Learning, Society and Religious Education (Conference proceedings)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/2658

Browse

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Being, becoming and beyond SPHE in children and young people's lives
(The SPHE Network, 2023-11-11) Morrissey, Barry (ed); Collins, Bernie (ed); Nohilly, Margaret (ed); Knox, Paul (ed); O'Sullivan, Carol (ed)
This publication captures the breadth and depth of ideas shared during the conference, with a select number of chapters published to enlighten SPHE discourses. Dr Brighid Golden explores how we engage students as active citizens and conceptualises a ‘framework for action’ that schools and teachers can utilise. Dr Gerard Farrelly examines Restorative Practice (RP) as a way of being and argues that SPHE is the vehicle through which RP skills can be fostered. Dr Mia Treacy and Dr Margaret Nohilly provide us with empirical data from the mandated reporting experiences of Designated Liaison Persons in the Irish context, and highlight concerns around a reported lack of confidence. Ellen Corby and Oonagh O’Brien present a study exploring the use of participatory exercises in aiding young people’s understanding of the complexities of sexual wellbeing and relationships. Finally, Rebecca Conlon and Hannah Dolan explore the sensitive issue of bereavement in the primary school classroom, and offer some valuable advice on how to approach it. This broad cross-section of topics illustrates clearly the range of areas covered by SPHE.
Limerick City's coat of arms: a visual review
(Mary Immaculate College, 2024-09-20) Stevenson, Kevin
The presentation hopes to provide an approach to understanding the Limerick City Coat of Arms and its evolution. It does not provide an exhaustive list of the Coat of Arms, hoping that the presentation will provoke interest in the history of Limerick, its symbols and its beauty.
The benefits of mindfulness as a weekly activity: experiences from a male homeless service
(St. Kliment Ohridski Press, 2022-06) Stevenson, Kevin
The social services in Ireland are organized by different organizations which have different views on social activities within residential and homeless services for ser-vice-users. Mindfulness has become a ‘buzzword’ when it comes to mental health treatment and for daily practice in the contemporary world. Despite the different modes or practices of mindfulness, this study provides an example of how mindful-ness can be conducted in the social services, in particular a male homeless residential service. By providing a background on how mindfulness was provided the study in-forms of a real-world experience of a weekly mindfulness session in an Irish male homeless service with five participants. Through a limited quantitative approach to understanding the participants’ experience of one of the mindfulness sessions provided, the study informs of some insights that need to be kept in mind for providing mindfulness in social service work or in other therapeutic settings. The sessions took place over the span of 20 months, with the results via a Likert Scale questionnaire deriving from the views of participants on one particular session rather than their overall views on their experience of the mindfulness sessions in general. The findings reveal that the benefit for the participants is apparent and provides insights into the results and experiences of service users partaking in mindfulness on a weekly basis. It can be concluded that there are some notions to be kept in mind prior and post session, which provides a keen insight into the preparations required.
The role of the environment in system creation in Luhmann and Hegel: between imagination and reason
(National University of Galway and St. Angela's College, 2023-08) Stevenson, Kevin
This paper will aim to accomplish two things to show Luhmann’s and Hegel’s support of language and communication as dependent on culture, but also their differences with respect to how culture is formed in conjunction with the environment. This paper will firstly show how Hegel distinguishes between the imagination and reason in a different manner from Luhmann, as Hegel considers them logically connected while Luhmann considers them as coextensive. Secondly, this paper will show how reason and imagination create culture through the environment via dialectical idealism in Hegel and a poly-contextural constructivist approach in Luhmann
Developing critical citizenship in an evolving Irish culture through interactive workshops
(The SPHE Network, 2017) Golden, Brighid
This chapter explores the development and facilitation of a workshop exploring migration in Ireland. The workshop was piloted at the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) Conference in 2016 and was facilitated on three further occasions with groups of teachers and student teachers. The workshop which was developed explores the life of a person currently living as an asylum seeker in Direct Provision15 in Ireland. In response to the many negative narratives we are presented with daily by the media, the workshop focuses on the issue of migration. Fear of migration was used as a motivator which led to two of the most significant acts of 2016, the election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States of America and the decision by the people of the United Kingdom to exit the European Union. Although people in Ireland are removed (to an extent) from these decisions we still feel their effects strongly in our relationship with both countries. In each case, national identity was presented as having precedence over other issues. In contrast to this, the following chapter is predicated on the values inherent in global citizenship. Oxfam outline a global citizen as someone who: respects and values diversity; has an understanding of how the world works; is outraged by social injustice; is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place; takes responsibility for their actions (Oxfam 2006, p. 3). This chapter begins by outlining the cultural context of Ireland today and contrasting this to the cultural makeup of Irish society in 1916, the year of the Easter Rising which gave way to the creation of the Irish Republic we know today. This context provides a crucial backdrop for understanding the Irish education system which is then explored through the lens of the SPHE Curriculum (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) 1999). Finally, the chapter will outline the rationale for the development of the workshop, will give an overview of the content and provide a reflection on the outcomes from the various iterations of the workshop.
Intercultural education in the Irish primary classroom
(The SPHE Network, 2021) Connolly, Ciara; Golden, Brighid
As a result of rapidly increasing inward migration over the last twenty years, Ireland has changed to become a nation with a wealth of diversity. As a result, schools have had to ensure pupils from a range of diverse backgrounds are and feel included in the classroom. Intercultural Education (ICE) is one of the key responses to including and celebrating diversity in our schools. ICE strives to eliminate prejudice and racism by creating an awareness of the diversity that exists in our society. This is achieved through teaching about the normality of diversity and the benefits that can be derived from people having different viewpoints and cultural expressions (Department of Education and Science [DES] and National Council for Curriculum and Assessment [NCCA] 2005). ICE fosters open mindedness and an ability to resist stereotypes and it is ultimately about being able to interact and communicate positively and effectively with those different from ourselves (Deardorff 2009 ; Cushner and Chang 2015). Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) is uniquely positioned within the Irish curriculum to provide time and space to develop many of the skills and attitudes necessary for developing intercultural competences in ourselves and our students in order to prepare for life in the diverse society of Ireland today.
Narrating the deaf self in autoethnography
(NUIG [National University of Ireland Galway], 2016) O'Connell, Noel P.
Spoon-feeding to tongue-biting: An evolving instructional framework for primary school mathematics
(St. Patrick's College, Dublin, 2013) Treacy, Mia
In this paper, I examine the evolution of an instructional framework for primary mathematics during a sustained, on-site professional development project with one case study school. The project attempts to bridge the gap between the perpetually-reported issues with pedagogical practices in Irish mathematics lessons and those espoused as best practice in international literature; and, to a lesser extent those highlighted in the Primary School Mathematics Curriculum. This instructional framework is used in an attempt to support teachers in addressing these pedagogical shortcomings, in addition to enriching the quality of mathematics lessons through a heightened emphasis on mathematical thinking. The paper draws on one aspect of my doctoral thesis and so this partial analysis is limited to lesson observations and teacher interviews. Findings were that the instructional framework changed considerably during the project. Teachers reported finding this instructional framework to be very useful in their classroom teaching, particularly as a planning and a reflection tool. Findings suggest that the transition from the traditional role of the teacher to a more facilitative role where teachers and pupils have an equal voice was particularly challenging for teachers.

Browse

Recent Submissions