Sir, – Those very same "fairy tales" that Jennifer O'Connell objects to might just be the rock her children will lean on in later life, even in their teenage years ("Fairy stories have no place in the classroom", Life & Style, March 9th). It won't be computer coding that will be their support. Everything has its place in education but teaching religion gently to young children might be more valuable to them in this fast-changing changing world than all the technologies that will be landed on them as they go through the education system. – Yours, etc,
ANNA LYONS,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Prof Anthony Staines (March 10th) comments that Ireland should not copy the US when it comes to teaching "fairy tales in the classroom".
At least in US public schools we ban the use of fairy tales, religion and witchcraft. Parents are free to impart these “values” in their own home, in Sunday school or in a private religious school which they entirely pay for. Americans understand the difference between church and state far better than the Irish. There is no public school in America where religious formation is accepted as a task for teachers. Even the most religious of groups accept that the indoctrination of their children is best done in their own schools and they do not ask for the state to subsidise their proselytising. In contrast, Ireland has never learned the difference between a state school and a religious school. The State handed the responsibility for education to the religious orders in 1922 and has proven unable to extricate itself from the inevitable conflicts as Ireland becomes less Catholic and more religiously diverse.
Ironically, America is a far more religious country today than Ireland, because the religious are committed to their cause and not supported by such diktats from the State. It should be in everyone’s interest in Ireland to get on with the project of diversifying the schools and leaving the fairy tales to the religious groups that accept them rather than requiring that every teacher perpetuate them. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’REILLY,
Northport, New York.