Gaelscoils - the unspoken reason for their growth

by Daffy Duck - none Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:03

I live in the Donegal Gaeltacht and nearly everyone here is bilingual from a very early age. I haven't noticed a higher incidence of stuttering among the population in the part of the country or, indeed, in any other Gaeltacht area I have visited. How is this reflected in research? The whole direction of this thread is very simplistic. A cousin of mine teaches in a Gaelscoil in Dublin and she reckons there is a higher percentage of immigrant children in her school than in the local population and that the kids love speaking Irish.
I think there is an anti-Irish language agenda going on here, not for the first time. When are people going to realise that it is a living language and will therefore represent the community that speaks it? That means that all the political views of that community will make themselves heard in Irish, just as happens in English.
I can't imagine anyone saying that the English language represents a political viewpoint, so why can people say that about Irish?

by Smaointeoir Wed Sep 10, 2008 00:13

If early bilingualism causes stuttering to persist among children, how come people throughout India aren't continuously stuttering into their old age? In that country, because there are 15 major languages including English as well as umpteen dialects, children naturally pick up more than one language as they come into contact with people of other religions, ethnic groups, and provinces. Are the children of bilingual Belgium chronic stutterers? The children of Switzerland, where there are three major and one minor official languages?

College professors in the USA are writing numerous articles about the dumbed-down educational attainments of high school graduates who appear on university campuses with poor literacy skills. (cf. The Chronicle of Higher Education, available on the Arts & Letters Daily website.) I suggest that some of this results from the lack of exposure of American students to foreign language learning. The more languages children, the more conscious they become of the importance of good punctuation and grammar. Those kids in the gaelscoileanna are trebly lucky if they eventually begin to learn French or German as well.

by An Bodach Tue Sep 09, 2008 18:55

Children who are bilingual before the age of 5 are significantly more likely to stutter and to find it harder to lose their impediment, than children who speak only one language before this age, suggests research published ahead of print in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
http://www.physorg.com/news140152815.html

Worrying news indeed and a good reason to avoid these modern day hedge schools. Don't put your children at risk.

by Sean Tue Sep 02, 2008 02:10

Gabh mo leisceal ach nil aon fadas agam faoi lathair.

Freastal me ar Gaelscoil agus ar Gaelcholaiste cupla mbliain on am ata againn agus cathfaidh me a ra is naireach e an alt seo thuas. Nil aon phioc ciniochas sna scoileanna a freastal me ar; sa rang, sa chlos agus i tuairimi chomarsann mo chairde.

I went go a Gaelscoil and a Gaelcholaise a few years ago and I must say this above paragraph is a disgrace. There isnt a trace of racism in the schools I attended; in the classrooms, the yard or in the opinions of my friends families.

by Spinning Quickly Mon Aug 25, 2008 20:09

Firstly, the criticism of the Gaelscoileanna is based on anecdotal evidence - I don't see any attempt to see how common the racist comments made by one parent are among parents who send their children to Gaelscoileanna in general.

Secondly, the comments about Educate Together schools remind me that twenty years ago people who supported such schools were derided as "Dublin 4 types" and "a la carte Catholics". A classic case of playing the player, not the ball.

by bolivar rossa Sun Aug 24, 2008 20:24

who allowed this rubbish to be posted. Cant believe im even replyin to this. immersion in a second language from an early age is hugely beneficial to the learning and development of a child, the results are there to be seen. Parents make an informed decision to send their kids there for this reason. it is my experience that people who form gaelscoils in their area are those who want to promote culture and community , to enrich it. A lot of Gaelscoils now are interdenomenational and even a few multidenomenational. And a lot are in good working class areas and not in this fantasy land of gael snobs that yer man is tryin to conjure up. p.s In this post colonial country and globalized world what is wrong with acertaing your background proudly. if you are of the left or progressive, we have to know and love ourselves before we can change society. Just as certain elements in the civil rights movement in the US used black power to arouse the consciousness of the people there, we in this country who were told that everything Irish is to be ashamed of, that its back ward etc. must bin this slavish yoke.

by Darren J. Prior Sat Aug 23, 2008 15:17

Of course racism is an issue in Ireland. As Leo Varadkar TD said immigration was the elephant in the room in the recent Lisbon Treaty referendum that nobody in the political parties- and perhaps generally- talked about.

Maybe there is an element of parents who want to send their kids to schools that are mostly full with white Irish students. So what? It is only an element. All different kinds of parents send their kids to gaelscoileanna including of course immigrants.

As the demand for gaelscoileanna is so high parents have to be literally interviewed (at least in Dublin 15) about sending there kids to the schools except if the parents already have kids in the schools whereby they will automatically get a place. Also parents that speak Irish- or some Irish- to their kids will get a place over parents that don't. Hence 99.99% of the parents from other countries are at a disadvantage.

