Good GRACE!, Poland Bans Home, Warming to the Smartphone Ban

Hello? Hello. You're very welcome to if I were the minister for education, a regular podcast, where I go into the world of primary education in Ireland. And let's, what I would do if I were the minister for education, this is Simon Lewis. On today's show good grace, the future of primary education in Ireland, Poland band's homework. So should we, and why I'm warming to Norma Foley's smartphone ban. If you are interested in subscribing to the podcast, you can go to any of your podcasting apps and subscribe to if I were the minister for education, you can also find out more from on shot dot Nash. Where you can tune in to add the puncture podcast notes and you can subscribe to at the new stature that I sent out every two weeks with more views and news, and also some ICT tips. I also share, and I also share some extra bits and pieces on my Feedly kind of Irish education news, which you can search for as well on Feedly. Where I scour the internet for stories about the education system in Ireland. So let's get on with it today on go to our first story, which is the, which is called good grace and give you a little bit of a background before we get on with things which started off. The last, a few weeks in primary school education have been quite interesting if you're interested in patronage and religious control of schools, because for the very first time, After 13 years after it's it's launched the patronage imperialism. System. Or project. Garnered its first educate together school to be divested from a Catholic school. This would seem amazing to most people who think, there's a huge number of people in Ireland that believe that there's loads of educated kids cause, and they're growing and the Catholic church are handing over schools to educate together. I bet, but actually the very, very first open Catholic school. So not a disused Catholic school was handed over by the Catholic church to educate together for the very first time in 2024, as I said, 13 years After the patrons and pluralism forum. It was launched. Many of you would say, ah, yeah, but Lots of schools have opened. The real truth is. Fewer than 20 schools have transferred over from the Catholic church to multi-denominational providers. Most of the 20 schools that have Transferred over were schools that were closing. They might've had six students or eight students. At most. Most commonly so some of you might be living in county, Kerry by temperature. We've had four schools. A hundred owed from the Catholic church in the last five or six years. Yes. And all four of those indeed were handed over by the Bishop to the community national school. But all of those NGOs are very small schools that we're probably going to close. And don't exactly. Aren't exactly what you would call the, the intentions that divestment was, which was two. Ah, divest. I suppose mainly in urban areas at big schools or as. As in, from Catholic patronage over to educate together or to this community national school and the community kind of national school pretty much has had the monopoly on being paid back divested to, there was one girl Scott as well. Got divest to and Tala, but really this is a functioning Catholic school that has moved over to educate together. And I say this as the backdrop. Really in a way, because, um, there's a lot of perceptions out there about multi-denominational education in Ireland. Insofar as that people think there's a lot more of it than there actually is. And I think they may think that I suppose maybe because these small bodies have loud voices, there's been a lot of public. I suppose a lot of public pressure. To, lessen the amount of influence the Catholic church and other religious bodies have on the patronage system. 96% of primary schools still are under a religious control nine about 89.7%. Now. To the Catholic church and. I guess there's a, there's been a lot of, it has been a huge appetite as Ireland. As Ireland, as a society becomes less religious. The last census, 2022, only 69% of the entire country even identifies as Catholic. And we asked we have 90% of the schools. And if you even go bed down at the figures a little bit more, if you're aged, I think it was at age 25 to 29 in the last census, which is basically. The age people, these people will be becoming parents. Now only 53% of them identify as Catholic. So we're coming into this kind of weird misnomer. Have a system where, you know, a lot of half of the people. In the schools no longer identify as the religion of those schools were not the country that my mother and on many liker. I remember my mom saying to me when I was young. That Arden's is a country of 95% Catholics, 5% Protestants. And the rest of us are Jewish Ash. That was hurtful. One of her wonderful little jokes. And I wish that she, it was it's changed now. The, this country has changed immensely. We have the fastest growing belief system. If we can call it that is atheism or no religion. And Our schools are very happy very slow to adapt to that. And I guess, this is this has been made even, more pointed. By study. That just came out last week, called the grace report. Now the grace report has always be, is a. Is from Mary immaculate college, a very F. I know it's a very Catholic university in Limerick. It's the teacher training college at