to Google Classroom – a management tool for teachers who are looking to consolidate and simplify the flow of electronic files. It lets you make a copy of an individual document and distribute it to students with permissions configured automatically so that only the student and the teacher can see the document. There is also a discussion feed for students to communicate inside your Google Classroom.

iPad classrooms are using workflow…

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