AS A teacher, I would be poor. Authority does not come easily to me. If I were put in a position of power over a class of thoroughly good eggs from Holy Child Killiney, they would before the end of the first period have taken to chewing tobacco and uttering wisecracks. By lunch they would be snorting coke, and by evening they would certainly have taken over central Dalkey, establishing a provisional government and executed all nuns and ministers of religion they could get their hands on. And if I had a class of some of the tougher schools in Dublin the first period would probably end with Dail Eireann on fire and the pupils ethnically cleansing Meath.
No, I do not envy teachers ever; but least of all do I envy them at this time, when we are with exemplary fidelity about to emulate the example of the Americans and the British. Semper fidelis.
Understating The Truth
The Teachers Union of Ireland president, Alice Prendergast, was probably understating the truth about life in the classroom when she described the regime of bullying, threats, verbal aggression, false allegations and physical aggression by parents which her members had to endure. Nothing about what she says surprises me; at least the enchanting youngsters of whom she speaks do not as yet appear to have made it their habit to introduce sawn off shotguns or cat o' nine tails into the classroom.
Because you don't need to go into any of the classrooms of the land to know that something catastrophic is happening in so many of our classrooms; just walk past any group of young working class males anywhere in the city centre and listen to the threats and abuse they are offering, free, gratis and for nothing, to whomsoever they feel inclined.
Now, I know I had made an error here in referring to working class. It is politically correct to talk as if this problem were universal across society. But it is not. It is not Donnybrook or Stillorgan or Foxrock which riots and which causes gardai nightly to dress up as they were storming a hijacked airliner. The issue is a class issue, and is no doubt related to the circumstances Alice described in her address to her union in Ennis:
"The traditional practice of working hard to achieve good results at school, hence a good job, has little relevance for students who see rising levels of unemployment in their community, and who may not personally know any adults in regular paid employment."
Culture Of Gangs
We know we are not talking about Sandycove here, though we could well be talking about the economically deprived areas near there; for there is nowhere in the capital which is too far from the lumpen proletariat male youth culture of gangs, aggression, fecklessness and fear. I would not for the world embark upon a career holding discipline over such people; nor over their sisters; nor over their children either, who will be reaching into their teens in barely more then 12 years time.
All this has happened before, in the US and Britain, and all who warned about the declining standards in schools and about the growth of a subversive and violent youth culture - exacerbated by race in both places - were denounced as reactionaries and bigots. Their fears have come to be realised. A 1960s wishy washy piety and a right on desire to let children express themselves throughout their schooling, rather than do the hard work which lies at the heart of education, yielded a vast harvest of lawlessness.
Dublin is now full of these gangs of youths who are embarking upon lives of utter futility, violence, alcohol and drugs. I'm not at all sure what we should or can do about these people. But what we can do is observe the lessons of the cultures who have preceded us down this path.
The most single and salient lesson is this. In all areas, in all classes, in all circumstances, schools - especially Catholic schools - which retain the religious ethic stand the best chance of retaining decent educational standards. In black ghettoes in America, Catholic schools achieve educational standards at the very least the equal of schools in far more privileged areas. Conversely, the schools which have seen standards slip furthest are the state run schools, often with a hefty and intrusive element off parent teacher committees.
The British, for example, destroyed their grammar school system and replaced it with the comprehensive system in a move which was legally pioneered by one woman minister, for education, Shirley Williams, and generally implemented by another, Margaret Thatcher. Throughout Britain now, the one form of generally respected state funded education is provided by the Catholic Church. Sixties Marxists and Seventies anarchists with young children begin to discover their Catholic origins when they see the waiting lists for local Catholic schools.
Rule Of Law
What are we doing now as the rule or law slips from so many of our schools? The same thing as the British did. In essence, the educational reforms proposed by Niamh Bhreathnach will move the comprehensivisation and secularisation of Irish schools closer to the British model - the very model which now regards the Irish schooling system as so superior. And in that regard, in both the success of Irish students in British universities and in the spectacular growth of the Irish economy, they are right.
Of course there are many problems with the Irish Catholic school system, not least declining vocations; but even in an era of no vocations at all, the ethos of the founding order can live on like the flavour of garlic in a salad bowl. Wrecking the salad bowl will not spread the garlic.
Messing around with the educational system might make great ideological sense, but it makes no educational sense; and will do nothing for the youthfully violent, of whom we live in growing terror. How we get that genie back in the bottle, I do not know. Not even Alice seems to know the answer to that one.