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If I were the Minister for Education...
How many times have you said to yourself, “If I were the Minister for Education…?” Well I do! Rather than grumble to myself, I decided to podcast my thoughts on ways I’d change the primary education system in Ireland.
Featured Episode: Thank you, Racists
The best talks I ever saw live happened in the same conference. It was the IPPN conference in 2012. Imagine this as a lineup – Mary Robinson, who needs no introduction; Michael Fullan, one of the world’s greatest thinkers in education; Ben Waldon, a Shakespearean actor who tours the world giving talks on leadership; and...
When I think of podcasting, I think of two Joes: Joe Molloy, the retired Irish primary teacher who started podcasting before the word was invented in the late 1990’s/early noughties; and also Joe Dale, one of the biggest names in education and podcasting in the world. I had the pleasure of having Joe on the...
It’s probably quite fitting that the 10-year anniversary of the Patronage and Pluralism Forum Report ended in the same way it started – with a huge amount of apathy. When the Forum was set up to gather its data, the authors must have been seriously disappointed that despite having a multicultural 21st century Ireland, the...
The voice of SNAs is often missing from primary education. For example, SNAs are not allowed to be on boards of management of primary schools as staff representatives. In this episode, I interview Magdalena Landziak who decided to create the first magazine for SNAs by SNAs. It’s called Amygdala and it’s great! I spent an...
According to reports in the media, in January 2023, the CPSMA wrote to the Minister for Children, Roderick O’Gorman to say they were against the teaching of gender issues because what it means to be transgender would require to teach something about which “there is neither a scientific nor social consensus to highly impressionable young...
In part 2 of the interview, we start to tackle some difficult questions about the Irish language and why we aren’t close to being a bilingual nation. We end up with a couple of interesting ideas, including one that we might try out some time!
For our Seachtain na Gaeilge special, I brought in some passionate Gaelgóirí to speak to me about the Irish language and the education system. I really wanted to delve in deeply to a number of areas and I hope you enjoy the outcome. In fact, we talked so much, we’ve had to divide the interview...
According to ChatGPT, the key differences between ET schools and Catholic schools are related to their religious ethos, curriculum, inclusivity, and management structures. ET schools prioritize equality, inclusivity, and child-centered learning, while Catholic schools may have a different focus on religious doctrine and values. According to many Catholic schools and parents that their kids there,...
Schools are complex places and teaching and learning can only take place when the classroom is in a place where this is able to happen. In the bad old days, a teacher’s job was to dole out discipline and this generally took the form of physical violence which then evolved to dark sarcasm in the...
There are so many rumours and myths about multidenominational schools, Educate Together ones in particular, it really was no surprise, to me, why many parents, even if they reject the tenets of the Catholic faith, will prefer a Catholic school to a non-Catholic one. I thought it would be interesting to list the myths I...