Yes, we teachers just don't know how privileged we really are [Independent.ie]
- Published: 04 May 2011
The other day a well respected journalist informed us that the annual Easter-time teachers' union conferences were a pathetic farce with shouting for this and demands for that coming from teachers who are amongst the most 'privileged employees in the State'.
Well, I've never met a professional teachers' union official, and it's purely Kafkaesque getting them to return a phone call or answer an email if I have a query or an issue (they are so busy).
The reason they get so worked up is that their job is to look after those small and often vulnerable people called 'children' and they know that making them scapegoats for smarmy bankers is a very bad thing.
But 'privileged'? Yeah, sure -- wasn't there a long list of teachers at the Royal Wedding the other day, and there's no end of glamorous Irish models getting divorced from their teacher husbands now that they earn 15% less than two years ago.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Summer Camps [schooldays.ie]
- Published: 04 May 2011
With the long Easter break now over and the final term underway, many parent’s thoughts will be turning to Summer Camps. The local papers have been promoting local camps for weeks and it’s hard to ignore the posters going up in the post office and local shops.
With activities ranging from theatre and singing, art classes, pony riding, football and GAA there is a seemingly endless amount of ways to keep the kids amused, entertained, active and (most importantly) away from under your feet over the summer holidays!
Summer camps were certainly not part of my own childhood – we simply amused ourselves in the back garden making perfume from rose petals, or spent endless days on our bikes and catching sticklebacks in jam jars in the local stream. But this is a different world we live in now and for many parents, the option of letting our children roam freely around the local lanes and rivers is not really an option. Which is a terrible shame, but a fact of modern life.
Full Story: www.schooldays.ie
TUI attack on State support for fee-paying schools is rabble-rousing nonsense [IrishTimes]
- Published: 03 May 2011
TALKBACK: One expects more serious analysis and leadership at a time of national crisis
WHAT IS it about the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI)) that drives it to engage in futile bouts of self destruction? Unlike their more astute colleagues in other unions, the TUI has failed dismally to communicate to their members how successful their own officers have been in protecting their current teachers salary scales against further attacks until after 2014, in the negotiations which led to the Croke Park agreement. The TUI was all over the place on the deal; criticising it only hours after helping to negotiate it. It then advised members to reject it which they duly did.
In another U-turn the union had a re-ballot earlier this year after threats from the Department of Education that surplus staff could be sacked. The result? The deal was endorsed with a healthy majority.
Why did the TUI make such a mess of the whole thing when it was evident from day one, that Croke Park was the only game in town? One might have thought that they would have learnt from that debacle, and used their conference last week to engage in serious debate about the key educational issues facing us in our present crisis.
Instead, the TUI had a cut at the €100 State support for private fee-paying schools.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Disability is not a bar to learning [IrishTimes]
- Published: 03 May 2011
THE EDUCATION PROFILE: ANN HEELAN, DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION ACCESS AND DISABILITY: Colleges and employers can find it difficult to see how to include people with disabilities or how to help students and graduates reach their potential. Ann Heelan is working to change that
TWENTY YEARS ago, children with physical, learning, or intellectual disabilities were segregated into “special” schools. Progression to university was low, or unheard of.
Society was missing out, says Ann Heelan, director of Ahead (Association for Higher Education Access and Disability), an independent, non-profit organisation that promotes participation in further and higher education for those with disabilities, as well as helping them to secure employment.
There’s more than inclusion involved – Heelan says that people with disabilities have specific, necessary skills, which often get overlooked.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Teachers avoid strikes on cutting special needs support in school [schooldays.ie]
- Published: 03 May 2011
Teachers in Ireland have voted to avoid industrial action regarding spending cuts on special needs support in primary schools.
Members of staff decided not to pursue strikes against the government's plans to reduce expenditure on assistants to help children with learning disabilities after general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation reminded them the Croke Park agreement does not allow for industrial action.
The Irish Times reported her as saying there is not "available means" for striking under the deal, adding: "We have to be truthful and honest - industrial action puts us in direct conflict with the agreement to protect pay of teachers."
Full Story: www.schooldays.ie
