10 Reasons to Be Hopeful for Education in 2025

Hello? Hello. You're very welcome to if I were the minister for education from anseo.net. A regular podcast where I delve into the world of primary education and let you know what I would do. If I were the minister for education, this is Simon Lewis. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. And if you'd like to leave a review. It will be very much appreciated as it helps other people to find the podcast more easily. Happy new year to you all. It's 2025. Boy, am I glad to see 20, 24 gone? If you listen to my review of 2024. You won't be surprised to hear that. I felt it was a quite a downbeat year. Where the primary education system. I really was it after in terrible neglect and the world seemed to be descending into war, a moral panic. But I decided what I would do for my first podcast of 2025. Was to find some reasons to be cheerful and I did my very best to find 10 reasons to be slightly optimistic about 20, 25 about this year. And. Look, I don't know if you'll agree with me. I am clutching at straws, to be honest with you. A lot of the time, but sure. Look. If you can't be positive on the start of the year, when can you be positive at all? I'm sure I will look back on this episode after a hundred a year. I'm wondering what was I thinking? I had, I really enjoyed my. Winter break far too much, but look, let's get into it. And I got to go with my very first one. And my very first reason to be potentially hopeful rather than cheerful is towards the end of the year. I was recording a podcast. It was called access on Dawn and essentially it was charging. The collapse of special education in Ireland. Effectively. Since COVID any SNA access had been frozen. Like unofficially, but officially as well. Essentially the. Really the way it was whatever snaz you had in 2019. That was all you were going to have. And with the rise of, and the significant rise of children with additional needs in classrooms, all over the country, Aptar cane, developing skills, but in all schools, Having the same level of SNA support really wasn't going to cautious. And as I was charging the demise and the collapse of special education and saying that it was probably going, we would look back on this in 50 years time in much the way that we look back at corporal punishment in schools, in the 20th century and the sexual abuse case of the Catholic church, that the way we treat children with additional needs in this country would be the Scandal of the 21st century. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue I went to a, a local town principal's meeting. And people were telling me, principals are telling me that they had applied for SNA reviews and they were succeeding for the first time people were saying, yeah, I got an extra SNA or I got an extra three SNS. And I was thinking, this is very unusual. And I spoke to my colleagues and they said, yeah, this is a good time probably to apply for S and a access if you're short of it. So. Lo and behold I did, and I applied for an extra S and a, in our special class and we were successful. And. I'm about to apply for an SNA review and have done all the paperwork for it. And it's again. Much less. Than I would have been used to even this time last year. And I've been speaking to our. To, I've gone to these subtle workshops, or I don't know what they're called radio, but they're not webinars because you actually go to them physically, but you go to a presentation. I believe they're called and. You're being told. Yeah, we have S and A's that we're going to be, we be, be giving we're going to be reviewing every school at least once every two years to make sure that they have enough. Special needs assistance and this good, or if they have too many and. When I was doing my sort of review. Of special education, how it's collapsed. Part of. The review of it. And when I was looking into, as it was, there were a lot of schools. Who were holding onto what they had, even if their numbers were reducing. And, I think some of those may find themselves not so hopeful about 20, 25, but for schools that have grown. In the last five years and for schools that have grown in terms of the number of children with significant care needs. I think 20, 25 could be an interesting gear because schools are going to be reevaluated for SMA access once every two years. And his possible. Because of this, that up to 50% of schools will have had. There. SNA allocation reviewed. And it may. B. At a level. Not seen. For over half a decade, maybe for, even over a decade because schools have been too nervous to try and apply for supports. And so it gives me some hope. Special education at the moment. Obviously. There's a loss. To be seen. And over the next year or two as to how that's going to pan out. We're playing a huge amount of catch up. Schools are not getting the level of support that they need. Before Christmas, there was a general election and I think any bad news. Would have been risky and at the general election is over and we voted in the same people. Will there be a bit of complacency and they'll just say, give nothing anymore. So. I'm saying I'm hopeful. Rather than being. Optimistic. But there definitely has been a change. And I can't say it's anything to do with anything I've done. I was on the television there in August talking about the collapse of special education. I did my special education. A podcast. Lots of principals around