Second level education in crisis

delfio said:

By and large secondary education in Ireland is excellent so it would be pure madness shelling out thousands of euro on private education

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I cam across this in another thread and it made me hot under the collar so that I felt the need to let off some steam.

Secondary education in Ireland is in crisis.

After 12 years studying Irish most people cannot hold more than a basic conversation. This is not because students are incapable, nor because Irish is impossible. It is because the teaching profession is useless at its job.

Even a student with an A at higher level in a foreign language is not capable of working through that language. It is not just that teachers are useless, the level of expectation from society is too low.

Tesching in other subjects is no better, just harder for an outsider to judge objectively.

Expectations have plummeted in recent years. Matrices and Vectors dropped from the maths syllabus. Stair na Teanga and Stair na Litriochta dropped from Irish.

Principals have total freedom to manage or mismanage their schools as they like. Those that don't bother, suffer from alcohol addiction or whatever destroy schools without anything to stop them.

HR issues in schools are never resolved, they just fester on. I know of 2 schools who have finally settled their problems in the High Court recently.

Before anyone comes back to tell me that many teachers do an excellent job. Work more hours than they are paid. Support all sorts of extracurricular activities. I know, I can name a dozen from my own experience. That does not change the fact, just makes it more heartbreaking. Irish second level education is falling apart.

When did they drop matrices and vectors from the maths syllabus?

As a science lover and a recent (very) mature science student, I can vouch for those being amongst the most foundational topics for any science discipline. I was very glad to have at least a dim and distant memory of the school curriculum to fall back on.

A maths teacher friend who attended a refresher course a while back told me that none of the teachers on the course knew what integral calculus was for, or could do any better than applying it by rote in a few situations.

So what's the problem?
Are we not attracting the right people into some areas of teaching?
Are we attracting then but not retaining them?
Are we attracting and retaining them but not ensuring that standards are high enough and that those standards are being met?

Is there an issue here that most teachers are women but most people who study STEM subjects are men?
We we need gender quotas in teaching?

Personally I think it is harsh to say that the teachers are not up to the job. It may be part of the reason but it is far from the full reason.

Starting point should be the curriculum itself. A simple example, the Applied Maths syllabus includes how to convert Irish Punts to Euro. This is because the curriculum has not been updated for years.

Personally speaking, I hated Irish at school and it wasn't always down to the teacher, it was because I couldn't care less about Peig Sayers or obscure Irish poets from the middle ages. Its not taught as a language should be thought.

I actually worry that there is too much emphasis on STEM courses in school these days and less on producing young adults with the capacity to think for themselves and to be fully rounded individuals. To me, I think there is a danger of the focus on school becoming more on how to produce workers for the tech sector.. As someone who has interviewed and employed hundreds of people over the year, I'd prefer to see more effort made on things like communications skills, debating, basic literacy, music, history as well as the solid foundation in a language and maths.

I'm not defending teachers by the way, as a student and now as a parent, I've seen bone idle useless incompetent and sometimes downright dangerous ones as well as some absolutely loving inspiring brilliant ones. The good ones don't get paid enough, the bad ones get paid far too much

cremeegg said:

After 12 years studying Irish most people cannot hold more than a basic conversation. This is not because students are incapable, nor because Irish is impossible. It is because the teaching profession is useless at its job.

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I disagree.
I think it is because they are forced to teach Gaelic culture such as poetry and prose rather than teaching the language. Students emerge with better French or German after 5 years than students with Irish for 10/12 years. There should be 2 distinct subjects in Irish. Culture ( encompassing poetry/prose etc. ) and language.

thedaddyman said:

I actually worry that there is too much emphasis on STEM courses in school these days and less on producing young adults with the capacity to think for themselves and to be fully rounded individuals. To me, I think there is a danger of the focus on school becoming more on how to produce workers for the tech sector..

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I think you are conflating two issues here. There is no reason why we can't improve STEM subjects while still producing young adults with the capacity to think for themselves and to be fully rounded individuals. Our education system doesn't teach students to think, it teaches them to remember what other people have thought. The subject matter is not the issue, the way in which subjects are taught is the issue.
That said it's a lot better than it was when I was in school in the 80's. My kids are encouraged to think more but questioning in the classroom is certainly not encouraged.

Purple said:

So what's the problem?

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Public expectations, in my opinion.

Purple said:

Are we not attracting the right people into some areas of teaching?

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I dont think so. Especially for second level teaching. Primary school teachers choose that career at 18, must achieve high LC results to study teaching. They tend to be dedicated and high achievers.

Some second level teachers fall into teaching, because their geography and economics degree fits them for nothing else. I do recognise that there are also many dedicated and highly motivated second level teachers.

Purple said:

Are we attracting then but not retaining them?

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Perhaps we are retaining too many who are not suited to teaching

Purple said:

Are we attracting and retaining them but not ensuring that standards are high enough and that those standards are being met?

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This to me is the issue. Its not the teachers, its the expectations and the accountability.

Purple said:

Is there an issue here that most teachers are women but most people who study STEM subjects are men?
We we need gender quotas in teaching?

