COUNTDOWN TO TEACHERS' CONFERENCES: Despite the strength of the economy, children are still coming to school hungry, INTO general secretary John Carr tells Kathryn Holmquist Education Correspondent
Mr John Carr has stepped into the limelight after years of providing support for the former Irish National Teachers' Organisation general secretary, Senator Joe O'Toole.
The son of a fisherman from Donegal, Mr Carr still sees his home county as his "refuge" and his "strength". A father of four, including two teachers, he is an idealist who sees himself as "vision-led, rather than problem-driven". This week he will address 800 members of his union at the INTO conference in Bundoran, Co Donegal.
The lack of resources for children with special needs will be at the top of their agenda. Children with special needs are being neglected by the Government, he says. We should be embarrassed that in the year of the Special Olympics, the Government will not meet the special needs of many pupils.
Since January, 2,500 children have been diagnosed with special needs around the State. Putting in resource teachers is not the answer, he believes. A resource teacher may spend three hours a week with a child, while the classroom teachers spends 22 hours.
Psychologists, resource teachers and classroom assistants all have a role to play. But at the end of the day, teachers should be respected and resourced as professionals, who know more about enabling children to learn than anyone else.
"We need to encourage children to be enthusiastic, flexible, problem-solving, inquisitive and innovative. To do this teachers need the resources," he says.
Instead of sending "special" children out of the classroom to resource teachers for a few hours a week, the Government should provide funding for smaller class sizes. The more "special-needs" children in a class, the smaller it should be, Mr Carr believes. Parents who don't have "special-needs" children would do well to consider that every child, no matter how "gifted" or "disadvantaged", deserves individual attention.
"The fact that there are more than 20 children in an infants' class is scandalous." The average class size is 29 to one, which is way off the mark. "Every class must be smaller, with the priority given to infant classes."
He continues: "Behavioural problems in particular are not solved by chastisement or neglect. Each individual teacher needs to address each individual issue for each child."
He does not want to see a UK-style assessment and testing system introduced in the Republic. Each child has a learning "zone" where the child is motivated. This cannot be taught by books or proscribed in Government policy, he says.
Teachers from Northern Ireland are flocking to the Republic, because they are frustrated with the constant measurement and analysis that they are subject to under UK policy, he asserts.
Educational disadvantage is structured and not inevitable, he believes. "It is wrong in time of economic prosperity that children should come to school hungry, poorly clothed and using second-hand books in run-down buildings. It is wrong that every school class does not have the facilities needed to implement the revised curriculum."
He is opposed to the reintroduction of third-level fees on the grounds that fees would ban large numbers of young people from disadvantaged areas from going to university. He prefers that "the super-rich should be taxed".
He also believes the problem of rat-infested and rotting school buildings could be solved in five years, if the Government pledged €300 million a year between now and 2008.
On the question of teaching numbers, he argues CAO requirements should be adjusted so that more men would be encouraged to become primary school teachers. Bringing teachers in from the North and teaching them Irish could also help ease the shortage, he argues.
"Try to make teaching attractive, and try to bring in as many young men as you can in the process," he says. Some 80 per cent of his constituency are women, although he doesn't see it that way. "I see good teaching; I don't see gender," he says.
Mr Carr is particularly passionate about how young children are taught. He describes the process of learning in infant classes as "magical".
"Infant teachers are vital because they kindle the joy of learning. I want to see a restoration of the awe and wondering in teaching."
Good teachers stop formal teaching to watch snowflakes fall, to let pupils watch the World Cup and to spend hours talking about dinosaurs. The natural world provides the "awe and wonder" that every child needs to be "lured into the magic of learning ", he says.
"Teaching is an art. The teacher is the interpreter between the child and the community, and between the child and the greater world."
Leadership at principal level makes all the difference between schools where pupils' potential fade away, and schools where pupils grow through innovative programmes, he says. "I want to see teachers acknowledged as the professionals and experts."