the country and P I, Percy groups, having talking about special education. Maybe. Maybe things are changing for the better. It gives me a little bit of hope. It's in fact, if I was to say. My biggest hope for 2025. It would be potential improvement and they're starting from a very low base. In special education. I think it remains to be seen. Who's going to be the minister for special education. Will there be a minister for special education? We'll just be again, trying to put bums on seats or are they actually going to properly resource? So that is my number one. Hope for 2025. My second hope for 2025. Is. More. More optimistic. Let's say the special education, because it's happening. It's definitely happening. And. It's basically the technology is starting to be exciting again. It feels like 2008. Do you remember when the interactive whiteboards came along and everyone was getting really excited about these magic boards and what they could do, and everyone was, trying to get. Everyone's saving a bolder life, save the school's life savings to buy these boards. And it was very exciting. I remember at the time I was giving a lot of training to teachers and as I remember. A couple of weeks over, I think by three years. What I did was I got every well, every company that was selling interactive whiteboards to lend me their interactive whiteboard for summer courses that it's for by four or five years. And got teachers and just try them out and practice each one and decide which ones they liked. And find out information about why they liked them and so on and so forth. And it was a really exciting time. And. Really since then. Things became slightly dull. I am. I wasn't. I haven't really been that excited about technology. Until now, and the reason I'm excited about technology now. Is because of artificial intelligence. I think artificial intelligence. And I don't think I'm alone in saying this is as revolutionary as when the internet. Came out. I love how people are having the same reaction to AI as they did with the, when the internet started coming into the schools. When there were saying that. Children won't have to learn anything ever again. That a, there. It's going to destroy the education system and so on and so forth. And in some ways, there's a lots and lots of knots to be, be careful of when it comes to AI. But overall, I feel that AI could be the next revolution. And education. If we use it properly now. History will have taught us that. When it comes to technology, we tend to be fairly conservative when it, when we got to the interactive whiteboard worlds. We never really embraced what it could really do and to be fair. And I think I'm not being too harsh here. Most people. Don't really use the interactivity on their interactive whiteboard. As. Best they could. In some ways it's a large TV screen. Where teachers show YouTube videos. Most of the time. I'd say if we're being honest to theirselves, I think we miss a trick when it comes to direct whiteboards. Aye. Aye. Aye. I found myself from 2008, until 2012, trying to in twos teachers to use them in meaningful ways. And I suppose by 20 12, 20 13, It just became another piece of furniture. I dunno, I, I suppose I compared it to do, the magic door in Bosco. Where, people could bring their children's somewhere on a screen. And watch what was going on rather than interact with us. I think AI has the risk of the same, you're going to have the magic best, everyone's going to be really excited. Like in the interactive whiteboard board days, it was like, oh my God, look what it can do. Look what this magic pen can do. And the teacher basically being in charge of what I could do. I think with AI, we run the same risk where teachers may just say, Chachi PT, would he make me a lesson plan to teach X, Y, and Zed or Chuck or using these apps like differs and others, which are all very good and all very nice and all very early. And I'm doing a lot of work in AI. Over the last couple of years. And I've been playing around with it. And the more, a more I'm using it, the less impressed I am about to generate of artificial intelligence. So that's the stuff where AI makes things for you, makes pictures or makes lesson plans and so on. Once you get over the magic of what they do become very samey and when I'm. What I find artificial intelligence very good for is working with large amounts of data. And analyzing it and using it and being inspired by it. And I'm doing a few add little things with that. I like how it's do you know what I find the power of it is? It's like a good assistant, which is what I'm using it for. I'm just a little bit of a plug for the new year. I'm designed a sad little app called sclera are skirt. Sorry, skirt. I don't even know the name, my own app, which is Irish for swipe. And what I've done is I've used artificial intelligence. To help me. Get it. Get a table of information. And display it nicely in an app. Now I haven't coded properly since I was in college. So what I'm using artificial intelligence with, is this a code assistant? So I have the bare bones, but what I did need to do was help me. With swiping, for example, I don't know how to do it. There was no such thing as swiping when I was in college. So I asked Chachi PT to help me write a program which allowed me to. Swipe. So I've got like this. This app called skirt as C O I R R. You can find a mashed up plus slash skirt and you could restore. And you can have a look at