Atheist Ireland Forum

That is interesting Marks as I plan to allow my daughter opt out of religion classes at LC in order to spend more time studying something else instead. I do not think I will have any problems with this decision from the school however. tulip 1. don't be daft. people can know lots and understand little of what they know but its still good knowledge to have.
The problem in Irish Junior Cycle is that the emphasis is now moving to 'learning about learning' which deflects from learning anything. Would you like your child to know nothing of geography or history after 6th Class? because that will be a very likely situation after 2012.
sue

I am very interested in an example of such knowledge.

If you don't understand your knowledge, you just know.... like religious people just know or you are like those people who say "but i do it 30 years like that"

You have to understand in order to go forward and built on your knowledge.

no I didn't mean 'I just know so its true' like the religious do. I meant things that science and rationality show us to be fact or highly probable but that we might not understand because they are difficult concepts. Concepts which have been proven by more qualified people than I am - like the chemistry of the Ozone layer for instance. I don't need to 'understand' that but I do need to 'know' about it so my activities don't wreck it.
sue

Maybe the reason secondary level teachers teach their students to memorise is not because they were taught "how" and don't know how to use that information,but because they were originally taught to memorise knowledge rather than to understand it and, of course, have no math skills to rely on.

Teaching kids to memorise maths tables is as bad as teaching them that God created the world in seven days. The issue you will find with most people who reject the validity of evolution, choose homeopathy over "modern medicine", believe in psychic readings and continue to return to the Church despite all it's wrongdoing is that they were taught to accept information at face value and not question it or try to understand it. The number of people in this country who do not understand scientific thinking is outrageous.

When I say I don't believe in any given absurdity - the power of clairvoyance, homeopathy, prayer, etc - I'm challenged by some ignorant response such as "My psychic said I'd get a new job soon, and now I'm thinking of quitting", or "My friend Sue used homeopathy to get rid of a cold that wouldn't go away with antibiotics and it worked" (I won't bother to explain what's wrong with those statements, as the majority of you will spot the problems).

If children are taught to understand rather than to accept information at face value, it will strengthen their critical thinking abilities. (Aside from just making them more likely to actually remember information - I thought it was an obvious point that it is easier to remember something you understand than something you don't. Just as it's easier for me to memorise a sentence in English than it is in Irish - I don't understand Irish, so I have to memorise the sounds, syllable by syllable. Whereas with English, I understand the meaning of the sentence and the grammatical placement of the words so it's far easier.)

Some things you don't need to understand. I don't need to understand meteorology to know it's raining, or understand nanotechnology to appreciate rainproof jackets. These are complex sciences with simple results. But it doesn't apply to everything; there are lots of aspects of day to day living where understanding rather than knowledge is critical.

Most people do not understand nutrition. They regularly go out and buy "low-fat" foods without realising that the body needs a certain amount of fat daily, and low fat foods are often loaded with sugar, which equals carbohydrates. Or they buy a cereal that says "no artificial ingredients" without stopping to think that there are plenty of natural ingredients you probably don't want to be having for breakfast (such as five tablespoons of sugar), and if the only thing the cereal can boast is not having anything artificial in it, that's probably a bad sign. If people understood nutrition instead of being told by Cadbury's that a bar of chocolate is only 15% of their GDA for calories, they might pay more attention to the fact that it's 40% of their maximum allowance of saturates. (And with calories, it means you have about 85% to spare, but with saturates, you should really be avoiding ANY amount of saturated fat. A problem with putting all those guidelines together and not teaching people there's a difference between "required amount to be healthy" and "maximum allowance"). People are not being taught to understand nutrition, they're being taught to memorise how many calories they're allowed eat in a day and disregard where those calories come from.

