Sir, – Educate Together takes issue with statements attributed to Fr Paul Connell, president of the Joint Managerial Body and the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools, as reported in The Irish Times on April 29th.
Fr Connell states that the alternative to “growing in faith” as facilitated in Catholic schools is “a vacuum that can express itself in nihilism and the growing phenomenon … of self-harm”. This assertion is deeply offensive to organisations like Educate Together that provide a values rich ethical education curriculum. It is also offensive to parents and students of non-majority belief backgrounds. Such statements cannot be proven by any credible research.
Furthermore, Fr Connell asserts that the “presence of children from other traditions enriched the educational experience offered in [Catholic] schools”. We would like to point out to Fr Connell that children “from other traditions” are not in the classroom to enrich the experience of those of the majority tradition — they are there to learn and to be treated with exactly the same respect and to be enabled to grasp the same opportunities as any other child.
If “the Catholic school cannot relinquish its own freedom to offer a formation based on the values to be found in a Christian education,” as Fr Connell states, then the State must act to provide parents, pupils and teachers the opportunity to attend equality-based schools: schools that don’t demand proof of religion at the school gate; schools that don’t segregate children along religious lines during the school day; schools that cherish all children equally.
An Ethical Education curriculum is utilised to great effect in Educate Together schools. This curriculum has been internationally acknowledged and is now taught in all state-funded colleges of teacher education in Ireland. Students are challenged to ask themselves difficult questions such as: what do they value? Who do they respect? How do they cope in hard times? Their eyes are opened to the diversity in our society and the opportunities that exist in embracing and celebrating that diversity. Students are helped to grow as respectful global citizens — to see commonalities shared rather than differences that separate.
To suggest that students attending an equality based secondary school would be more prone to such negativity is totally unfounded and unacceptable.
Yours, etc,
– DIARMAID MAC AONGHUSA
Chairperson,
Educate Together
Hogan Place,
Dublin 2.