that. And what it does is there's over a thousand. Ideas for playful mats ideas for infants. And I'm going to add to that as I go on I think it's a, a nice, simple way to use AI, but also I think this is what teachers could use AI for as an assistant to ask questions, to help. With what they're doing already. Ah, rather than generating stuff. For them. So I think there's a lot to say about AI. I might do an entire episode on AI this year. And I do. Every couple of weeks, I send a newsletter out, which you can subscribe to on Shaw dot Nash slash a newsletter. Or subscribe. I can't remember. I think it is on shot dot Nash slash subscribe. And you can have a look at some AI tips that I give every couple of weeks, but I might do a podcast on AI, maybe talk to somebody who's been using AI in primary level as well, which I think might be interesting too. Let's move on to reasons to be hopeful. Number three. I think time is finally running out to ignore the big elephant in the room that I harp on and on about every time I put the microphone in front of me and that is patronage. I think if anything happened. In 2024. The excuses were starting to run out for our patron led education system. There are so many children now opted out of religious faith formation in religious run schools that it is becoming. Almost impossible to justify. Having the amount of religious run schools in the country at 96%. It shouldn't even be, to be honest with you, it should be 0%. We shouldn't have schools. I run along any form of patronage. And one of the things that I was pontificating as the year was going on. Is I think when I talk about patronage, I tend to talk about religion and why we need to get rid of religion in schools and so on. But then, as the year is going on, I'm thinking, okay, that I know how that might sound to somebody working in a religious school. I get the, I got that whole automatic defensiveness that if somebody gives out about something, even if you, even, if you know what the person is saying is right, the defensiveness that is natural. Like I was having a chat to someone, a friend of mine. And this is the best way I can explain it. You know when I'm listening to the rhetoric around Israel and Palestine, even though. I am absolutely. Opposed to the revisionist Zionists system in Israel. And I'm a poured by the murdering of innocent people by the Israeli government. I'm absolutely appalled by the whole thing. Whenever I see people, saying things like Jesus was a Palestinian, it really, I got that arch. Because, I am a logical buyer to me. It's going, I get why people are saying this. And in some ways, I got I got the logic behind it and why there may be right. And what they're saying in some ways, even if they're not particularly right, But I think it's that. Movement in that. Defensives because it does a slight kind of denial or an erasure of Jesus's Jewishness that say in a way I'm because even though I don't practice at all my. With the might the faith I was brought up and I can see, I still have that slight defensiveness. If Judaism is attacked in a way, even though I don't really have. Too much link to it. Apart from my own heritage. And I was talking to an American friend of mine. And there were saying, whenever people come out about Donald Trump, Even though they would be a Democrat, like through it, there would be anti-Trump through and through. It's just this idea of oh, Americans are so stupid and they get this sort of every time people give out about Donald Trump, even though it makes no sense to do so. And I think if I'm giving out a bite, when I'm giving eyes by Catholic schools, people who work in Catholics, We were raised Catholic. I can imagine not same feeling that defensiveness that is natural. So I saw, I've been pondering on this quite a bit. And again, I'll, I am going to do a podcast of this later as well in the year. Both. It's around it. I have to get away from the idea of. Fighting this. On a religious ground, even though that's how schools are more or less. Set up to be divided along religious patrons, but really even if they were divided on a different type of thing, dif different divisions that say, not religions, let's say on race, or let's say on gender, or let's say on whatever. Class or something like that. And I know. Some somebody might argue that they sometimes, you could argue some of these things are happening in particular gender, for example. Both. You know what I'm saying is it doesn't really matter how they're divided the problem. Isn't the religion. It's actually the patronage model itself. The fact that every school is a private school is bizarre and shocking and it's, you can see how the weaknesses, the flaws. Have it happen? And I suppose what I'm trying to say really is what I'm hopeful for is those reasons are starting to come to a head. Now, whether it's gender, we can't have single gender schools at anymore. It's just, it makes no sense. We can't have schools where half the children are opted out of a large part of the day. We can't have schools that are divided on any kind of thing. You just need to go to your local primary school or your, or any school that you choose to go to should give you the same opportunities. school. School elsewhere, this whole idea of parentage choice, or even the fact that the schools are being run for parents, we need to start questioning those sorts of things. And I see that happening in 2025, I think we might start