Atheist Ireland Forum

It's method number 551: appear to satisfy a demand for an alternative and then choke the possibility by starving the alternative of resources.

The sheep think the goverment gave it a chance and it failed because it's a bad choice. Simple stuff but it's worked for centuries.

http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/1205 ... 72441.html
Minister's Managerial incompetence can't tell how many schools with prefabs


reason upon reason upon reason.

What do you think of teachers' attitude to actual research?

Research suggests that class size does not have a great influence on learning but that the quality of teaching does. Yet the teachers constantly demand smaller class sizes and resist any attempt to measure the quality of teaching.

It's nice to know that these people are looking after my kids.

something that both parents, students and teachers want, how can you complain.

how many should be in a class then?


i reckon if the pupils can hardly fit in the room that's more important
so

systems to handle teachers in now coming...belatedly

So, lost, you're with the teachers on research. If the teachers and parents want it, that beats research. NEver mind that it may cost a lot of money and not have the intended effect.

Teachers are belatedly allowing exceptionally bad teachers to be removed - these are the absolute nutters that even us as kids in the 60's could not understand how they were allowed teach. As for the commoner garden bad teacher - they should not get worried - as long as they can act sane, they will be allowed carry on as before.

i think your issues is with slagging off teachers not with 'research'

lost, you might need to be more precise. What does "slagging off teachers" mean? If it means criticising teachers, you're correct. Why should teachers suggest improvements to education that do not necessarily work and avoid those that have been shown to work? Becuase it suits them. If a trade union says that it is speaking in the interests of a customer, you would be expected to raise an eyebrow. And I suppose, as a teacher, I have the right to slag off teachers.

more specifically your slagging off teachers unions, so you posted before the teachers unions occurred, ah sure they'll just look after themselves, nothing from you after. i think reduction in class sizes help both students and teachers, when the schools like irelands are under resourced more generally, i don't know what research your talking of i saw something on bbc news about secondary (tech) schools benefit from class's of 70 WITH multiple teaching assistants. otherwise i'll stick with the laws of physics over research saying again that bigger classes simple won't fit in the irish classrooms.

As I said, lost, you stick with your opinions 'cos it's, like, obvious, it's true - don't worry about referring to evidence or research or anything like that - you know better.

well your teacher im waiting for you report back from your annual conference
well you can link to research or you can keep confusing not being able to get rid of bad teachers with class sizes, two separate issues.

If you check back to my post - I did not confuse the two issues. I said that they were two separate issues, one with evidence that it is not strongly linked to good learning (class sizes) and the other which was strongly linked to good learning (quality of teaching). My point was to listen to the research.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I'm getting the impression that you think the research is of no relevance becuse you "think" that class size is like obviously connected to good learning.

Do you place any value on the research or not? If so, how does it inform your thinking?

GRANTED!

Bye bye Ms Hanifan!

ding dong the witch is dead

New Minister for Education and Science...

Batt O'Keeffe

http://www.battokeeffe.ie/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batt_O%27Keefe

All I know about Batt O'Keeffe is what was written in the two links I posted. But from that it looks like he has no background as a teacher which I think is a good sign. That means he hasn't been indoctrinated by the existing system. Another good sign is in the fact that Cowen removed Hanafin from this role. That in itself could be interpreted as a sign that he wants to see change in this area.

It will be very interesting to see what happens now.