Sacking Teachers

johnfás wrote:

Well I mean, I didn't believe in repeating my Leaving Cert. Obviously if you have something you are completely set on then you do. But if I have a minor failure (I still did very well in the Leaving Cert, just I was aiming for mid 500s) I would rather pick myself up and power on til the next hurdle than start the race again. I can do alot more that way than had I spent a year repeating.

That's very true johnfás and you were very right in that you can do a lot more that way than had you spent the year repeating. Sure you'll be a High Court judge before you're 40, I'm convinced of it!

Thanks for the advice Kate P and Cactus. (Just to clarify the kids where I am now are nice enough they just do not care about school at all. They don`t make any effort and the few who do think they`re workaholics because they don`t have a yardstick other than their peers. The other thing is that the kids in Dublin were slightly better in terms of work but miles nicer as people.)

If I could just interject on the lads` discussion of detention I had it so rarely that I might as well never have had it.

If it wasn't for detention I would never have learnt about logariths.

Did johnfás and Ard never have whole-class detention? We used to get that a lot where I went to school. I was rather nerdy and spent a lot of lunchtimes at debating.

After-school detention I got once in fourth class when Sr Monica kept some of us back because we hadn't been able to finish our long division homework (Maths has always been a source of trauma in my life). I missed the bus and cried and cried at the unfairness of it - being ordinarily of the swotty, over-achieving-homework variety.

No I was in the nerdiest class in my year. We didn't have streamed classes (in Junior years anyway) but my area of the alphabet was obviously the most talented in the year - as was demonstrated annually at prize distribution.

Did you have detention at National School, Kate? That seems a bit mean, never had that.

Am I the only bad girl here ?

Were you at an all girls school, cactus? I was always under the impression that such schools were not so into detention... nor half days on a Wednesday .

johnfás wrote:

Were you at an all girls school, cactus? I was always under the impression that such schools were not so into detention... nor half days on a Wednesday .

I was. Detention was a nice quiet time. I helped myself to the half days.

Single gender education is something which I have never experienced in my life, from playschool to postgraduate. My girlfriend was in the same boat until she started her Masters which is a class of 30 - all girls. She is finding it a peculiar experience.

johnfás wrote:

Single gender education is something which I have never experienced in my life, from playschool to postgraduate. My girlfriend was in the same boat until she started her Masters which is a class of 30 - all girls. She is finding it a peculiar experience.

Research seems to suggest that girls do better in single gender education, and boys in co-ed, so we are both lucky.

Your poor girlfried.

Do most Catholic National Schools remain single gendered? I would imagine most newly built schools are coeducational.

johnfás wrote:

No I was in the nerdiest class in my year. We didn't have streamed classes (in Junior years anyway) but my area of the alphabet was obviously the most talented in the year - as was demonstrated annually at prize distribution.

Did you have detention at National School, Kate? That seems a bit mean, never had that.

I think mine was the only class who got detention after school and only once - there was uproar from parents re missed buses and etc. And we were only little.

It may be that you are the only one of us who was a bad girl in school. I saved it all for later...

Mixed ability is the way to go - from a student's and a teacher's perspective.

We streamed Maths and Irish classes in third year (into people taking ordinary and higher) and we streamed English in fifth year, for the senior cycle. Beyond that nothing was streamed for other subjects.

I was always a menace but never trouble. I was the one who pushed the teacher but knew when to stop .

Streaming means having A B C classes - having higher and ordinary levels is just banding and seen as many schools do that. A small few schools still stream but it's counterproductive for all but those in the top stream and has been more or less abandoned. And not just because no one wants to teach the D stream!

In my first year of teaching I got a class in a subject that wasn't familiar to me, made up of students that no one else wanted. It was supposed to be a foundation level class and a number of the kids revolted when they discovered what had happened to them. I was pretty naive about the politics then. So I did the pass course with those who didn't want to do foundation and Bonnleibhéal with the rest of them. No one in the pass half got less than a C. Which would seem to disprove the next point I'm about to make about streaming but my lot were the bolshie exception who wanted to give 2 fingers to those who thought they couldn't do it.