to have those conversations of what is school for what is patronage for. So. It's a possibility for our discussions, so anyway that's my third reason to be hopeful. We may stop. We may have to stop ignoring the idea of patronage. Let's move on to number four. Probably the most obvious one is we should. We should have a new minister for education. It's no guarantee. Norma photo might be. I put back in the seat if she wants to. I don't know if she does. I think she burned enough bridges at this stage where another stint. For another few years would be a disaster, not only for her, but also for all us. I feel that I'm not, it's not, I know you have to blame the minister for education, for the object and neglect. Of the education system over the last five or six years. But I think she's been just really badly advised. Bye. Ah, the people working in the department of education where they've effectively reduced, or they been systematically reducing the primary education sector to this child-minding service, where you give goodies to parents, free school books, free buses, free lunches, this kind of thing, instead of focusing on pedagogy and. What we're going to see. If we don't change things is. We're going to fall down those those rankings. In the, whether they're peas or whatever they are. And my fear is, people will take advantage of this slip because the slip is going to happen. For sure. And people are going to put the blame it on the most vulnerable people. So they're going to blame children from migrant backgrounds. They're going to blame minoritized people. They're going to blame kids with additional needs are going to blame people rather than actually really that. The object neglect. Of of what's been going on in the education system. It's been really horrendous in my view. So I'm hopeful. We might get a good administer of education. Now I shortlisted 10 people who I believe. Are going to be the next minutes of education and there's any one of them. That I think. Could be interesting. Now. That gives this makes this a very long shot in terms of hope. But if we get the right person, who's brave enough to tackle the neglect of the system. It could be the end. I think of a very stagnant era. Which we've had for about a decade. It's not all one minister we've had. I think we, it there's been stagnation really since. Just after Richard Bruton. I think Richard Britton was the last interesting minister for education. So we need a bit of life. We need someone who's on the opp and I think that's my hope really for 2025, that we have a good minister for education. It's a long shot though. I will admit. Number five. We saw the collapse. Of ax or Twitter over the last couple of years. And I think most people agree. It's not a good place anymore for good pedagogical discussion. It used to be. I remember not that long ago, 5, 6, 7 years ago, where every Monday night we a lot of teachers would sit around their laptops with the hashtag ed chat. E on a topic and you'd be discussing. And really interesting things about the education system and. It was brilliant. I loved it. I'd nearly, if I was given an offer to do something else on the Monday night, I'd I wouldn't take it so I could sit in front of my laptop for an hour discussing. Education with other educators and it was brilliant, but Twitter and ax is just it's fallen the Sunder and. Since, there's been a, kind of an Exodus from a lot of peoples in last few months, I've been looking around the place for a potential new home. Should I finish with Twitter? I don't think Georgia's completely digest. I think it will. I think it's going. I think. A lot of people who've jumped, shipped. Who've jumped ship may come back to it. But it isn't in a healthy place. It's in a very unhealthy place at the moment. And from looking at the various options that are out there for me, Instagram is where the most interesting pedagogy is happening. It's there's a kind of a. I dunno, they're not either, they're not a new generation is, old and young their books. Again, a younger space of teacher influencers who sometimes get ridiculed, but I think they're wonderful people I've I, I see them in action on websites. I run my mashed. IE. Where a lot of these teachers are active. And they've great ideas. And what they're doing is they're finding joy. In the space where education can happen, which is in their classrooms. And it's quite simple, really. They ignore the systematic structural things and possibly because they can, because they're part of that structure and part of that system. But having said that. They are in the main, sharing. They're joy and it's like what. People like me. And others were doing back in the early part of the noughties where we were desperately trying to find. Teachers to share people were really reluctant to share. People had lots of stuff on their laptops and they weren't sharing. And I set up on shot on Nash. Interestingly enough, as a place where people could share their resources. I also set up mash then a few years later to, for people to share the resources. For no reward whatsoever. And it was just, they flopped completely. Whereas now people are freely sharing the resources and it's actually quite a lovely space. In many ways there's good debate that goes on now. It's not all lovely nicey kind of thing. Although there is a lot of lovely nicey things. Yeah, you need to have a little bit more confidence that putting your face in front of a