Attempts by online trolls to blacken the name of gaelscoileanna and the gaelscoil movement by suggesting that a large or even significant number of parents have no interest in the Irish language and Irish culture and merely do not want their children to mix with immigrant children are childish in the extreme.

by sportsman Wed Aug 13, 2008 17:59

Educate Together and Gaelscoileanna have one thing in common. Parents CHOOSE to send their kids there. Therefore the kids who attend both are preselected to come from a background where parents care enough to bother making a decision about where there kids will go to school. This means that these kids are also going to come from backgrounds where education is valued and supported and therefore they will do better academically. This leads to self reinforcing cycle of strong academic performance, parental support and encouragement for students, parental involvement in school management, fundraising and extra curricular activities and less "problems" with discipline and resources in the classroom. Thus these schools become yet more attractive to academically minded parents and students.

The way out is of course not to drag every school down to the same level of mediocrity but to target resources at early intervention stage where parents do not or can not provide the support that children need.

by Torlach Wed Aug 13, 2008 17:42

Saidhbhin makes a good point that many parents want their kids to learn Gaelic better and in a non-tearful environment different from the fearful days of the old schoolroom. Maybe there is a guilt feeling about Irish society letting go of the language too easily, and that the consumer anglo-american society is insipid. BTW lower income areas have joyfully welcomed gaelscoileanna and I would deny that the movement is an attempt by the middle classes to keep out nonwhites and other perceived undesirables.

Irish society has experienced relative affluence and rapid suburbanisation in the last few decades. I'd see gaelscoileanna as one way in which some communities have tried to cope with cultural disorientation. We need to think deeply about this thing called culture, and about social anomie and identity questions. We need to think also about how to help immigrant workers and refugees to settle in harmoniously into what they often feel is a strange society. How dd Irish emigrants historically settle into Australia, North America and Great Britain? Can we tell immigrants in today's Ireland some of the lessons from the Irish diaspora experience?

by Saidhbhin Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:14

It may be there is some truth in this opinion but I think in the end the majority of people who send their kids to Irish language schools do so because they want to give their children the opportunity to learn Irish properly, as well as English. Why do we always have to latch onto the negative? Yes, there is snobbery out there, yes many attitudes can be unhelpful, but rather than consistantly focusing on these negative habits why can't we just say it is a wonderful thing that children can be raised with two languages, with their own languages, and support all the efforts of anyone who works towards providing these kind of schools for our kids. I don't really care if it is snobbery or love of the language that gets things going again, I think it's great that more people are learning Irish. And for the record, I went to a Gael Scoil where the majority of the kids had unemployed parents and it was very working-class. I don't think it could be called snobby. We were encouraged to respect each other and to enjoy learning. What is wrong with that?

by lulu Tue Aug 12, 2008 15:25

The middle classes are gits, and so are the working classes, but the former tend to predominate in schools with better academic records. How would you choose for your children? People who are aware of educational differences will often choose a school with a better ethos, regardless of class. My dark-skinned sprogs were in a village school, but it was riddled with racism (is that skin-snobbery?) and a touch of sectarianism too. We moved them to a Catholic school (with Protestants and Muslims among its pupils) with working class pupils,better academic standards, and no perceptible racism, where they were much happier.

by Leon Tue Aug 12, 2008 14:35

Educate Together is driven by gentrification. Essentially when the bourgeois move into an area they demand that it be changed to suit them. Local pubs are remade, local shops close and the bonds of community are destroyed.

The bourgeoisie would NEVER permit little Sorcha and Oscar to mix with normal kids and these subaltern members who live in places like Stoneybatter and Drumcondra demand the same privilege.

Make no mistake the ruling class will support Educate Together as it is a means by which the comprador class that administers Ireland on behalf of our rulers can be given a sense of identification with the bosses. You might not be able to get the Fionn and Oscar into Gonzaga or Blackrock but if you can get them into an Educate Together school and keep them away from Chloe and Aidan that's half the battle.

by wondering Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:33

Is there an unspoken reason for the growth of Educate Together schools? I think we should be told.

by BadSnake Tue Aug 12, 2008 03:54

While I do see the point you are making, it is nothing more than impossible to prove speculation. It is true that many people have a new found enthusiasm for An Gaeilge to preserve an Irish identity but to suggest the majority of these people are opposed to integration and diversity is plain stupid.

I would think it would be at the heart of the left to revive the Irish language and culture, as Sinn Fein have constantly tried to do, through supporting Gaelscoils even before diversity and racism became issues in Ireland. As the poster above said, Gaelscoils have smaller class sizes and therefore are often better educational facilities. Ireland has always been envisaged as a "free and Gaelic Ireland", in the words of the Democratic Programme of the First Dail in 1919.

In my time on the left of Irish politics, I believe the biggest motivation for certain elements to criticise the development of the Irish language is simply because they are too ignorant or lazy to learn it. I do hope that this article is not an attempt to hide ignorance of one's own culture with the cry of "racism".

by Anthurium Mon Aug 11, 2008 17:57

Its because the schools are of a better quality, and people want to celebrate and participate in Irish culture. My partners nephew goes to one, and his best friend is Iranian, there are three English kids in his class. This argument is used by people who are anti-Irish culture, for their own racist reasons. The world should not be like California, just because you dislike a Nations culture, or want to condemn working class parents for wanting to send their kids to proven schools. Snob