Catholic teacher training college on every so often they come out with reports. Which are very good. And this one is no different. They basically surveyed over four thousands of massive study, 4,000 teachers in Catholic schools. And I remember when this came out, I was puzzled by why they were only serving coffee survey and Catholic. Teachers, but I'm very glad they did because the results of that study. The results of that study were really interesting. And there was, there were. And I guess you can S if you're watching on my screen here, if you're tuned in, on YouTube you'll see that, but if you're not the Irish time gives the headline from that great support. Basically younger teachers in Catholic schools are less likely to believe in God or attend religious services. This study has, caused shockwaves, despite it not being shocking news. I think if you worked in an Irish primary school these days, the number of people who would, work in Catholic schools and say, oh yes, I'm a practicing Catholic and their interview and all the polls, ethos and so on. But in reality, in the staffroom. Most of the T you know many of the teachers. Absolutely reject a lot of Catholic teaching. There's very few. Irish teachers who. Don't live in sin in inverted commas, or would have a problem with someone cohabitation. There is a very few Irish, like most Irish people in society. That would frowned upon someone who was divorced or going through divorce. There's very few. Irish primary school teachers, I would imagine who would be not using contraception and things like that. And of course, Plenty of Irish primary school teachers. Who are gay and you've got plenty of our school teachers who would believe in. Abortion rights for women. And essentially, I suppose it came as no surprise. What so ever. To me anyway, at least that That most that on. At least half of primary school teachers in Ireland. Do not practice the Catholic faith and they are teaching children. They're teaching children the Catholic faith, not as a subject, but they're passing on that faith to children, their job. And I think people forget this. A lot of people. And I think maybe it is it's. This is all part of it too. I think people forget that if you are a teacher in a Catholic school, your main thing, the main thing that you were supposed to do that's to permeate throughout the school day is that you are supposed to pass on the word of God, to those children in your care. And I think a lot of Irish primary school teachers even reject that and say, oh no, we don't do any of that anymore. But the thing is, that's what you're supposed to do. And in some ways it very much ties in. I know, I think I've had plenty. Of arguments over the years. With teachers who say, put out the reality on the ground. Sometimes we don't do any of that. Try, barely teach religion, or I barely do this. And sheriff. Couldn't a sec that never happens in the staffroom and so on. And their problem. And I suppose there, and I guess what this leaves us in a situation is you've got. Expectations from your patron bodies, that you will be upholding the ethos, which is passing on the word of God, to the children, praying with the children, believing PA I know this guy, I was sent this. A really good video from a friend of mine by a guy called Robert Nugent. Who's a lovely guy or very nice, funny enough. It's a weird I, it was sent to me by someone. And this guy, Robert Nugent, I actually I. I've met him a couple of times. I was really good friends with his sister in college, and I was actually at the wedding at. I at my friend's wedding where I've left to where I met him last, but he's somebody who's really strongly Catholic and really deep in his faith. And he's really, he. This study. Has really made genuine Catholics very cross because they believe. You know that if you were to be a Catholic school, you should be a genuinely Catholic school. I'm not just some sort of a, I know this term is as, is banded about a bouncy castle Catholic, because it's very disrespectful. To genuine Catholics the way I suppose. Their religion is being treated, in some ways, it's abuse, a Bible story. It reminds me, I remember when I was young though, I went to a Jewish school and we would have been learning about the Bible. There was a story, and I remember fairly clearly. It was the golden calf in the Bible. So I can't, I like my memory's a bit hazy, but I think Moses. Is it Moses probably Moses went up to Mount Sinai to meet God as one does. And when he came down he saw that the Israelites were worshiping this, they built a golden calf and they were worshiping this golden calf. And I suppose the analogy of that story is that they had taken this, relay their religion, and they had essentially made a false idol. And I think in some ways this is what's happened with Catholicism in schools such no one is taking it very seriously anymore. And the golden calf essentially are the sacraments that people are essentially sending their kids to. Catholic schools, they're outsourcing their religion and to schools. So they're asking schools to essentially do do the religious parts of a couple of big parties. They like the idea of the communion. They liked the idea of the confirmation, but they don't really like the idea of the religion. And it's a very odd thing there. Almost made a culture of it. And in