camera. And there's a lot of teachers doing that and some of them are brilliant. It's great to see that kind of stuff. And then we also have. Some interesting teachers. Coming to the forefront. I just noticed once day I didn't catch their name, but we're getting a bit more diversity, which is interesting because there is zero. Pretty much. There's very, almost zero diversity in the education sphere, Irish education sphere on Twitter, for example. But I've already bumped into a couple of teachers who are Muslim or black and Irish. And And it's interesting that they're not using their. That's not the intention, but their ethnicity. Is there a unique selling point let's say, and they're using it for good. And they're trying to help. Irish teachers see. They're see their work and how it can be complimentary to the classroom. And I'm not saying that in a patronizing way. I loved. The one I found today. It's the tagline that I loved. She's an Irish. A teacher. But you said I am the teacher. You and I never had, I told him that was a great tagline. And she's spreading. An immense amount of useful. An excellent information for how to teach. Diversity to teach about diversity. Be a diverse. Sort of person within a very own diverse, if that's a word. System. I just think to be honest with you, I think Instagram. Is where things are asked. I presume Facebook is where things are out a little bit as well, but Instagram and Facebook are the same thing. I left Facebook a while ago in a way. I'm laughing. No, you can never leave any of these places, but I believe there's some stuff going on in there in groups. That's what I hear young people are doing. They're going to groups, but what I'm seeing really. Is that it's, if we're going to, if Twitter has gone into a blaze of flaming tires, I'm afraid young teachers were coming over to join you. I'm sorry to read. I remember when I when I was on Facebook, I don't remember. My dad joined Facebook and I thought it's all over now. Ready? Ah, I imagined this is the equivalent for all these young teachers. They're gonna have to find a new space where they can avoid us old. I'm older, I'm not old, older narky, cynical people, but I'm going to try and be joyful and try and give some positive. As Stefan Instagram, as well as my usual rant as well. I've started there. If you want to have a look it's on shot dot Nash is my tag or whatever you call it. It's not even a tag. It's an account. Anyway, so well done to Instagram. I think you're going to be. The benefactor. Of the Exodus from Twitter. Number six. The new primary maths curriculum for me is. Potentially a reason to be hopeful. And when it was introduced, I think the size of our leaf could be heard. Across the nation across the land, because it wasn't actually all that bad. And to be honest with you, and this is only my view because the people who are. I suppose who have written, this would argue against me. I'd say very strongly. I don't see it as any different from the previous curriculum. I don't see a different at all, whatever, what they was trying to do in the 1999 curriculum is very much the same as what they're doing in the 2025 curriculum. And. The thing is what happened. I was in the 1999 curriculum. They managed to make Matt a little bit more active. They call it active learning. That was the buzzword in 1999 in 2025. They've just essentially. Change the word active learning to playful learning, but everything else remains the same. They were trying to move away from book reliance in 1999. I think they failed. And in 2025, they're trying to do the same. I can see what they're trying to do. It feels like a bit of a, rather than a new curriculum, it feels like a bit of a kick, the RS kind of curriculum. Basically. You didn't do it in 1999. Odds. You got to do it now. Are they going to learn from. I don't know, there was a kind of a gently approach in 1999. There's still teachers out there teaching the 12 times tables. For example, there's still teachers doing borrow and pay back. For a subtraction. There's still teachers who are only teaching nominal to patient long division board way, rather than using different methodologies. Are we going to see. A little bit of meat. To the primary maths curriculum where those kinds of practices that. I should have been in the history books from, well before the 99 curriculum. Are they going to be a bit stronger now and insisting. That we teach the math curriculum. In the way it should be. And the way it should have been since 1999. I'm going to S I'm going to say yes, I think they will. I hope they do. Maps. Was one of my favorite subjects to teach. In fact, that's how I got started in teacher training. I was a math tutor. For the PCSP, was that what it was called or whatever it is called now? I also worked FiberNet college as the lead maths person for a good few years. I love the subject. I love to see a top. Wow. Boss. And I think this is a good opportunity. For it to be taught well, so I hope it will. Number seven. I'm I'm reluctant to say it's it's I, it, this is a positive in a way because it, okay. Let's get the positive out of the way. For want of a. For, for want of a better way of putting us. Every school child in Ireland is going to be fed hot lunch every day. And I don't think. That's a negative thing. I think it's really good. That we're now in an education system where every single child, no matter where they come from. Who they are. What their background is