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I really don't see that this is an issue, while boys should see a reasonable share of men on school staff, good teachers or bad teachers can be men or women.

thedaddyman said:

Personally I think it is harsh to say that the teachers are not up to the job. It may be part of the reason but it is far from the full reason.

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I absolutely agree that the quality of teachers is only part of the problem. In fact I think it is only a small part of the problem.

thedaddyman said:

Starting point should be the curriculum itself. A simple example, the Applied Maths syllabus includes how to convert Irish Punts to Euro. This is because the curriculum has not been updated for years.

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This is not correct. The Applied Maths syllabus has nothing to do with any type of currency conversion. It is engineering maths, and in my opinion an excellent course.

thedaddyman said:

Personally speaking, I hated Irish at school and it wasn't always down to the teacher, it was because I couldn't care less about Peig Sayers or obscure Irish poets from the middle ages. Its not taught as a language should be thought.

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I agree its not the teachers, in my initial post I said the "teaching profession is useless at it job" by this I meant the overall profession, involving syllabus setting, recommended teaching methodologies, level of expectation ( do we expect students to learn to speak Irish or have a language experience) the whole spectrum not just the abilities of individuals in a classroom.

thedaddyman said:

I actually worry that there is too much emphasis on STEM courses in school these days and less on producing young adults with the capacity to think for themselves and to be fully rounded individuals. To me, I think there is a danger of the focus on school becoming more on how to produce workers for the tech sector.. As someone who has interviewed and employed hundreds of people over the year, I'd prefer to see more effort made on things like communications skills, debating, basic literacy, music, history as well as the solid foundation in a language and maths.

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Slightly off topic here, but the work place does not want rounded individuals with a capacity to think for themselves. It wants automatons who will do as they are told. This is the case at all levels.

When a patient dies does a doctor need to demonstrate that they used their skill, judgement and training to save the patient, or do they need to demonstrate that they implemented the correct protocols.

thedaddyman said:

I'm not defending teachers by the way, as a student and now as a parent, I've seen bone idle useless incompetent and sometimes downright dangerous ones as well as some absolutely loving inspiring brilliant ones. The good ones don't get paid enough, the bad ones get paid far too much

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The lesson I take from this is that the management of schools is too weak to promote the best aspects and discourage the worst. Its not the teachers, its the whole profession.

cremeegg said:

Slightly off topic here, but the work place does not want rounded individuals with a capacity to think for themselves. It wants automatons who will do as they are told. This is the case at all levels.

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I strongly disagree with that.

cremeegg said:

When a patient dies does a doctor need to demonstrate that they used their skill, judgement and training to save the patient, or do they need to demonstrate that they implemented the correct protocols.

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Both. Most of all they have to demonstrate that the understand the protocols in the broader context of patient care.

cremeegg said:

The lesson I take from this is that the management of schools is too weak to promote the best aspects and discourage the worst. Its not the teachers, its the whole profession.

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When you say the whole profession that still says that the problem is teachers. They don't set the curriculum, they just teach it.
They may be great teachers teaching a lousy curriculum and getting bad outcomes. If that's the case then they aren't the problem.
They may be smart and motivated teachers who haven't been trained well enough. If that's the case then they aren't the problem.
The school day is very long and the school year is very short. That has to have an impact on outcomes. That's not their fault either.

By the whole profession I mean everyone involved, the public at large when thinking about education and when in the polling booth, parents, the Minister for Education, the Department of Education, the NCCA, the SEC, Trustees, Boards of management, Principals and teachers and anyone else involved in education that I may have inadvertently omitted.

Actually I think it is the public at large is the most important here. If parents think the education their children receive is good enough nothing will change.

cremeegg said:

Slightly off topic here, but the work place does not want rounded individuals with a capacity to think for themselves. It wants automatons who will do as they are told. This is the case at all levels.

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I have to disagree with this. It implies a central planning ethos and we all know how that can turn out. Sure there are some positions which are repetitive in nature (think production line) but most professional jobs require thinking and problem solving. I am working on a very large project for the past 6 months with probably another 18 months to go where the IT and business processes of a large organisation are being re-implemented and where a lot of in-house development is taking place. We are in white-board meetings every day and the solution is being amended on a continual basis. It's pretty much a Lean process. If we all just stuck to our own jobs the project would be dead.

As an extreme example of thinking for yourself I would recommend watching Sully!

cremeegg said:

This is not correct. The Applied Maths syllabus has nothing to do with any type of currency conversion. It is engineering maths, and in my opinion an excellent course.

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My bad, it was maths in the Leaving Cert applied (LCA) which is out of date, not applied maths

cremeegg said:

Slightly off topic here, but the work place does not want rounded individuals with a capacity to think for themselves. It wants automatons who will do as they are told. This is the case at all levels.

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Not correct That may be the case in the public sector and the more traditional roles in the private sector but more and more businesses need problem solvers and people with the ability to think for them selves, this is especially true in the tech sector.

thedaddyman said:

Not correct That may be the case in the public sector

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Perhaps in some admin roles where forms need to be checked etc but for the majority of roles I wouldn't think so. Most people need to think for themselves, Gardai, nurses, teachers etc certainly do!