‘ A soulless thing cannot teach ; but it can destroy. A machine cannot make men, but it can break them . . A machine, vast, complicated, with a multitude of far-reaching arms, with many ponderous presses, carrying out myster ious and long drawn processes of shaping and moulding, is the true image of the Irish education system. It grinds day and night, it obeys immutable and predetermined laws ; it is as devoid of understanding, of sympathy, of imagination, as is any other piece of machinery that per forms an appointed task’
In 2013, the Irish Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn made a bold statement. He stated that it was up to Historians to prove that their subject had any place in the nation’s secondary schools. The left wing politican was perhaps thinking of how often the names Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein appear in History books. Possibly he was thinking also of how little his own party featured in those textbooks. Or even of how they would be written about in future textbooks given their commitment to Europhilic austerity.
Most likely however, the Minister was concerned with trimming the fluff so that only skills based education could be pursued.
This is something which has marred education in Ireland and elsewhere for some time.
In 1912, Padraig Pearse delivered a speech which was later published as a pamphlet under the title ‘The Murder Machine’. In this, Pearse laid his reasons for regarding the Irish education system as a mill for reducing personality and emphasising a production line of ‘rapid and cheap manufacture of readymades’. For him, it was important to foster individuals rather than break them to fit a mould for a life of work and secular conformity.
Catholicism offered the best route to this. This might seem counter intuitive to many adults who went to Catholic schools in the later decades when corporal punishment was in vogue, but Pearse was of a stock that was forgotten about, one that was revolutionary and capable of thinking of a new Ireland that was attached to nothing of the past that was not of value. Pearse did not see potential employees in front of him when he taught as his famous school in St. Enda’s, he saw people. People with souls and eternal destinies that depended upon how they were nurtured in this life, Education is as much concerned with souls as religion is. Religion is a Way of Life, and education is a preparation of the soul to live its life here and hereafter; to live it nobly and fully.
Pearse’s revolutionary ideas on education never really took root. There was simply not enough money to be gained from them for any government or education board to want to be invested in such a thing. But with the outbreak of coronavirus, a strange thing is happening. Parents who would otherwise have their kids sitting exams are now having to figure out how to educate or at least occupy their children from home, for a period that could last up to six months. For the parents, there will undeniably be some stress involved. There are over 200,000 children in Ireland being raised in creches while their parents work. There are over 200,000 also raising children in single parent households. While various circumstances lead to both of those, they have become the norm since the legalisation of divorce in 1995. Along with the complete erosion of the personality of teenagers though excessive use of technology (many teenagers in rural Ireland now speak with American accents), there is no doubt that society has devolved to a state where these kids are in an undesirable environment before they even set foot in the school.
Parents have an opportunity now to spend quality time with their children and to teach them in the best way possible, by conversing with them, by passing on their own skills, by listening to them and encouraging them. There is a small but not insignificant group of Catholics in Ireland who homeschool. So far it has been the exception here, but Ireland is not far behind the United States in its social problems. Around 2 million students in the States are homeschooled. And why wouldn’t they be? School shootings, drugs and social pressures all acting as reasons to be sceptical of the value of their version of the Murder Machine, where some schools have up to 8,000 students.
In these past few weeks, the veneer of the modern world’s invincibility has been wiped away by the fragility of the human body. Whereas homeschooling was once unthinkable, perhaps our students and parents are waking up to a new world where they realise that the state is not the only authority in this world. The Church are one and the family are certainly another. In these uncertain times, and in spite of attacks on them from within and without in recent decades, they are the two units that remain the best refuges for our children.
Pearse’s words about education in 1912 are as true about education in 2020. Perhaps teachers, students and families can ponder on them over these next six months.
Education should foster; this education is meant to repress. Education should inspire; this education is meant to tame. Education should harden; this education is meant to enervate.