his day can have a hot school meal every day. Now for the negative. My problem with the school meals program. Is the same problem I have with patronage. We have nearly. Three and a half thousand schools all individually doing their own thing. When it comes to launches and having to individually. Decide which company is going to provide their lunches and so on. And this means it's a complete logistical disaster. And. I just. I don't know if there's any way back from it. But it would have made so much more sense. To me. Instead of every school out in their own. That. Different areas. Would well, and this wouldn't be the schools during it. It's maybe the education centers, maybe the V E T B is maybe, I don't know what it would be, but some section would put out a tender to companies. At basically a, you hear as a chunk of 100 schools. You are responsible for the catering of school meals program. If for these a hundred. Schools or whatever they might be. And. It doesn't take a genius to see how that would work much better. I think as well as that. We still have the silliness where we give children 10 minutes to Gorge to end their food, because we don't have enough time for breaks. I understand that's going to be, that's a difficult thing we would have to possibly extend the school day. My thing would be let's get rid of the patrons program and you've got an instant half an hour every day. Where you don't have to do that. I, and again, this is part of the whole, no. The unnecessary nurse. Of having patrons. And I think that might be a way where we could basically, as if we got rid of all patrons, we could actually feed children in a more systematic way. But then, again, you have more problems. He see I'm unraveling this kind of, I always talk about the nuts and the school system that you have to unravel. When we're doing it, when we're talking about anything, we have so many schools that don't have the facilities to provide school lunches in a centralized place. We should, every school should have a canteen where children come in and eat their lunches. Of course we don't have that. So. There's all this kind of stuff. And I just put it at the same time. I just feel. We have structured. This is. Is really dreadful. And if you were a principal, And you went to the IPP Ana. Expo. This year, the conference this year. Who had the biggest stands throughout the expo who had, who was giving away so much stuff? It was the lunch companies. It was a school meals company. There is money. I like a huge money being made. From the scheme. And. I don't begrudge any of those companies making that money. But It's the waste. It's the waste of money. This could have been a much cheaper program. It could have been rolled out much more sensibly. And so on. And you also would have better quality control, all that sort of stuff. I just get the feeling that we're going to go down the same road as Britain did, where, kids are going to be having the Irish equivalent of Turkey Twizzlers on menus because. You can't manage three and a half days in schools, individual choices. And you can already see, do you know. The guidelines that are out there. Are there? Not that it's not that they're bad. Put their guidelines, they're, and there's guidelines are guidelines and then the food, the money that's given towards each meal. Look it's S. The system and the structures for us. Could have been a lot better. But then. Coming right back to the first time I said, You have to also see that. Every child is getting a hot school meal. The other thing I'll say about this is do we make a compulsory. Like they do in Finland and Sweden, actually. I don't know if it's. It's a Finland it's sweetened. Definitely that's compulsory Devin school meal. They reduce heart rate a heart problems by 50%. Within 20 years of the school meals program. I don't know for, because we don't do make it compulsory because children have enough time to eat and because the quality of the food just, I don't think. Is. CA. Can be a good enough because how are you going to manage. 3000, 200 different private organizations. For the and the demands of each child for If you were to roll this out properly. And let's say, There would be the companies would come in. There would be a canteen in the school. It will be like a buffet service. Like it is in civilized countries like in Scandinavia. And there wouldn't be like 20 things on a menu to choose from. It. Wouldn't all be just prepare pre-made cheap food. It will be good, fresh cooked me a loads of it. And children were going eat what they. Eat the bits that they want. So there could be a solid bar. There would be like a meat, there'll be a vegetarian option to be vegetables. It'd be rice to be cost cause this kind of thing. Or whatever. I'm not saying these are healthy foods. I'm not a dietician. But it just could have been a lot better. And it annoys me that it just fit in to this patronage system that we have. And I don't know if we can ever pull it back from it. But every child is being fed of hot lunch, or at least as the ability to be fed. A hot lunch. Let's move on to number eight. As we move into over half an hour here. Oh, I think the primary language curriculum, this. The extension to us where we have modern foreign languages as they're known. And I think. I think this is a positive thing. I'm not sold exactly in how it's going to work. In fact, I don't know how it's going to work. But I'm more positive about it than