They're also being taught to memorise the Bible stories instead of wanting to understand the universe. It's all linked - memorisation of knowledge instead of understanding and application of knowledge is part of the religious education system, and the change in that style of education is as important to improving literacy and maths as removing religious education is.

well I think you will find my original point was that memorising information still has a place in education but is obviously not the only way kids can learn. there are plenty of ways of showing kids how to understand that 2+2 is four say, but 'singing it out' can be part of the process too. I think you are going a bit too far by equating the learning of a math table with religious inculcation. the two are completely different. '2+2 =4' can be proven I would have thought whereas 'god exists' cannot.
Of course it is easier to remember things you understand but some kids need a little support and if rhyming off something can help in that what is so bad about it? I am not generally in favour of 'learning off' material but would see it as part of a range of tools to help kids get to where they need to be.
Totally agree with you on the nutrition front but what you are really getting at there is the issue of numeracy and the ability to see through the different ways of presenting numbers and information. Look at the make up ads... '75% of 98 women surveyed' in small print on the bottom left of the screen when they are plugging some lotion or potion. How is 98 women a valid sample? Or what about the images of glamorous eyelashes 'filmed with lash inserts and enhanced post production'... the visual makes the model look great but they are telling us its all fake, what a mixed message for people to take.
Critical thinking and crap detection are essential skills but are not negated by a little memorisation now and again.
Personally I would like to see the origin of the universe as part of the geography syllabus. I have had students who have not been able to accept the presence of fossils in sedimentary rock and evolution and the development of the solar system due to their 'beliefs'.
The biggest single issue I see with regard to literacy (apart from poverty, social deprivation, lack of parental support and so on) is large class sizes and the insistance on mixed ability classes without extra teacher support to help those who need it.

Unfortunately, my experience with the education system here as led me to believe that memorisation is the only tactic uses in maths and literacy. I have helped kids do homework in after-school care, and 100% of their assignments involved point-blank memorisation: times tables, reading excerpts, spellings, geography, and so on. Over the course of the year, with students from three different area schools in classes from first to sixth (the infants didn't have much homework), I did not see one homework assignment that involved any application of understanding or critical thinking. While I don't have any kids, the same applies to what I know of my various cousins' education as well as to my own (brief) experience in Irish schools, and to top it all off, is clearly reflected in JC and LC examination papers.

I'm not ragging on rhymes and songs to help kids remember things, but that's a far cry from the tactics I see being employed. And actual rhymes and songs stimulate the mind a lot more than "1+1 is 2. 1+2 is 3. 1+3 is 4."

I am afraid you are pretty correct there. I hated the memorising of EU capitals my kid had to do in 5th class. Stupid waste of her brain.
part of the problem with the Irish ed system is that is starts too soon. having children as young as 4 in a classroom is not the way to go.
This is a great book..Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences by
John Allen Paulos.
sue

Ah now I understand

I was more coming from the side that learning just to jump through hoops is pointless. Maybe I should have phrased it clearer the first time.

+1 highly educated countries like Finland start at the age of 7. In the netherlands at 6 (you have to go to playschool when your 5 though but no real classes)

Also I was shocked by the fact that my 5 year old son had homework while there has been a huge research which showed that the higher educated countries (they collected data out of 50+ countries) have the least homework. I only got homework for the first time when I was 12.

yes it is pretty bad to see babies as young as 5 get HW.
However, my main issue is the reform of the Junior Cert that is underway and the serious ommision of geography/history that will occur as a result.
So far we are told that they will be examined in 8 subjects. So it is possible that in 2012 when this new system starts your children will be offered:
irish english math cspe science (are most likely to be compulsory natioanl level core) then they can chose a language, religion (in schools that offer it as an exam subject and schools that make students take it as a local core) and one other subject. The upshot of this is that students will only pay attention to the subjects they are to be examined in (well who can blame them?) and the time offered to non exam subjects may be reduced. This means that it is entirely possible that your child will not be offered any meaningful course in geography or history if they instead take Home Ec, woodwork or other locally offered core subjects. It is a serious reduction of choice and also there will be great variation between schools as some will offer a different range of 8 subjects. I am also worried that in schools where religion is an exam subject children will have to take that at the expense of other subjects they may wish to do e.g. geography.
sue

Teaching of science must be far more sophisticated
DONAGH BUCKLEY
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 05728.html







I think the last quote is important, I learnt math from application as it's a language in it's own right, english discriptive words mean nothing. Like integration or differentiation, I could do the math and understand it, but to try to explain it, outside of equations impossible. Like learning equations for Area and volume by heart in primary/secondary, before learning that simple calculus shows where these equations come from and how to derive them, in 3rd level.

A student sitting a science paper in a school with a Catholic 'ethos', could answer a question by saying 'God did it' or 'it's a miracle', and then demand full marks.
I wish I was still at school.