Monday, July 6, 2015

The Start of a Routine

Not a very exciting photo day but lots of happenings. Above is the location of Cristopher's camp for week 1 and 3. He reported that they had 2 lunches, he made a friend but can't remember his name and that he went swimming. Highlights of the day included a game of banana tag which is really just another name for freeze tag and  a boy who showed his privates in the shower area but the teacher didn't see (I guess this phenomenon is the same in all countries).

I visited a primary school and heard about class sizes of 28 students (this is high for elementary) and the fact that the main teacher teaches all subjects including PE, health and drama. They are allowed 1 hour of preparation a week and often volunteer their time after school to coach sports or lead clubs. This is way different in the U.S where there is a specialist for everything. The school day is 5 hours and 40 minutes long in all Irish schools.

In the afternoon an interesting professor gave a talk on the history of Irish language, culture and literature. The roots of Irish Education are very different than the U.S. The British used the education system to create little British subjects in their colonies.

Dave worked at home with two trips out (one to camp at 9:00 and back again to pick up Cristopher at 3:00)

3 comments:

sgmitch5 said...

Louise, glad you could access this. I was having novice trouble getting it all up and running at first. Now that I know you are reading I will bore others with Irish Education observation notes. It is very interesting you would love it!

Rachel Mitchell said...

Sounds very familiar! ( the Irish education system, one teacher for all, not the shower story ..... Ha! on that story). Glad he liked camp, a good start.

Didn't see a video?.

Rachel Mitchell said...

Oh, found the video of the bike ride.