I was after going on a course. On teaching languages. I feel there's a bit of excuse making saying, oh, you don't need to speak a, another language to be able to teach the other languages and all the rest of us. But I'm not a hundred percent convinced. Of all that. But. I do think it's. I do think it's a positive thing. We have to be teaching. More than English and Irish. Again, ideally. We would have a system. Where we would have lots of schools that have access to different teachers who would come along to different schools and so on. I probably be bunk Irish into, in with modern foreign languages as well. I know that's unpopular book. I think realistically, if we're going to rescue the Irish language, we either all have to come grouse. Or we Richie's growl got to the equivalent of every other language that's out there. I have a, I'm more positive than I am negative about the languages program that might be coming in. I just hope we do it properly. History will teach us that it will be done. Thrift glee and it won't work, but. At the same time, maybe it will. And I have to be hopeful. This is about things I'm excited about. This is that I'm hopeful about it doesn't necessarily mean I'm hope I'm, I believe it's going to happen, but I do hope it's going to happen. That's move on to number nine and pray on it's about teachers this time. And I think, and I, it comes back to the two teachers. I would talk with my badge on Instagram. They're. The idea of embracing teacher diversity, I think would I think. We're going there a little bit. I've seen teachers from different backgrounds as starting to speak in the media a little bit. I'm seeing. That some of them have a voice and some of them are saying very sensible things. There's a little bit of innocence there. There aren't enough of them. There's a risk of tokenism from schools where they got one teacher from my diverse background and all of a sudden they become like the I dunno, the boss. Have a diverse teachers, they become tokenistic. They're the teacher, who the, the children from diverse backgrounds go to as a representative. There's all those risks that are happening. But at the central at all, we have the baptism barrier still firmly in place for teachers. So what I mean by that is if you're a teacher in 90% of primary schools in the country, You are supposed to have a certificate in sick fact, it's expected that you will have a certificate. And Catholic religious teaching. For, even though these. I find them. Ah, I find that I find them tiresome really nowadays. I as I said, I liked some of them on a personal level. But when you hear that, the likes of these people who worked for Catholic organizations saying, did you don't need to be Catholic to have the Catholic certificate and religious and education's professional qualification. That's baloney. Absolute baloney. As judge Judy would say. The reason for the certificate and Catholic religious education is to pass on the word of God on to children. It is a missionary. Qualification, it qualifies you to pass on the faith formation to children and who is. Worst. At providing faith formation in a religion. I answered the question. It's a person who doesn't share that religion. I find it bizarre. Th there's a lot of people who will say, oh, let's show you don't have to believe in. Just to pass it on, but can you imagine. And maybe, look actually want to say, I don't believe it. I can't believe it because it's not what parents are doing almost all the time. Do you know? They're like, They send their kids to Catholic schools. And the only thing they care about is making the commute. In fact, I've had people coming up to me saying I would've sent my kid to your school because I believe in equality. I believe in diversity. I believe in all this. But, you don't do the, you don't do sacramental preparation. I don't even believe in God, myself. And you're like, you. Invested. Your child's education because you wanted to have a party in second class. I have said this to them and they're like, yeah when you put it that way, And then the Dendera pissed off of me, obviously, because, anyway it's it. I can, so I can see exactly why these people are saying it because everyone's bought into the lie of you don't have to be religious. To teach religion. But this is really great guy. I know he's a very strict. he's a lovely, easy is actually a good person because he believes in his faith and he does take it seriously. Really seriously. Robert Nugent is his name. Look him up on YouTube. He's Really into religion. So much so that it puts the, what's called the bouncy castle Catholics off because, oh no, he's too. Or that just, but he's very sensible. And he turned to you. I coined this phrase and I don't know if he even knows he coined the phrase, but I always quoted is a faith is not a subject. Like it's so different. To pass on a fate pass on a poor. Belief in a existential thing, like a God of some sort. And to do that, you. Deposits are passing on a flame. That's what's more like. It's not like it's it, you cannot pass on a flame without a flame. It's you have to believe what you're doing. And as I said, It really annoys me that the people who are in charge of Catholic education are basically. Saying you don't do that. What kind of Catholics are they themselves? I ask that's a question I'm asking really, but thankfully. We have excellent advocates, education, equality, who I am. Very much proud to I'm very