fairness the Catholic church have turned a blind eye to this for many years. And. Rightly, I think a genuine Catholics are very angry. At their church leaders for allowing their faith to be essentially desecrated by people who don't care about us. And they're left in this sort of situation where they effectively have a school system. That isn't really Catholic, but it's Catholic only a name. You have essentially a lot of their missionaries, their teachers, which that's, they're supposed to be missionaries for the Catholic church. They're missionaries. Our essentially unbelievers. Teaching. I suppose a lot of people who are unbelievers because again, very less than 30% of the population even go to mass. So you've got unbelievers. Teaching unbelievers. To believe. In some way. It just doesn't make sense. And that's my, as this guy, Robert knew Robert Mnuchin said faith is not subject to. I mean in the last few, the last number of weeks, I've heard people saying, these people should just get on with it. If you're teaching in a Catholic school, you get on with it. You teach the religion, even if you don't believe in it, or you should be able to teach the religion, even if you don't believe in it. And I thought that line faith is not a subject was really a really clever sentence. I. I really liked it. And it sums things up to me. And I think the Catholic church have a lot of thinking to do. I've spoke spoken to a few friends of mine and a few people online about this who are genuine Catholics, who I call genuine Cox. They believe in their faith really strongly. And and I really, I enjoy these conversations because they really th these are intelligent people. If you really think about their faith at large and live their faith every day, And they're, they're angry. They're really the one thing they have in common. Most of them anyway is a really angry at their own church in a way at themselves, in some ways that they've allowed this to happen. But the main thing they all agree on is we have way too many Catholic schools. We've lost our way. We need a space for genuine Catholics to be genuine Catholics and to be unapologetically Catholic. So a lot of the rhetoric right now from. These people here is, I don't know this guy, but he wrote her a letter in the this is a guy Alexander O'Hara and the times he was really angry about the about these results. And he actually was blaming teachers for not passing on the faith and none done that. That does parents will be rightly disgusted, but parents aren't rightly disgusted thing is they're sending their children to Catholic schools. Not because they believe in the Catholic faith that much. And in fact, we the Genesis support for is, again, an in-house Catholic survey. Only 9% of parents actually send their children to Catholic primary schools because they're Catholic. And, the, all the other reasons were more and more important at the NATA only 9% because they were genuinely Catholics. So we have a kind of a situation which is a gas on surprising. To, to most people. And this it's so unsurprising. He was actually looking at a study from 2012, 2012 of 12 years ago from the Irish primary principal's network. I won the IPN. We're doing really interesting things, one of the things was they were talking about right at the road of religion and education, even back then, this is just after the publication of the forum of current ism and patronage. And what I found really interesting from their study on this was at dosh. Most people they stood, they surveyed, again, thousands of people most believed there needed to be less influence. Our religion and education, there should be schools should be multi-denominational was the was a result. However, most people believe sacraments. Most parents, this is a study of parents. And so on, those parents wanted that. Should there should be multi-denominational schools. They said they also wanted to sacraments to happen in school. So it was a bit of a paradox. Shall we say, and this and in some ways, That, that, that gives me the message. The parents don't actually, they, I actually the sacraments and they want to put, they don't want to put in any of the work. To raise her children and for those documents. And they have as I said, made a golden calf of the situation and we'll see this, as we move into into the month of may, which is, even. I'm saying this now that it's already in Ireland is known as communion season. And what you'll see there is parents are stressing. Not over religious things, but over being able to get a bouncy castle, getting their house ready, losing weight for the big day. And things like that it's. They've turned, religious very serious sacraments where you're promising a priest that you are continuing your journey through Catholicism. They have turned this into, a secular wedding. In a way that I don't mean Sackler in a bad way. There is nothing Catholic about the communion and confirmation anymore. I see that as a very sad thing. For genuine Catholics as someone with no skin in the game. I've, I have I just feel very I can understand why they're, why they would be disillusioned. And I wrote an unpublished letter to the Irish times saying that, this isn't surprising. And I think essentially the Irish education system, the Catholic education system is really has been built on a foundation of bouncy