Self -fulfilling prophecies... people are inclined to perform at the level to which they've been assigned so the research as I recall it points out that A students who overflow from the A class and end up in the B class don't get As, they get Bs. Furthermore, the quality of the intellectual interaction is less as you go down the streams and students have no one to pitch themselves against.

Kate P wrote:

Mixed ability is the way to go - from a student's and a teacher's perspective.

Mixed ability is a disaster where I`m teaching now. The reason is that, as a rural school, there is a huge variety of ability and more importantly attitude towards education. What happens in our place is that as a result of being hugely outnumbered the academic and ambitious kids get dragged down by the apathetic majority. The weaker kids are in classes in which they are last in all subjects no matter what they do, what effort they put in. Now I can understand why mixed ability would work in an area where most kids have a positive attitude towards education but like all things there are circumstances where it doesn`t work. For me the best thing to do is a system of banding. I`d suggest hiving off the best, and that you would be in that class for a given subject but not necessarily for all subjects. The thing is for the seventy/ eighty percent in the middle mixed-ability is fine but for the brightest and the weakest to be in together on top of that I don`t think it works. You can provide for either the brightest or the weakes within a mixed stream class, in my opinion and my experience, but not both.

Kate P wrote:

Did johnfás and Ard never have whole-class detention? We used to get that a lot where I went to school. I was rather nerdy and spent a lot of lunchtimes at debating.

Whole-class detention...do you mean when the indiscretions of the few result in the punishment of the many? I think I might have come close to those experiences in school but I couldn't tell you if I did, as my experience with detention is extremely limited.

Lunchtimes at debating, that reminds me so much of me. I was on my school's Concern debating team(the Fab 4 as we styled ourselves) and for much of fifth and sixth year, I never knew the meaning of a lunchbreak - if it wasn't debating it was Student Council or quiz team meetings.

Have to say I never did the interschools debating, but I did do the internal public speaking and debating - I even won it once . I did a bit of Model United Nations but the majority of my time was taken up with sport, music and school productions.

johnfás wrote:

Have to say I never did the interschools debating, but I did do the internal public speaking and debating - I even won it once . I did a bit of Model United Nations but the majority of my time was taken up with sport, music and school productions.

Well I did get my school to the quarter finals of the competition, did chair the German debates and was recognised as Best Speaker in another competition. Were you on your school's rugby team johnfás?

I was indeed, I was on the senior team, and then I played for two years in college for my club. You get to the stage though when you are playing with people far older than you and you either have to take it very seriously and bulk up alot or step aside, I did the latter. I still tog out for the odd social match every now and then and I am involved down in the club. I steward at all the home internationals and the like - free entry .

Across Leinster my particular year in secondary school was very talented. I used to play against Rob Kearney and Jonathan Sexton quite a bit. Both now being regulars in the Leinster set up and Kearney being a core part of the Irish team.

johnfás wrote:

I was indeed, I was on the senior team, and then I played for two years in college for my club. You get to the stage though when you are playing with people far older than you and you either have to take it very seriously and bulk up alot or step aside, I did the latter. I still tog out for the odd social match every now and then and I am involved down in the club. I steward at all the home internationals and the like - free entry .

Would you not have been able to combine a smaller physique with the sport of rugby? Agustin Pichot of Argentina is fairly light and he's in the important position of scrum-half on one of the best teams in world rugby.

Indeed, but I played in the pack .

johnfás wrote:

Indeed, but I played in the pack .

Oh well there you need massive Orc-men to crush the opposition's heave on your 22 I suppose.

Indeed, playing on the back row tackling was my forte. Still is when I decide to play matches. I play team sport for some peculiar organisations at the moment. It is not unusually for me to be playing in the hospitals league in rugby or for Trinity in cricket - neither of which I have any involvement with. I am but a mercenary .

johnfás wrote:

Indeed, playing on the back row tackling was my forte. Still is when I decide to play matches. I play team sport for some peculiar organisations at the moment. It is not unusually for me to be playing in the hospitals league in rugby or for Trinity in cricket - neither of which I have any involvement with. I am but a mercenary .

You play cricket for Trinity? Well, I'm proud that someone like you is representing my college in that sport, even if you did go to the Belfield Polytechnik.

Yea I play a bit for Trinity 2nd's in cricket when they are in need of players.