proud to be part of their of their lobby group. Constantly putting out stories about how the faith formation in schools is affecting our teachers. And the stories that come out every day from being passed over from, for promotion, from being pretty much told to shut up and put up or put up and shut up whatever order that comes in. For teachers who don't believe in. In God has been affected by the Catholic church in a very bad way. Being forced. To have a priest rub ashes on their forehead on Ashwin like all these things that are just. To me or shocking. But probably aren't shocking to you. And you're probably going back to that point of the defensiveness. That I talked about earlier in the, in, in the show. And, but just, if you think about it, If you let's take yourself into a different situation, let's say that all schools were Muslim, for example, because everyone picked some Muslims. So why not? Me and you were a teacher in a Muslim school and you were expected as a female teacher to. Cover your head with a hijab or perhaps with a burka. Like. How would you feel? How would you feel every day going into work? That part of Europe, your identity. Your identity. Was you were, was. Was not. Being held in the same esteem. As the identity of that school, I don't think it's a good feeling and to have that. And that is how people feel working in your, in the schools that you seem to have this. Cognitive dissonance for that. Catholic enough, but not too Catholic. If it's too caught. I remember one of my favorite kind of things that happens in education was the Bishop of Waterford. The the cried yoga. In primary schools. And, half the country we're teaching yoga in Catholic schools. And they all ridiculed. At the Bishop rather than actually going no. He's absolutely right. It is not a cash practice, that it is a Buddhist practice. And if you were purporting to be someone who is on a mission to be a Catholic teacher, you should be doing Catholic practice on the equivalent. Of yoga in a Catholic school is prayer. But they don't want to hear that kind of stuff. And but. Are the excuses running out. Are they running Ash? I'm hopeful. They are. I think in averagely, we have more diversity in teaching. Now, whether it's people who don't believe in anything at all, to newer, to some of the teachers that are propping it coming into the system who have other faiths. And in some ways it's teachers of other faiths. The can't pretend. They just can't pretend because faith is not a subject, it's your identity. And I think it's really important at keep that in mind. When we're being hopeful. Finally. I couldn't really think of a 10th example, particularly, but this is my number 10. It just can't be any, can't be much worse than 2024 for me. 20 to 24 was just one of the most depressing years of my career. I have to say, I love teaching. I love education. But 20, 24 made it really hard to have that enthusiasm. The world's falling apart. More on the education system is what's going beyond the point of neglect. So 2025. Just has to be better. And I think we need. 20 to 25 to be better. As I'm recording, this does a promise of snow storm. And it depresses me. That's the beginning of the narrative from the media on our education system, that it isn't about learning. It's about with our kids, be able to go into school to be minded because that's the narrative. But I have faith. That we might be able to take 20, 25 by the horns and drag it into a pedagogical place, particularly I think the new math curriculum, I think the new foreign foreign languages, modern foreign languages. I think maybe. Technology as well. That does these three kind of prongs that are quite exciting and might get a bit of traction. I think maybe the diversity that's coming into our schools might make us. Think about the ways we teach, think about the ways we learn. These are all these different things that might, give some enthusiasm, some kind of. Drive into pedagogy, perhaps a new minister for education might do something revolutionary, just these are the things we have to hope for. And. In some ways. That's what I'm going to hope for. I'm going to spend this year. Embracing and re-embracing my love for technology and education. I'm going to try and create something interesting regularly in education. Maybe the sess score. App, maybe I've done. A couple of things of coding that I'm interested in. I'm I may go back to running courses. I don't know. I'm not really sure. But I do feel that this is the year that we grabbed education back from it, turning into a child-minding service. And we need to do, if we do nothing else, maybe this year, forget about all this. I forgot about everything else. Can we get etiquette? Can we got pedagogy? Can we get education back from the people who are trying to reduce it to childminding? That's my call to action for you for 2025, let's get education back. Into the classroom. It seems like a very basic thing to ask for. But yeah, it's been slipping away for quite some time. I think I'd sit for me for this week. I hope you've enjoyed this Rouse for 2025. I've gone on for about three quarters of an hour. I think that's more than enough horizon for me. And I hope you enjoyed my 10 reasons to be hopeful, maybe rather than cheerful until I see you the next time, please ask, subscribe to my newsletter. If you'd like to hear more from me on shaw.net/subscribe. And we'll chat to you next time. All the very best. Bye-bye.