castles and helium balloons. Really in the last 20 years, really just full of hot air. And no substance. And of course I said, then that genuine Catholics must be very deflated. See, I'm good at these ponds. I'm a real dad joke here. But I think really, It's something to reflect on. I think the future of Irish education, this is really, sent shockwaves though it shouldn't have it's there in black and white now that teachers under the age of 50. Um, only 41% of them. Even do. Religion. Once a week in their classroom, that's shocking and wrong. And if you're going to teach in a Catholic school, I just feel you should, if you should do it. But if you don't believe in it, how can you, faith is not a subject and Under just 51%. I'd say sorry, 49%. Say they're not committed to practicing Catholics. Half teachers do not believe in a personal God. It's pretty bad. I think it was an 18 or 19%. Essentially say that they don't go to church, except for being a big days or whatever it is. So it's. It's pretty bleak. If you are leading Catholic churches and that half of your missionaries, don't believe in the message something's going to have to happen and it's going to have to happen quickly. This may be good news. We're weirding of, for the government. Who are hopelessly and doing nothing about the whole thing because it's because they. When something is hard, do nothing was, I think Richard Nixon's mode apparatus, and I think the government's. We're certainly doing that or not. Read Richard Nixon. It was running Ronald Reagan in the states. And this might push forward their plan to divest 400 schools. I think the whole divestments The program is it's just useless. It doesn't work. We need a better system. I'm putting myself out there to anyone listening. If they are that I have the solution. And I'd love to do it. I think we need we, it starts with a big thinking with the stakeholders. I would love to run that because I genuinely think we can get the answer together if we all work together. And we really dig deep about our commonalities. And I think we can come up with an education system that works for everybody. Anyway. Speaking of governments at the Polish government got in the Irish news because they got rid of homework at primary school level I'm much like Ireland does as dead again, don't nothing really interestingly, the Polish governments at do have a say in what happens in their education system. Unlike Ireland. Where we have a department of education who doesn't, who has very little say in what goes on in classrooms, they have, they provide education. They provide for education. They don't provide education, the department of education, or they provide for it. So they give money to private bodies. Such as the Catholic church. To provide education and they don't really have a say on homework and they never ever give a comment on us, but essentially the, this. The district is a very long article by Liam Nolan. About Poland, the Polish government. Getting rid of homework. It led to it didn't actually lead to much discussion. I really thought I'd be on every radio station talking about this. But I think in some ways, The topic of homework has been done to death in Ireland. And in some ways there's a sort of a general agreement amongst most people that. You either wanted. Very much or you don't want such very much. So it's very polarized. So if the likes of the journalist Jan Hogan campaigning. From a parent point of view saying she hates homework and she wants a band. Because she's very busy. And then you've got other parents who are saying, no, we need homework. Cause we don't know what's going on in schools. And they could be doing anything in there. Kind of stuff. And we want to know what's going on all flavors in between radio, I've been going on a journey with homework for many years. I did a podcast about it, maybe I think five years ago where I concluded. Still where I am at the moment. That I don't see the points of traditional homework in Irish primary schools. We need to re-imagine homework for the 21st century and whether we should have number one, whether we should have it at all, or if we are to have homework, what does it look like? And I've always, I suppose I came to the conclusion very much from a good study there. A number of years ago about homework. If we were to have homework, you should have, it should involve choice. It should be personalized. And when I say choice, by the way the choice to do it or not do it. Choice around the topic of what it is and make sure it's of interest. If it's a, it can't be just, it needs to be thoughtful. It needs to be meaningful. And so on. So there's a lot of questions around homework. That needs to be answered and we still haven't really had a proper discussion about it. And again, similarly to religion in schools, I think. When it comes to homework in our schools, We need to re-examine. Properly what it looks like. We need to talk about it. We need to look at the studies that are there, bring people together and, decide what does homework look like in Ireland in the 21st century? Should it be project-based if we have it, should we have it at all? There's all these, I suppose there's all these big questions. In potent, if people are interested and the news of it's essentially being decreed by the Polish government has been mass. On surprisingly. With