For centuries, cursive handwriting has been an art. To a growing number of young people, it is a mystery. The sinuous letters of the cursive alphabet, swirled on countless love letters, credit card slips and banners above elementary school chalk boards are going the way of the quill and inkwell. With computer keyboards and smartphones increasingly occupying young fingers, the gradual death of the fancier ABC’s is revealing some unforeseen challenges.
No 'fat to cut' from education budget [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 April 2011
THERE is no scope for further education cutbacks, the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) warned yesterday.
ASTI general secretary Pat King insisted schools are already run "on a shoestring" and "there is no fat to cut".
Irish education was already chronically underfunded compared with other countries.
Mr King also promised that the trade union movement would start a determined fightback against powerful interests hostile to trade unions.
"There is a concerted push by powerful interests to target the trade union movement," he said.
"These include certain political interests, most multinational corporations, big business interests, at least one airline, and small business interests, celebrity economists and sections of the news media.
"There is a very consistent line put forward by these groups and their representatives that trade unions are nothing more than a 'vested' interest, that trade unions' day is done, that they are from another age," he said.
Mr King said it was ridiculous that anyone could blame trade unions for Ireland's economic woes.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
The Case for Cursive [NYTimes.com]
- Published: 27 April 2011
Might people who write only by printing — in block letters, or perhaps with a sloppy, squiggly signature — be more at risk for forgery? Is the development of a fine motor skill thwarted by an aversion to cursive handwriting? And what happens when young people who are not familiar with cursive have to read historical documents like the Constitution?
Jimmy Bryant, director of Archives and Special Collections at Central Arkansas University, says that a connection to archival material is lost when students turn away from cursive. While teaching last year, Mr. Bryant, on a whim, asked students to raise their hands if they wrote in cursive as a way to communicate. None did.
Full Story: www.nytimes.com
Supreme Court challenge seen as test case [educationmatters.ie]
- Published: 27 April 2011
The challenge is being regarded as a test case by other victims of abuse in similar circumstances.
Cork mother-of-two, Ms O’Keeffe, has lodged papers with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the ruling that the state was not legally liable for the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a primary school teacher at Dunderrow National School, near Kinsale, in 1973.
Her challenge is on the basis that the state is vicariously liable for the abuse at the hands of school principal, Leo Hickey, whom she argues was an employee of the Department of Education.
Ms O’Keeffe contends that the state has breached a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights through its failure to have a structure to protect children in national schools from abuse and to protect her from being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment.
Full Story: www.educationmatters.ie
Address by Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn TD, at the TUI Congress [DES - Press Release]
- Published: 27 April 2011
I want to start by thanking you for your invitation to join you in Tralee at your annual congress and for your warm welcome.
I consider myself privileged to have been given the job I wanted in what is, in effect, a National Government.
This week in speaking to your colleagues in the INTO and ASTI I have been setting out the challenges we face as a country and what that means for the education sector.
I am anxious to ensure that all of the education partners are in no doubt of the very difficult road that lies ahead and I equally want to share my perspective with you.
My party respects the role of the trade union movement in this country.
We place a strong value on all that is good in public service.
I understand how at your annual congress you must discuss and debate the issues that matter to you.
There are issues that concern you as individuals but also issues that come from your concern about education provision and particularly how schools and colleges are resourced and it is appropriate that they are aired and debated.
Full Story: www.education.ie
Unemployment concern for teachers [dundalkdemocrat.ie]
- Published: 27 April 2011
Unemployment is the single biggest challenge facing primary school teachers, union leaders have claimed.
The president of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation called on the Government not to consign a generation of young, talented and highly skilled teachers to the dole queues in Ireland or classrooms in other countries.
Jim Higgins said unemployment was an inevitable result of the cuts in school staffing implemented after last year's austerity programme.
Some 700 posts were cut from primary education after the Budget, it maintained.
Mr Higgins told the INTO annual conference that while there might not be compulsory redundancies from the Croke Park Agreement, there are collateral redundancies.
Full Story: www.dundalkdemocrat.ie