people being very happy and people have been very sad about it. David interviewed parents, they interviewed children. They interviewed teachers. From both sides of the equation. And predictably. As I said, both of both sides. Our representatives but. I would think. Not very much deep thinking about it, it's the same sort of arguments you'll that you'll hear in RNN from most people. I it's good to practice what you do in school or it's a waste of time. We should be, children's would be out playing, they're not very deep thoughts about homework. We have to, we have to really think more deeply about what the benefit is. And Of one homework. What does homework mean anymore? And, has the word become so poisonous that we need to change it to something else that accurately reflects what it is? Children essentially assessing themselves. Is there something I need to practice that I didn't get in school? So the teacher might say, let's just pick a very simple example. Because I want to go more through the thought process rather than the actual content of the homework. So your times tables being. Let's pick something controversial. Okay. A teacher let's say, and I'm not saying this is good or anything like that, but let's say the teacher is teaching the five times tables. And you're a child in our class who goes, yeah, got it. And, There's no point in you being given a sheet of. A hundred, five times tables on a sheet of paper that you have to fill out because you're not learning anything new because you've got it. Equally, there's no point in you going home and practicing them because you've got it. However, if you are a child who's just struggling a little bit, you've, you just, you've got some of them. You've got the easy ones that say the easy ones in inverted commas, but there's a few that you don't know. Dan, is it a good idea for you to practice them at home? And I would suggest it probably is because it is something you will need to know. In life you will, it is handy to know. Your multiplication facts. And if you haven't got them, it would make sense to me that you might practice them at home. And you can do that in lots and lots of different ways. And I'm just saying. These things aren't black and white, E individual kids needs to. I need to assess where they're at in a particular thing. And then do it. Let's pick a different example. Let's say a project on the Vikings because everyone does projects on Vikings. How are you going to present that project? Okay. So might say, you know what, I don't fancy doing that project and that should be fine. Some of them might be going to, I've always wondered what food Vikings eat. Go off and find out. Another kid might going. Joel. I really to, I'd love to build a long boat or I'd like to make a shield or I'd like to make a helmet. That's the kind of stuff I think we should be looking at. When we're talking about homework, we need to give choice. We need to make it meaningful. And we need to make sure that, people are working with their own novel. What will make this useful? I would love. For example, the one who's making is how much might be showing off, His is his or her skills in in design. And do you know or what made the helmet you. It wasn't a good design for a helmet, I was not the helmet at all. We, I think we all could picture a Viking helmet in our heads there, but while it's that, what it actually looked like, there is a question that you might do for your homework. I don't know. I might do it for my homework. I'm curious, now that I'm saying it. There's lots and lots of talk about homework. I think it's an interesting topic. I think we need to think more deeply about these things and maybe I'm coming up with a theme here because I've been thinking a little bit more deeply about smartphones and their use. For young people now. I haven't changed my mind in that. I think it's ridiculous for a child to own a smartphone. It's it's dangerous. I've. I've I've I've compared it to giving a child a gun, essentially your I, wounds, you give a child as smartphone for themselves. You are essentially taking away their innocence and you are giving them access to things. They should not be a, they should not have, I haven't changed my mind on that. What I was most annoyed about. Was at the minister for education Norma Foley essentially asking schools to manage this, um, this whole situation. And if you remember from, it's always in. I guess there I've been doing this. My newsletter for, I think I'm on the 10th newsletter. And I'd say eight out of 10 of them have mentioned Norma Foley's. Who's the minister for education. Crusade against smartphone use and open till now. It's really she's been weak. I feel. Basically, these social contracts. With parents signing these, social contracts with their schools on getting schools to bond smartphones. It's because there's not a single school in the country. I don't think that had I was allowing the use of smartphones during the school day. I know I was disappointed by that. And I was critical of her and, for really doing nothing particularly useful. My, my argument really was that. There's no point in getting schools to do these things. You need to be stronger. And you need to be talking to parents. You need to be talking to the people who make the smartphones or sound smart. You need to be talking to the social media companies where a lot of this dangerous stuff is happening, where, for example, on Tik TOK or Snapchat or any of the other ones, it's not just designing to those, but Tik TOK and Snapchat are the two of the more popular apps for children. That if the algorithm there is essentially, if you're a, if you're an unknown, I just want to go back to an article there. Sorry. It's this one. Particularly teenage boys are being bombarded. So if they, if Tik TOK knows or YouTube knows that you are a teenage boy, You within minutes are getting misogynistic and violent. Content on your phone, you're getting as to which is just not okay. And that influences young males to believe those messages, these violent messages are from our messages, toxic sort of anti-feminist messages and real extreme messages, pornography, all this sorts of stuff. And that doesn't happen by accident. And there's a guy and I haven't got it here on my screen, but there's a guy who's involved and I don't know his organization. I actually used to play tennis with them as a kid. His name is Johnny Ryan. And he, I think he wrote a book years and years ago. And I was like, oh, I play tennis with that guy, but he's become very big in the idea of I think internet security and things like that. Well-respected personality in terms of technology. He believes, he says, I think there was a program and he said that these algorithms could be switched off tomorrow. Where you are fed. This information, depending on your age and your gender and all the rest of us girls I suppose it goes into the article. I don't know. Girls are being bombarded with self-harming videos and things like that. It's really gross when you think of it, like really. I'm really worrying. I suppose so, nobody knows that this, none of this is surprising and none of this. You know, his And it should be surprising to anybody yet. Parents are still buying their children's smartphones and children are allowing their kids to access. Content. Ah, that is amazing. There's, I think the, in India, UK, Something like 30% or 30 to 40% of children aged five to seven, have their own social media accounts on things like Snapchat, Tik, TOK. That's not it. It's absolutely not. And because there are, because they're under 13, they have to pretend they're 13. So they're getting this misogynistic, they're getting this. Aggressive. They're getting the sexualized content to their phones to five to seven year olds. So going back to Norma Foley. Going back to normal Foley, I suppose what I'm doing. I guess I'm saying I'm warming. To her crusade is because she is starting to move away from asking schools to deal with it. And she is putting it up to the companies. What I would suggest is the next step. For the minister on. And her entree government partners really is to start putting in laws and start paving the way. For laws that much a someone under 18 shouldn't be allowed to have alcohol on their person or shouldn't have a cigarette on their person. They shouldn't have. A smartphone on their person. And if they are. The responsibility lies with the person who sold at dot item two. The child or to the adult who has bought it for the child, that's where we need to move to it. I just can't. I. I did a lot of things. I don't understand. And in my day, the big thing was parents buying 18 videos for their young children to watch in their highs. This is worse. This is absolutely where it's. This is basically. Buying you're buying your child to go and activate, it's so dangerous and it's and it's not have the parental controls even. Oh, it is exacerbating. So I am warming to the idea, but y I'm warming to it. Isn't. I suppose there's an education on the way I'm warming to it, because I suppose the minister is moving away from getting schools to deal with the problem, to getting, to actually putting in the laws and to actually do something about this. So look, they are my three stories for today at the good grace report which I think has sent shock waves to genuine Catholics and rightly and hopefully this will spark some change. I've got loads of other stories relating to the role of religion in education. Our. On in the newsletter, which you can sign up to by going to onshore.net/subscribe. And I've also obviously a podcast there on homework which is a good number of years old at this stage. But it's still relevant, I think. And the smartphone bond really, I suppose we're going to have to think of a little I suppose I'm going to think more on that and maybe publish a few articles on why I'm warming to the idea of a band. Look, if you've enjoyed at this episode, please do subscribe on your favorite podcasting app or that Spotify or what is apple podcasts? I think it's called or any of the other podcasts and things. I use a snipped. Recently I've moved from Castbox to snipped, which I quite like. For listening to my own podcast to listen to podcasts around the country. All the show notes from this podcast will be available on shot dot Nash. Right now, if you're a, if you're there on, on shot dot Nash. Go ahead and get to it. And as a society, if you are listening or watching this on YouTube, please add, give a review because it helps other people to find it. And please recommend it to your friends and family. And that's it for me. Thanks so much for listening. All the very best take care. Bye-bye.